Flexibility - This factor of fitness is needed in every sport and is needed sufficiently within football to perform at a high level. Flexibility is the range of movements possible at a joint; the elasticity of ligaments, tendons, the strength of the surrounding muscles and the shape of articulating bones determine the range of these movements. The ability to carry out a wide range of movement’s means I can perform even constantly required movements such as shooting the football at a higher level. Flexibility is lost very quickly through inactivity and the athlete must constantly develop a lack of flexibility training and so. Flexibility work should be carried out at the beginning of the training session after a warm up when the muscles are warm, though must be done lightly and at the end of a training session when the muscles are at there warmest as part of a warm down. Flexibility should in turn better my agility which helps me in football when quickly changing direction to out manoeuvre defenders
I scored highly on the sit and reach test, which indicates that I have a good amount of flexibility in the hamstrings and lower back.
Current levels of fitness
These specific fitness requirements were tested as they are specific for football and the areas I find weak within my fitness. After the six weeks of training I will retake these specific fitness tests to see if they have improved, I will then be able to evaluate the successfulness of my PEP.
By improving these aspects of my fitness I will also improve my success in football.
When putting together my PEP it is important to take into account my age and gender. Male’s national averages for fitness are higher for most aspects of fitness and men tend to have more muscle strength and less body fat. However women’s flexibility levels have a higher national average for the sit and reach test.
Our maximum fitness levels peak in our twenties when the body is fully developed, from around eleven years of age, males grow taller and stronger were as females are more flexible. Males produce a hormone called testosterone, which promotes the growth of muscles and bones. Males generally have bigger hearts and lungs and therefore produce more blood with higher concentrations of haemoglobin. These enables them to transport oxygen with greater efficiency, which means their muscles, work harder for longer.
Males have a narrower pelvis than women do and this means that it is easier for them to transmit power, which helps with most sports. Males can usually run faster due to them having longer bones and bigger muscles. As women have a greater amount of body fat there is more strain put on the heart, muscles and joints.
Age causes the functioning of cardio-respiratory to decrease for many reasons:
- Maximum heart rate decreases by one beat per minute every year, this effects the cardiac output which then decreases as we age.
- Stroke volume also decreases due to the lying down of collagen fibres in the heart muscles. This reduces the elasticity.
These factors reduce blood flow and decrease ability to transport oxygen to working muscles. Aerobic capacity decreases at estimate rate of 10% every 10 years, largely due to a reduced VO2 max and a decreased VO2 difference (less oxygen is being taken from the blood and used in the muscles).
- Lung tissue lose elasticity with age which reduces the capacity and the amount of oxygen that gets to the muscles
- Effectiveness of the muscular-skeletal system change with ageing. Decrease muscle strength, mass, body fat and an increase in the percentage of slow twitch muscle fibres can occur with age.
- Decrease in the ability of the nervous system to react quickly to a stimulus
Circuit Training
Circuit training improves not only fitness requirements such as leg and arm strength and muscular endurance but also specific sports skills, which are included within the training. Circuit training can easily be adapted to specific sports the exercises included will not only improve your fitness levels but at the same time improve your skills.
After looking at the specific fitness requirements I need to improve, and the ways, in which I can do it, I can now start to plan my sessions.
Circuit training involves performing a number of exercises in succession, such as press-ups, abdominal curls (sit-ups) and step-ups etc. My circuit training will be based around varied exercises that can be done with weights, to improve my football skills I will carry out circuit training relative to football e.g. shooting, passing, controlling the ball etc. Each exercise usually has a set number of repetitions or a set time, this can also be changed to meet specific fitness requirements e.g. My fitness requirements include muscle strength, agility and power and speed.
Fartlek training
Literally 'spleedplay', training using jogging, sprints and rest intervals. There are many different types of fartlek but for games players, the session should not just use running, but also jogging and walking to fit in with the demands of the sport. After all, no football player actually runs for the whole 90 minutes of a match, the pace is varied. Similarly, the direction of work should not always be straight ahead. This may be important for the track runner who has to cover the ground as quickly as possible in one direction, but the games player has to go forwards, backwards and from side to side. This must all be taken into account if the training session is going to mimic accurately the pattern experienced in a match. If you are a games player, you are not training to be a better sprinter, you are training to be better at your game Therefore, sprinting should not just take the form of back and forth shuttles but should make you change direction or even imitate a slalom. Similar to interval training, it has many advantages. It can be done in a variety of terrain and can include both uphill and downhill work. Rest periods can be included or the session can be continuous with intermittent hard and easy running.
Interval training
Training periods of work followed by periods of rest, the work interval may be a distance run or a time to run, e.g 10 seconds (anaerobic). The rest interval may be a walk back to the starting mark, or simply rest. This should be at least 30 seconds. During the run is produced and a state of is reached. During the interval (recovery) the heart and lungs are still stimulated as they try to pay back the debt by supplying oxygen to help break down the lactates. The stresses put upon the body cause an adaptation including capillarisation, strengthening of the heart muscles, improved oxygen uptake and improved buffers to lactates. All this leads to improved performance, in particular within the cardiovascular system. The repetitions of high quality raises the pulse to near maximal.
