My circuit is aimed to improve the following over a six-week period: muscular endurance, muscular strength, speed, agility, cardiovascular endurance, and ball skills. These are all needed for an outfield football player.
For example:
· Muscular Endurance – To keep the muscles contracting for the full length of a football match, without them becoming tired or weak.
· Muscular Strength– the force your muscles exert when they contract. This is an important part of football as it is a contact sport and can often get very physical, players need to be able to guard the ball and hold other players off when they are challenging for the ball. Also muscular strength is useful when taking a throw-in, good muscular strength in the abdominal muscles is required to throw the ball higher and further to reach a player that is a long distance away from the touch-line.
· Speed– the ability to perform a movement in a short period of time. This is essential in football, for example to be able to sprint after a through ball or tackle an opponent who is through on goal.
· Agility– the ability to change direction quickly and control movements of the whole body. This is needed to be able to change direction quickly while dribbling or to collect a loose ball.
· Cardiovascular Endurance– the ability of the heart, lungs and circulation to deliver oxygen and remove waste during exercise. This is essential for the player to keep a constant pace all the way through the match. This is hard to perform in a circuit, so it would be better to improve this by running long distances or cycling.
· Ball Skills – the skills in football are all open skills. This means that the movement will change in a different environment. A skill is a particular action or set of actions. These are essential for football as they cover everything from a simple pass to a more complicated skills of dribbling the ball in different directions. These are all motor skills as they are skills involving movement.
Overload
To improve the fitness of a part of the body, you need to overload it. That means you need to make it work harder than usual. Over time, it adapts to meet the increased demand by getting fitter
You can overload your body in three ways:
· By increasing the Frequency of exercise- how often you do it.
For example start by exercising twice a week, then move up to three or four times a week.
· By increasing the Intensity of the exercise- how hard you work.
For example run faster/longer or lift heavier weights to build muscle mass in the correct areas for your sport.
· By increasing the 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 30 minutes a session.
Progression
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. This is called plateauing. To prevent this from happening the exercises must be made progressively harder to ensure that the body continues to improve.
Reversibility
Training effects can be reversible. This means that if the exercise is reduced in intensity or stopped all together then the benefit can be lost very quickly over a short period of time. This deterioration will set in after about one week. Speed and strength are gradually lost with muscles loosing their tone and size i.e. ATROPHY.
Time
The time spent on training must be frequent and regular to keep the performer in good shape; this helps to make him/her feel good about themselves. This will give them more confidence to help them perform better.
Before I start my full training course I will have to design a warm-up routine, which must be done everyday before training.
Warm-up
The warm-up helps to prepare the body for the physical exertion to come. I must start off by gently raising my pulse, I will now begin to increase my cardiac output and my rate of ventilation. This will then increase the amount of Oxygen being delivered to the muscle cells, which will help to reduce the oxygen deficit when I start my activity for real.
The muscles work better when they are warm for several reasons:
- Oxygen dissociates from haemoglobin more readily as muscle temperature increase.
- The activity of the enzymes responsible for cellular respiration increases, making energy more readily available.
- The conduction of nerve impulses is quicker, improving contraction speed and resulting in faster reaction times.
- Blood vessels within the muscle dilate, further increasing the blood flow.
- An increase in muscle temperature allows greater stretch in the muscles and connective tissue, increasing flexibility.
The warm is made up of three phases:
Phase one- this involves a continuous, submaximal whole body activity, such as jogging, to gently raise my pulse to about 120beats/min.
Phase two- this is a stretch session, in which particular attention should be paid to the joints and muscles that will be most active.
Phase three- Finally I should rehearse the movement patterns that will be performed, for example performing skill practices.
As well as helping me to prepare mentally and physically for my activity, a warm-up considerably reduces the risk of injury.
Equipment
· 12 Cones
· 2 footballs
The Exercise
First I will take a slow jog over a set distance and/or course. I could do this by jogging around the football pitch twice to raise my pulse. I will now stretch off. I will start off with a quadricep stretch by lifting my leg up to my buttocks and holding it there for 15 seconds, I will repeat this for the other leg. I will now do a groin stretch by leaning with my leg down to one side until I can feel the stretch, I will repeat this for the other side. I will then do a hamstring stretch by locking my arms under my legs, while leaning to one side, and straightening my front leg until the stretch can be felt, I will repeat this on the other leg. Finally I will stretch my gastrocnemius by putting my leg on the floor in front of me with the toes facing up and straighten the leg until I feel the stretch, I will repeat this for both legs. I do not need too much work on my upper body as that is not used much in football, however I will stretch my back muscles as well as my triceps, as I have had injury troubles with it. Finally I will do some skill work.
Start
Ten press-ups 10 sit-ups 10 squat thrusts 10 burpees 10 star jumps 10 kick-ups
For this exercise I must sprint to the cone, do the exercise stated at this cone, and run back to the start and repeat, only going to the next cone up. This would usually be done in teams as it raises the competitiveness of the training meaning you can get more out of the players. Other exercises could follow this such as passing to other people round the center circle and moving into the position the pass was made. This will improve my passing and moving. Now I will design my six-week training program.
The Training
I will repeat this schedule every week over a six-week period.
Circuit training
Station One
On this station you have to start at the line, sprint to the first cone then sprint back to the line, then sprint to the second cone,
then sprint back to the line, then sprint to the third cone, then back to the line. Then Sprint to the second cone and back then to the first cone and back to complete the exercise. This will improve your speed, agility and muscular endurance of the quadriceps and hamstrings.
Start
1st cone 2nd cone 3rd cone
Station Two
This station is a sit up exercise. Perform as many as you can in one minute. These will improve muscular endurance in the abdominal muscles; this comes in handy when a throw-in needs to be taken over a long distance. This is explosive strength because it is done in one explosive movement.
