The ability of these two systems to keep going for long periods of time under stress is known as cardio respiratory endurance.
This determines a person’s aerobic capacity to sustain activities for prolonged periods of time.
Other examples of such activities are swimming, long distance running and rowing.
Muscular Stamina and Endurance:
This is the ability of the muscles to contract over long periods of time.
Both cardiovascular stamina and muscular stamina are interrelated, as the muscles need a good, constant supply of oxygen in order to produce the energy for contraction.
Strength
Strength is the ability to exert a force on an object as the muscles contract. In football strength is needed to some extent but it isn’t the main factor for optimum performance in the game. You will definitely need some strength to withhold the physical pressure from other players, as it will improve your flair when you play and you will not be brought down to the ground as easily. Also depending on how big and strong you are, you can have a negative mental effect on your opponents, which is a good thing.
There are three different types of strength:
Dynamic Strength:
Dynamic strength is required to start and maintain a movement.
Explosive Strength: Explosive strength is required to move the body or an object quickly.
It is also known as power, which is a combination of speed and strength. Due to the short duration of muscle contraction and the high energy output the anaerobic energy systems are used.
Static Strength:
This is the strength applied by muscles to a fixed object. Activities such as the tug-of-war are good examples of where static strength is applied.
Flexibility
Flexibility is the range of movement of a limb around its joint.
It may also be referred to as mobility or suppleness.
Good flexibility is important to sports people because it helps reduce the chance of injury and allows a full range of movement.
Goalkeepers in football need to make miraculous saves to prevent the ball from going over the goal line. Sometimes this requires tremendous amounts of effort but the best keepers make the saves look easy. Diving to make a save is an example of where all the joint’s flexibility plays an important part in the execution of the skill.
Skill related fitness
There are five aspects of skill-related fitness that may be applied to everyday life but are generally more sport specific.
Agility
Agility is the ability to change direction quickly and accurately.
There are a number of examples of where agility is applied in sport: dodging an opponent’s tackle and goalkeeping. A striker or an attacking midfielder often makes forward runs into the penalty box. When they dribble the ball with them they will need to a lot of flair but they will also need to change direction quickly to prevent being tackled.
Balance
There are two types of balance:
Static balance is the ability to hold the body in a position of stillness.
Performing a headstand or standing on one leg are examples of static balances. Static balance is not important in the game of football because all the players are constantly moving and have no purpose to remain still.
Dynamic balance is the ability to maintain a balanced position while moving.
For example, a football player who is very good at dribbling with the ball with speed and flair will need or will have very good dynamic balance. Ryan Giggs, Steve Mcmanaman and Zinedine Zidane are examples of professional players who have a lot of flair whilst dribbling with a ball. They all have good dynamic balance because they do not trip, fall slip while they are running with the ball.
Co-ordination
To perform many of the body action sequences in sport co-ordination of limbs and body is important. Footballers with/without the ball need good eye co-ordination. When the footballer is with the ball, they need to pass the ball into a space where their team mates can run into to get away from the person marking them. As for the player without the ball, he/she will need to look for a suitable space to run into but at the same time trying really hard to judge the time of his run so he/se does not get caught offside.
Reactions
Reactions are measured in time taken to start the movement, that is, reaction time, and it is the time taken from receiving information to acting on it.
There are two types of reaction time. They are simple reaction time and choice reaction time.
Simple reaction time is the time taken from the stimulus such as the starting pistol starting a race to pushing off the blocks. The athlete does not have any choices to make.
Choice reaction time occurs when the performer has a number of options that can be made in response to the stimulus.
For example, during a football match the defender has to decide whether to make the interception of the ball or to make the tackle. Goalkeepers need to have a short choice reaction time but with even more pressure on them than the rest of the outfield players. The time it takes to make the decision is the choice reaction time.
Timing
This is the ability to perform the skill at the exact moment it is needed. In a game of football, timing is very essential. It doesn’t matter what position you play in, the timing has to be precise. For a striker the moment he decides to let go of the ball and try to put it in the back of the oppositions net is important because if he/she releases the ball too early he/she will not have as much time to place the ball if he/she took his time. However if the striker takes too much time to decide where to place the ball, it will be too late as the keeper will come out of his/her line to make the angle shorter or he/she will be tackled.
A typical training session
There are four clear allocations of time during a training session:
1. Warm up
2. Fitness session
3. Skills session, which could involve small-sided games
4. Cool down.
Warm Up:
The body needs to be correctly prepared for any activity.
The warm up period should:
1. Increase the blood flow to the muscles
2. Increase arousal levels to the activity
3.Reduce the risk of injury to muscles and tendons.
Warm up should be specific to the activity but should include:
1. Activities that cause the heart rate to increase slowly increasing blood supply to the muscles
2. Flexibility exercises to gently stretch muscles in preparation for activity
3. Activities associated with the sport such as throwing a rugby ball around before a rugby session.
The type of activity will determine the amount of time spent on warm up.
