Introduction

Name: Jenna Waite

Age: 15

Height: 155cm

Weight: 52Kg

Gender: Female

        Jenna has always had a liking for sport since a very young age, most of which has been inspired by her brother who was a very enthusiastic sportsman. Her main sport which she participates in is swimming and her main focus is the sprint events to which she competes at county and national level. Jenna is a member of the ASA and IOS. She swims for Basingstoke Bluefins who are an individual swimming club.

        Jenna tries to train 6 times a week in the pool but due to other working commitments this does not always happen. Sessions can last between an hour to 2 ½ hours. The training is also aided by spending time in the gym, 4 times a week, for approximately an hour per session where she tries to focus on Cardio Vascular endurance. Competitions vary depending on the type of entry and the number of swimmers required.

        During the pool training sessions we tend to focus on both CV endurance to build up our stamina and muscular endurance to improve our physique. The swimmers do this by swimming sets of a particular distance set out at the beginning of the session. This is normally based around a particular timing using the pace clock to time each set which is swum. For example, 10 sets of 75m in a particular time with 10 second rest in between each set. These sets are used to build up sprint ability.

Jenna’s achievements to date are as follows;

  • Winners of Southern England Championships 2005
  • Second place in Hants & South Coast Minor League 2005
  • Third place Rother League - Round 1 2005
  • Third place Hants & South Coast Premier League March 2006
  • Second place in Speedo League South Dec 2006

Jenna has many personal goals for the future some of which are long term goals and some of which are short term goals. Her shorter term goals are to try to make it to every single training session as often as possible so to improve her overall performance. Her longer term goals are to compete in the winter championships and to compete in many more competitions.

Finally, Jenna’s strengths and weaknesses are shown in the table below:

Feedback

Feedback is the signal that is looped back to control a system within itself. This loop is called the feedback loop. A control system usually has input and output to the system; when the output of the system is fed back into the system as part of its input, it is called “feedback”.  

As a swimmer, feedback is vital for to compete at quite a high standard.  Jenna feels that many different types of feedback are useful when she is training in the pool.  The main source of feedback consists of extrinsic feedback from my coach and intrinsic feedback from the feelings resulting in the movement performed. The main types of feedback used by the coach are positive feedback and negative feedback which helps to teach Jenna new techniques and to help improve previously learnt skills.  Jenna feels that when the coach uses the positive she feels more motivated and that she is doing things correctly that only need minor adjustments. Positive feedback is the successful completion of a skill which can be identified as correct and therefore repeated.  When negative feedback is used she feels slightly de-motivated but this makes her want to succeed even more and get things right that she is doing incorrectly. The coach identifies her weaknesses to her and gives her teaching points on how to improve her technique. When analysing her swimming, Jenna uses knowledge of performance.  She looks at her performance on video and notes down the success of the swim, the achievement of the dive and the time of the swim. Over the year she completes a timed swim and keeps record of this to compare it to an average to see how she performs on each occasion. The feedback that Jenna receives from her coach usually is delivered after the performance which is when the coach analyses her swim and highlights key strengths and weaknesses of her stroke technique. This is known as terminal feedback which inevitably strengthens the schema in her long term memory.

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Extrinsic feedback relating to the outcome of an action with respect to the environmental goal is referred to as Knowledge of results. With comparison to Knowledge of performance, Knowledge of results might be given in terms of the amount of time it took to complete the task (e.g. 25.42 seconds). These forms of results are given to the performer which can be analysed and compared to previous performances. When Jenna completes a race or timed swim, she can compare her current time to a previous race/timed swim to see if she has set a new personal best. If she ...

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