Station Three
This exercise concentrates on a player’s chipping ability and accuracy; the hoops should be placed 5m apart. Place a ball behind the line and chip it so it bounces in the first hoop, then chip a ball so it bounces in the second hoop. Then chip it so it bounces in the third hoop; next chip it so it bounces in the second hoop, then the first hoop.
Start
1st hoop 2nd hoop 3rd hoop
Station Four
This is a shooting exercise. Place two cones 5m apart, then line up five balls 10m away from the cones and one cone 2m behind each ball. Strike the first ball then turn around and sprint around the cone and strike the next ball then turn around and sprint to round the cone etc. this will improve muscular strength and accuracy.
1st ball
2nd ball
3rd ball
4th ball
5th ball
Start goal
Station Five
Use this time (1 minute) to rest and relax. Some light stretching can be done to remove the lactic acid that has built up in your muscles during the first four exercises.
Station Six
The exercise on this station is burpees; burpees are squat thrusts and star jumps mixed together. Do a squat thrust then stand up and do a star jump and then another squat thrust then stand up and do another star jump. This will improve your agility, cardiovascular endurance and muscular endurance and strength of the quadriceps and hamstrings.
Station Seven
Place six cones 1m apart then dribble a ball in and out of them and sprint back to the start, repeat this for 1 minute. This will improve ball skills, speed and agility. I would then record how many complete runs are done.
Ball
Start
Station Eight
The exercise on this station is kick-ups. Do as many as you can in one minute. This will improve ball control, and muscular endurance.
Station Nine
This exercise is passing; make a rectangle with cones 5m by 2m, then pass the ball back and forth using both feet. See how many complete passes are done in 1 minute. This exercise will improve the ability to pass the ball accurately with speed and improve ball control.
Once the circuit is finished it can be repeated or a warm down will take place, the warm down will consist of gentle jogging and stretching to remove the lactic acid that builds up in muscles while they are being worked. The warm down should help you perform better next time you exercise.
The muscles that were stretched in the warm up should also be stretched in the warm down. The stretches should be held longer then they were in the warm up to prevent muscle soreness.
The table below displays results for one week of this circuit.
In six weeks time these results should improve, below is a results table set over six weeks.
*On target/Scored
Fitness Training
For this type of training I will be running round a 400m track over a long period of time. I will be doing this over a distance of 1.5 miles. Here're some possible results shown in a table below. They are only possible results, as I did not have time to undertake this part of my training program, due to poor weather.
Weight Training
Weight training involves a series of exercises where each one focuses on a specific muscle group in the body. All of these exercises involve the overcoming of a resistance or load by the use of a machine or free weights. Weight training on the body can improve, muscular strength, endurance, tone, posture, and can increase, muscular size, bone density, metabolic rate. Here're the results from my weight training
Evaluation
In general my training program was successful, it tested each area of fitness that I wanted it to. Although it was successful, because there were so many people, there wasn’t enough equipment; groups had to be formed so the equipment could be shared.
Station 1, shuttle runs, this station was very successful by the end of the six week period I had improved my speed as I did more runs in one minute. It also improved my agility and the endurance of my quadriceps and hamstrings.
Station 2, sit-up exercise, this station was very tiring, after each time I performed this exercise I could feel my abdominal muscles becoming stronger. I improved throughout the six weeks, there was a slight glitch in the results, which was in week 4 I’d had a cold that week and that, was why I was under performing. But as a whole I improved the strength and endurance of my abdominal muscles.
Station 3, chipping balls into hoops; I found this exercise very difficult my accuracy and chipping ability improved drastically.
Station 4, shooting this station tested my shooting and accuracy ability. This was one of the easier stations as shooting isn’t a very strenuous work out, although I did improve in the six-week period.
Station 6, burpees, this I found was the most difficult as it was very tiring and I had already done 4 other stations. This did improve my agility, cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance and strength of the quadriceps and hamstrings.
Station 7, dribbling, this was a fairly easy exercise I have improved on my speed and ball control, I noticed this in week five when I wasn’t as tired as I was the weeks before.
Station 8, kick-ups, I am fairly good at kick-ups already but by the end of the program I was able to keep the ball under control at a lower height than what I started with.
Station 9, passing, this station tested my right and left foot, my accuracy and my speed, my left foot has improved a lot by doing this exercise, my right foot has slightly improved.
The fitness training did not take place due to bad weather but the results I have shown in my table are the possible results I could get going at different paces.
The weight training went very well as before I was very skinny and weak in my arms and have now got muscle to show for my work, I have become a lot stronger.
During week four my results decrease, the reason for this is I had a cold that week and was unable to perform to my full potential, as my results show.
I found the circuit to be very intense and tiring, but very effective as my circuit tested all the areas I wanted it to. I was very tired though after completing each week of the program, my muscles were aching and my heart and breathing rate had increased drastically. If I were to perform the circuit program again I would start by having a recovery time between each station; also I would make the exercise time slightly less at the beginning of the program so I could get use to doing the exercises gradually.
Although I had improved during the six-week period I had only improved slightly, so if I were repeating this program I would make it last 12 weeks so improvements could be seen more easily. Once the training becomes to easy I would have to make it harder to affect plateauing. If the circuit is not made harder the body will stop improving in the areas of muscular endurance and anaerobic respiration. The body must also train to prevent reversibility. This is when the affects of training decrease and the benefits are lost.
I think that after this experience it would be a good idea to carry on my training out of school to try and build my fitness up even more so, the game of football will be a lot easier to handle in a match situation.
