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Introduction

Purpose/Aim of the PEP Outline of Personal Profile: The sport that I have chosen for my personal exercise programme is rugby. I play rugby for my school's 2ndXV team and we practice 4 times a week including a scheduled match on Saturday against a different school. I have chosen rugby because it is my favourite sport and I hope to improve my rugby skills by following an exercise programme. Another reason why I have chosen rugby is because I am ambitious to play in the 1stXV rugby team next year. In order to achieve this I must improve several areas of my game including strength and speed. I expect that following my exercise programme for 6 weeks will give me the opportunity to improve those specific areas of my game and prepare me for a higher standard of rugby next year. I play hooker in rugby and so my exercise programme is going to be specific to that position and improving the qualities necessary for a front-row player. I will be focussing mainly on increasing my maximum strength, which is essential for the position I play in. Rugby is a very physical sport and strength is essential to any player, but especially forwards. I also intend to increase my fitness through cardio-respiratory endurance. This is because as a hooker, I spend the majority of the game running around from one side of the pitch to the other, trying to get to the breakdowns as fast as I can. This requires me to be able to provide and sustain energy aerobically for a long period of time (between 10 and 20 minutes). Health Related Components: 1. Speed: "the ability to put body parts into motion quickly, or the maximum rate that a person can move over a specific distance" - rugby players need to be able to contract their muscles quickly perhaps when they catch a ball standing still and need to move off to avoid a tackle 2. ...read more.

Middle

'Periodisation' is dividing the year up into stages of training that allow an athlete to build up to a peak of fitness. The body cannot cope with hard training all of the time (over training). If hard training is too close to a competition, then the athlete will not perform as well. 'Periodisation' should start off with a bit of foundation fitness (endurance, technique, strength etc.) for a few months before moving onto a bit of pre-competition stuff such as sport specific conditioning and mental preparation. This too should last for a few months. Having done this you move to the competition through which you should try and maintain your fitness. With the competition over, you should then spend a couple of months resting and recovering before starting the routine again. My fitness programme is only lasting for 6 weeks and there is no competition at the end of it therefore it is not really necessary for me to divide the time up as if I were training for a much longer period of time and for a specific reason, such as a major competition. When doing a fitness programme I must also consider any other types of training I will be doing during the week. In my rugby sessions (3 times a week) I expect to be doing some sort of strength training (e.g. press ups, burpees). However, because the strength exercises are so few I do not expect them to have a decisive effect on my muscles or overall strength. I don't plan on going to the gym during the 6 weeks, except for carrying out my weights programme. This will make my conclusion more accurate when I come to consider on the results. Ongoing Evaluation Warm up: 5min on rowing machine *machine weights are highlighted Static stretching in blue 1. shoulder press: 2 (sets) � 6 (repetitions) - 43kg 2. calf raise: 2 � 6 - 136kg 3. ...read more.

Conclusion

Although over the four weeks there was an improvement I believe that to make considerable progress then the programme would have to be quite a bit longer. Another adjustment that I would make would be to make sure I used the gym when it was not particularly busy; there were a couple of occasions when it was very crowded and I had to wait a long time in order to use each machine. By going to the gym when it was quiet I would be able to make sure I kept to the correct work relief ratio (1: 3 for ATP-PC system) by not having to wait to get on each machine. The final change I would make to the programme would be the way that I carried out each session. I found that my motivation disappeared very easily and I believe that this happened due to me getting bored and losing interest because each session was exactly the same as the previous one. In order to keep myself motivated I would alter the order in which I did each exercise every couple of weeks. I would make sure I still did the same exercise and the same number of each one, but I would carry it out in a different order. I would nonetheless make sure that the number of repetitions and the number of sets I carry out be the same because I found them to be manageable but also very effective. As far as modifications for future use of other factors is concerned, there is only one alteration I would make. The lack of motivation was a considerable problem for me, and I believe that it could have been reduced by the introduction of a training partner. If I had someone to work with (i.e. swap machines in-between every set) then I would have had a source of motivation: someone who encourages me (and vice versa) and pushes me through each session. Overall I feel that my programme was a success and that there are not any drastic changes I would make if I were to carry one out again. ...read more.

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