Warm down or cooling down allows your body to recover. It helps disperse lactic acid (waste product); this reduces the chance of stiffness in the muscles and soreness and it also prevents injury. It is not a good idea to stop suddenly after an activity, as the blood returning to the heart drops down and this will make you feel dizzy and light-headed. Your body slowly returns to you normal body temperature and it allows you to mentally and physically relax. I walked slowly at my own pace for around three to five minutes.
There are physiological factors which will affect my performance. Here are some of them:
Lack of sleep – tiredness reduces levels of concentration and co-ordination which reduces skills levels of the performer. All performers must have sufficient rest to be able to perform at the best of their ability. Fatigue – This is caused by tiredness. It decreases skills levels, techniques and has an effect on your muscles. It may result to the performer having to stop completely.
The activities that I have used in my circuit training programme are: shuttle-runs, press-ups, dribbling, rest-station, accuracy test, passing test, shooting exercise and kick-ups. This is to improve upon muscular endurance, ball skills, muscular strength, speed, agility and ball skills.
Station 1
Shuttle-runs- Sprint to the first cone, then sprint back to the starting line, then to the second cone, then back, then to the third cone, and back to the line. This will count as one. This improved speed, muscular endurance, and agility. All of these features would be essential during a football match.
Station 2
Press-ups- How many press-ups I can do in a minute. This improved my muscular endurance and strength of the biceps, triceps and the deltoids.
Station 3
Dribbling- Place eight cones approximately 1metre apart. Dribble a ball in and out of them, turn around and sprint back to the start. This will count as one dribble. This has improved ball skills, speed and agility.
Station 4
Rest-station- Use a minute to rest and relax. Some light stretching may be done to remove the lactic acid that has built up in your muscles during the first four exercises.
Station 5
Accuracy test- This exercise concentrates on chipping skills and precision. Six hoops should be placed approximately 5metres apart. Then place a ball behind a line 10metres back. Chip the ball into the first hoop, then the second, then the third and so on. When a ball goes onto one hoop it counts as one chip.
Station 6
Passing test- Lay seven cones a metre apart in a straight line. The ball should be 15 metres away from the line of cones. I passed the ball to my partner who was standing in between the first and second cone. My partner should move in between the second and third cone, then the third and fourth and so on. One pass counts by how times I passed the ball to my partner accurately in between the cones. This exercise improved on my ability to pass the ball accurately and my ball control.
Station 7
Shooting exercise- My partner was in goal. I Lined up seven balls diagonally (the first one was 10 metres away from the goal, the second is 11metres away, the third ball is 12 metres away and I kept adding 1 metre to each ball shot). I Shot the first ball and turn around as quick as I could to go and shoot the second ball, then the third and so on. This was measured by the number of goals scored. This improved accuracy and muscular strength in the legs.
Station 8
Kick-ups- How many kick-ups I could do in a minute. If the ball touches the floor, then I started counting again. This improved ball-control and balance.
Here is a picture of the circuit training programme:
*All stations last for one minute.
*Not drawn to scale
It is important to prevent overcrowding at a station. So I made sure that equipment and stations were spaced put appropriately.
The exercises are specifically appropriate for what is needed to play football. The training programme is specified for an outfield player; so there are no goalkeeping skills involved in this circuit training programme. Training is carried out to improve your ability to take part in a physical activity. Here are the main principles of training:
Progression- The training carried out and the overload must be increased progressively. Your body takes time to adapt to the increased demands on it. So you should build up your exercise level gradually. But once it reaches a certain level when it can comfortably deal with the level of exercise, it will not improve anymore and you must be careful not to do too much too soon (it may cause injury). This is called plateauing. To prevent this from happening the exercises must be made progressively harder to ensure that the body continues to improve.
Overload- This is making the body work harder in order to improve it. In order to do this you must extend your capacity by increasing your workload and your body will respond by adapting to it.
You can overload your body in three ways:
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By increasing the frequency of the exercise. In other words how often you do the exercise. For example start by exercising twice a week, then move up to three or four times a week.
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By increasing the intensity of the exercise. You can purely do this by working harder at the training method you are using. For example if you are going in and out of cones which are 1metres apart, next time you should make the 75cm apart. You could also increase your heart-rate.
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By increasing the duration (time) you spend on the exercise. If you are very unfit you might start off jogging just for 5 minutes a session, and work your way up week by week to 20 minutes a session.
Tedium- Tedium should be avoided in all sports and training programmes. This circuit is very adaptable. By using a variety of training methods which are interesting I will be more motivated and enthusiastic, so I won’t become bored.