‘ I will carry out most anerobic or aerobic running sessions on Mondays and circuit training during weight training session Plus on certain football sessions on Saturdays. I will do swimming as part of school sessions on most Wednesdays. This will be carried out for length of six weeks.’
Safety Aspects
When carrying out my training sessions I have to make sure that all the exercises are carried out safely with equipment set out correctly, especially when using the weights. When carrying out the weight lifting training sessions I have make sure I am doing the exercise correctly and stretch before certain exercises so that I don’t injure myself, reference to text books and from my teacher to see if am doing the exercises correctly. When lifting any free weights I will make sure there is someone else present supporting me so that just in case the weight is too much they are there to help me. To prevent injury I will not continuously exercise one body part so variation in the muscles I work on will be needed e.g. Arm, legs, cardiovascular. I have to make sure that each training session is spaced out so that I have enough recovery time in between each session, so that the body can recuperate and adapt before I carry out another training session. Top athletes often over train, by increasing training levels and frequency above their optimum level to get the best performance. The symptoms for overtraining are feeling fatigue, loss of appetite, muscle tiredness, sleep disturbances and head colds.
Warm Up
To prevent injury I must make sure I contain a warm up and cool down before and after every training session. A warm makes sure that the body is ready for exercise by increasing the blood flow around the body; this prevents injury, muscle soreness, makes stretching a lot safer as the muscles are warm and also has the following physiological benefits.
- Adrenaline is released which increase heart rate and the capillaries will expand, which enables greater efficiency of the blood and respiratory systems. It allows a greater amount blood and oxygen to be delivered to the muscles.
- Body temperatures will increase and therefore will smooth the progress of enzyme activity, this will increase muscle metabolism and will make sure there is a readily available supply of energy through the break down of glycogen and if working aerobically then the break down of fat stores.
- The increased temperatures will also mean that there is less viscosity or stickiness within the muscles. This will enable greater elasticity of muscle fibres, which ultimately leads to increased speed and force of the contraction.
- The warm up will make me more alert, due to an increase in the speed of nerve impulse conduction.
- There will be certain psychological benefits through the warm up as it mentally prepares me for the performance or training session.
To make sure that I get everything out of the warm up I must follow three stages of the warm up.
- The first phase of the warm up will help raise my heart rate, and increase the rate of oxygen being delivered to the muscles and it will help raise body temperature. This will be achieved by carrying out a cardiovascular exercise such as jogging.
- As the body temperature is increased, the muscles will be warm and I can carry out flexibility or stretching exercises.
- The final stage of the warm up will include a sport specific or skill related component were the muscles are working in relation to the activity to follow e.g. Shooting basketballs, tennis serving or passing a football.
The stretches I carry out in the warm up are there to help me improve my flexibility. The stretches will be of a higher intensity in the cool down. In the warm to each training session I will only do static stretching and not active stretching as if I over stretch before the training session it could cause injuries, the main purpose of stretching in the warm up is to help warm up the muscles and make the muscle tissue more elastic to further prevent injury.
Cool Down
Once the training session is carried out a similar process to that of the warm up in order to prevent unnecessary discomfort such as sore muscles in following day of the training session. I will need to continue some kind of light exercise after each training session, so the heart rate remains relatively high. The purpose of the cool down is to keep metabolic activity high, and capillaries dilated, so that oxygen can be flushed through the muscle tissue, removing and oxidising any lactic acid that remains (oxygen debt).
Results
Week 1
Session 1
Football training
- 5 minute jog around field
- Spent a short time stretching as it was only a light training match
- Played 45 minute match at about 70-75% intensity.
- Fine for first 40 minutes but very slightly tired for last 5 minutes as weather conditions were very hot and was my first football session of my PEP.
Session 2
1.5 Mile run
- Started by stretching out whole body from neck to feet concentrating on legs
- Started run slowly at about 60% intensity to get heart rate up then gradually speed to 65-70% ( progression training)
- Felt fine during run but heat was a factor and began to feel slightly out of breath for the last quarter mile.
Session 3
12x20 Interval training
- 12 x 20 m shuttles followed by 2 minute rest intervals
- Repeated this 3 times progressing from 75% intensity to 90% intensity.
- Felt the cardio vascular training done earlier in the week helped me run faster for longer and helped my progression during intervals.
- Felt exausted after session
Week 2
Session 1
Swimming
- 8 lengths warm up of front crawl, breast stroke or butterfly to prevent inury during swim and 'climatise' to the water.
- 4 lenghts front crawl technique arms
- 8 lengths front crawl legs
- 25 m front crawl race followed by 50 m front crawl race at about 90-100% intensity.
- Another 6 lengths but more relaxed
Session 2
6 x 75 Interval training
- Started with 10 minute period of continuous jogging as warm up
- 6x 75 shuttles followed by 3 minute rest intervals to allow further time for recovory
- Repeated this 2 times progressing from 80% intensity to 90% intensity.
