Skill in physical activity

Measurable

• I measured the improvement in my skill weakness by looking at the percentage of successful tackles I made with my right shoulder in a game situation. I hoped to improve the figure from around its current 70% to around 85%. I did find that the percentage of tackles I completed improved by the desired amount and my coach who was monitoring my performance confirmed that my tackle success rate was higher than before my action plan. As well as asking my coach to evaluate my performance I also measured my improvement by doing a tackling drill to see how many tackles I completed and my score was 18/20 which proved that I improved to the desired amount.
• I measured the improvement of my skill strength in the same way by measuring the percentage of successful tackles completed over the gain line with my left shoulder. The percentage of tackles I made with my left shoulder is high however the amount I completed over the gain line could be improved from 50% to around 70%. I felt a definite improvement in my technique and found that I completed over ¾ of my tackles with my left shoulder in front of the gain line. As well as asking my coach to evaluate my performance after my 6 week action plan I also performed a drill to assess how much I had improved. The drill involved making tackles in a game like situation and counting the amount of successful tackles ie the amount of tackles where I managed to knock the person back in the tackle. My success rate was 15 out of 20 in this drill which was higher than the improvement I wanted.
• I measured the improvement in my muscular strength by carrying out the grip strength test before and after the action plan. I hoped to improve my score by at least 4 from 51. I re-tested my strength by performing the grip strength test with a dynamometer again. After my action plan I recorded a score of 56 which was an improvement of 5 and also meant that my score was just below excellent
• I analysed the improvement in my kicking under pressure by measuring the percentage of successful kicks I made during a game. I hoped to improve this figure from 50% to around 75%. This is hard to measure as I did not kick very often while I was being monitored however I did feel an improvement as I fond myself taking more time and kicking into the space. As I did not make many kicks in the game I did the drill which I had been using in training and counted the amount of successful kicks I made which was roughly 70% which was not as much as I had hoped for.

The overall success of my action was good as I reached my targets in 3 out of the 4 components but also felt an improvement in my kicking under pressure. Out of the 3 targets that I reached I also noticed that I went beyond my target which shows that the action plan was very successful. Despite not reaching my target for kicks that I make under pressure, I do not feel that I could make further improvements and if I had more chance to kick in matches then my target could be reached. I did feel however that some training sessions became repetitive and so in future I would add more variety to training sessions to make them more enjoyable.