When training hard in any sport, players’ heart rate would increase and may even double in some cases. Anaerobic respiration-This is respiration in the absence of oxygen. The equation for this is: glucose → lactic acid + energy anaerobic respiration is only used for short bursts and for short periods of time (e.g. sprinters).
Aerobic respiration- This is respiration with the use of oxygen. It is summarized as : glucose + oxygen + carbon dioxide + water it is used when the body is continuing with an activity for a long period of time and energy.
After working very hard on the circuits, I was out of breath for a long time. This is because my body needed more oxygen. This is called oxygen debt. I was experiencing aerobic respiration and had gone into oxygen debt. As a result, lactic acid is produced (anaerobically respiring) this may lead to fatigue and tiredness and even soreness in the muscles after exercise.
When taking part in the circuit, during the first station, I was anaerobically respiring. But after completing their circuit training, I was aerobically respiring.
For health reasons after completing the circuit, I took some recovery time, but I didn’t just stop and sit down. It is better for your body to keep moving slowly and gradually to regain your breath back.
Results:
--- = average or above average
As you can see most of my results in the last few weeks of the programme seemed to be above average (except for a few anomalies). This means that I have improved significantly towards the final stages of the training programme. This proves that the circuit training programme was successful towards improving my skills and my abilities.
This graph tells me in a simpler way exactly how much I have improved in each activity over the six weeks. I think I have improved most on Kick-ups and least on shuttle-runs or dribbling. However I have still improved on all of the activities.
After each activity I measured by how much my heart-rate increased.
As you can see the biggest difference between the resting and recovery heart-rate was on week 6. The lowest difference was on week 1. This tells me that I worked harder on week 6 then the other weeks. This is proved by my results.
The shuttle run exercise was successful as it improved my agility, speed and the endurance of my hamstrings and quadriceps. I had doubled the amount I did by the fourth week.
The press-ups were very tiring, but challenging. I had also improved on this station by the end of the circuit training.
I found the dribbling very hard. This was the only one that I had not improved on (I had stayed the same. Maybe if I had more weeks, I could have improved on my speed and ball control.
The accuracy test was a better exercise for me. I found this an easier test because I wasn’t tired. This improved my shooting accuracy.
The passing test improved my accuracy and speed. I was quite challenging.
In the shooting exercise I was very competitive. I doubled my score. This improved my shooting and accuracy.
The kick-ups was probably the best station for me. I had improved the most on this. It enhanced my ball control and skills.
Evaluation
Overall, my circuit-training programme turned out to be successful. The programme I had chosen was good for me, as it improved my sport and intensity. My results prove this as they show that I have improved towards the end of the 6 week period. Since the first week, I have improved on all of the stations. My stations were fairly accurate and appropriate actions were taken into account; such as health and safety. The order of exercises was very appropriate. For example, the rest station was put half-way in between the stations. If it was the near the first or last station, there would be no point. Also stations which test similar things, such as cardiovascular endurance were not put together because I would build up too much fatigue on one area of my body. I built up my exercise level gradually; there were no sets of results where I had improved drastically. Overload was a factor taken into account of my stations. On the ‘shooting’ station I used intensity, as I worked harder by making me shoot each time from a further distance. Each activity of mine was different and they all had specific demands. My circuit was specifically designed to improve football skills. I chose stations to meet this demand. (for example-shooting and passing techniques).
This training programme was manageable and convenient for training of football related skills. It improved upon the skills needed for a football match such as shooting. It also improved on cardiovascular endurance, which is needed during a 90minute full-pitch football match. I was self-motivated and enthusiastic to do better each week. This gave me more strength psychologically.
During week 3, I was very tired as I had already done an hour playing sport. My results were slightly affected by this, but not by much. Each week when I carried out my circuit training (especially on the fifth and sixth week), I would be very tired the next day and would sleep more hours. This is because my body needed to relax more then usual, as I had been working harder. When I was recording my results, I felt they were fairly accurate, as I myself felt that I had been working harder during the last few weeks. My heart-rate had also increased; this proves that I was generally working harder during the last few weeks.
I thoroughly enjoyed planning and performing my own circuit training programme. It enabled me to become further motivated to do better in other activities that I take part in. Even though I found it tiring, I also found it very effective and was happy that I had made an improvement.
Before I started the training programme, took a multi-stage fitness test and achieved level eight. When I took it after the training programme, I achieved level ten. This shows that I have improved significantly on my cardiovascular endurance. If I was to do this circuit-training programme again, instead of having a rest-station, I would have a short period of recovery time after each station. I would also make the training programme longer then six weeks, as I would then be able to record improvements and changes more easily. Each week I would make the amount of time for each station shorter, this enables me to become more motivated and makes me work harder to achieve last weeks target.