- The hard aerobic session made me feel out of breath towards last few shuttles
Session 3
2 mile run
- Continuous run to improve my endurance. Again started by a light stretching session and shaked out my leg muscles to warm up for the jog
- Went through the run at 60% intensity at a steady low pace speed which helped me go through with out feel extremely fatigued.
Session 4 (extra)
Football training
- Warm up included 5 laps around the pitch followed by stretching out muscles to prevent pulling anything during the game concentrating on my hamstrings where I was feeling a slight strain.
- Did some sprinting to prepare for the competitive games- sprinting to the half way line and walking back 3 times.
- Played 2 30 minute matches against different opposition between 70 and 90% intensity improve my football match fitness.
Week 3
Session 1
Swimming
- 4 lengths warm up of any
- 6 lengths front crawl keeping at a steady pace
- 25 m front crawl race followed by 50 m front crawl race at about 90-100% intensity.
- 2 more lengths of front crawl followed by 2 lengths of breaststroke but more relaxed
- 2 lenghts front crawl
- 2 more lengths front crawl
- hard cardio-vascular session, quite tiring
Session 2
Fartlek 'Speedplay'
For this session I did Gerschler Fartlek
- This is good training for getting fit quickly when combined with steady running
- I started with a 10 minute warm up jog
- At about 80% intensity, repeating 3 times - Sprinted hard for 30 seconds, jog 90 seconds. Repeat with 15 second decreases in recovery jog e.g. 30-90, 30-75, 30-60, 30-45, 30-30, 30-15 and 30-15-30.
- 10 minute warm down jog
- Anaerobic session. Very hard
Session 3
Weight training Session
(Circuit training)
- Weight training session mainly concentrating on lower body
- Started with 10 minute jog on machine for warm up followed by strethes
- Quadriceps curl 5 sets of 15 repetitions 20 kg (endurance)
- Hamstring curl 5 sets of 15 repetitions 20kg (endurance)
- Leg press 3 sets of 6 repetitions 35kg (strength)
- 3 sets of 50 rolling sit ups to improve lower back strength
- Lat pulls, 3 sets of 6 repetitions 35kg (strength)
- Cool down included light jogging and some stretches
Week 4
Session 1
Weight training session
(circuit training)
- Weight training session mainly concentrating on upper body
- Started with 10 minute jog on machine for warm up followed by stretc hes
- Bicep curl 5 sets of 15 repetitions 20 kg (endurance)
- Tricep curl 5 sets of 15 repetitions 20kg (endurance)
- Bar dips 3 sets of 6 repetitions 35kg (strength)
- 3 sets of 50 rolling sit ups
- Lat pulls, 3 sets of 6 repetitions 40kg (strength)
- Cool down of light jogging and some stretches
Session 2
Swimming
- 4 lengths of front crawl as warm up
- 2 lengths breast stroke
- 100m of any stroke
- life saving followed by 50m butterfly
Session 3
Footalll training ( fitness)
- Started with a form of whistle fatlek after 10 minute warm up jog.
- When the whistle is blown we were to run hard until the whistle is blown again. Pyramid session of 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minutes, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes with a 60 second jog run recovery between each run.
- 10 minute warm down jog
- Training match
Week 5
Session 1
Swimming
- 6 lengths front crawl at steady pace
- 2 more lengths of front crawl
- 2 lengths of breast stroke to relax muscles slightly followed by 2 lengths of front crawl
- finally 2 more lengths of front crawl breathing every 4 arms action.
Session2
2.5 mile run
- Continuous run to improve endurance once again. Started by a light stretching session and shaked out my leg muscles to warm up for the jog
- Went through the run at 60-70% intensity at a steady low pace speed which helped me go through with out feeling extremely fatigued.
- Strong aerobic session, quite out of breath afterwards and slight niggling injury in my heel.
Session 3
8 x 75 Interval training
- Started with 10 minute period of continuous jogging as warm up
- 8 x 75 shuttles followed by 3 minute rest intervals to allow further time for recovory
- Repeated this 2 times at 90% intensity.
- Although again quite a hard aerobic session I got through with relative ease
Week 6
Session 1
Swimming
- 8 lengths warm up of breast stroke
- 4 lenghts front crawl
- 8 lengths front crawl legs
- 25 m front crawl race followed by 50 m breast stroke race at about 90-100% intensity.
- Another 6 lengths front crawl but more relaxed
Session 2
Fartlek (Speedplay)
For my last session concentrating mainly on speed I did Gerschler Fartlek once again.
I started with a 10 minute warm up jog
- Increasing intensity from last fartlek session at about 90%, repeating 3 times - Sprinted hard for 30 seconds, jog 90 seconds. Repeat with 15 second decreases in recovery jog e.g. 30-90, 30-75, 30-60, 30-45, 30-30, 30-15 and 30-15-30.
- 10 minute warm down jog
- Anaerobic session. Quite endearing.
Session 3
Football training
- Warm up included 5 laps around the pitch followed by stretching out muscles to prevent injury concentrating on all my leg muscles.
- Did some sprinting to prepare for the competitive games- sprinting to the half way line and walking back 3 times.
- Played a full 90 minute matches against competitive opposition between 90-100% intensity improve my football match fitness. Also a test for my 6 week program to see how I have improved.