Fitness Session:
The amount of fitness and its importance depends on the activity and the level at which the activity is been played be it local level, regional level, national level etc.
Aerobic fitness is important in most sports so it should follow that some aerobic fitness training is included.
These should be based, where possible, on the game or activity.
Skills Session:
There can be individual and team skills. The skills sessions have to be a closely related to the ‘real’ situation as possible so that transfer from practice to ‘real’ is easily accomplished.
These sessions can be used to develop ‘set plays’ ensuring that each person involved in the ‘set play’ knows exactly what they have to do.
These ‘set plays’ should use passive opposition and then more active opposition to make the situation more realistic.
Small-game situations can also be used in this part of the session and the ‘set plays’ or practiced skills can then be put into the ‘real’ situation.
Cool Down
This part of the training session is very important for two reasons:
1. It allows the body to start its recovery process by starting to remove the lactate build up.
2. Stretching during this time will help the muscle fibres to return to their starting state and help start to repair any damaged fibres.
Cool down also provides a good opportunity to conclude a session as a team or individual with a coach.
Key points of the session can be recapped and the bringing together of a team for this session can help to continue to build the team spirit of a group.
Planning
Agility Training:
Strength, speed and balance are important elements of agility and any training of these will result in improved agility.
Effects of training:
Body movements can be made quicker
More unpredictable movements can be made to beat an opponent.
Balance Training:
Balance requires delicate control and good static strength in relation to body weight.
Football requires both static balances and dynamic balances in order to move around and dribble with ball.
Effects of training:
Static balance gives fine muscle control and stability balance.
Dynamic balance gives better control in more extreme conditions.
Co-ordination Training:
From learning to throw and catch a ball at a young age, to hitting a fast moving squash ball later in life, require not only good hand eye co-ordination but the ability to move the body into the correct position.
Practice is the best form of training co-ordination and specific practice for individual sports.
Effects of Training:
Movements appear smooth and flowing.
Movements become more effective.
Reaction Training:
It is highly unlikely that reaction times can be improved, however response time can be improved.
Response time is the total time taken to complete a response to a given stimulus.
Response time = reaction time + movement time.
Response is dependant on the recognition of what is required and the physical response.
Response time can only improve with experience where situations become more familiar and the athletes are able to think and act more quickly to a given situation.
Effects of training:
Faster muscle responses.
Fewer movement errors.
Improved decision making in choice reaction situations – giving improved performance.
More time to make decisions.
Training for Timing:
Training to improve timing involves repetition of activities until speed and distance have been learned.
It is the gaining of experience that will improve timing as with reaction training.
Circuit training
There are many advantages to using circuit training as part of a training programme:
Circuit training involves using different areas of a gym, sports hall, church hall or any other clear indoor or outdoor space.
In these areas or stations the athletes have to perform specified activities. After completing the activity at one station the performer moves onto the next.
The time spent at one station can be a measured amount of time or a specific number of reps.
The activities differ so that different muscle groups are being used while other muscle groups can recover.
1. It can improve fitness levels of a large number of people.
2. It can be accomplished in a relatively small space.
3. It requires a minimum amount of equipment as the performers body provides the ‘weight’.
4. Because the performer provides the ‘weight’ and resistance there is a less likely chance of injury.
5. It is a highly adaptable for different sports or activities.
6. It can be designed to train aspects of fitness or skills or both.
7. But!!! If you do not vary the exercises every so often, the training programme will become boring after a little while and you will feel that there is nothing to keep you from carrying on with the programme.
8. Another problem will occur if you are not careful about the order in which you place the stations. You will most certainly come across fatigue if you place the same muscle groups together in your circuit. It is important that you do not place the same working muscle groups together to prevent fatigue.
Intensity and Overload
For any training session to be effective, it should be of high enough intensity to overload the body systems of an individual. If, during circuit training, everyone does the same thing; the same number of reps or the same amount of time, then individual fitness levels are not being taken into account.
Some people will be trying to work at levels above their fitness and others will be working at levels beneath their fitness level. Performers can be tested on each activity to determine their maximum score, or how much they can do in a fixed period of time.
This score is then halved and these half scores become their training amounts.
Three circuits are completed, with each performer working at their own level. A time is recorded when the three circuits have been completed, with each performer working at their own level.
An improvement on this time serves as a new target for the next training session.
Individuals are re-tested at regular intervals.
A warm up: -
For every sport there is a specific type of warm up and it may even differ depending on the position you play in. For football a light jog for 5 minutes will be ideal. The jog should vary by including side stepping, running backwards, touching the floor with each of your hands once u reach the corners of an area, heading at a certain point e.t.c. This would be a good pulse raiser. Next you should do some stretches involving all the muscles, ligaments of the body but mainly on the muscles that will be put under pressure during the match. A simple procedure of stretches from head to toe will be great. You can start off by rotating your head to the left and holding it at that position for a few seconds, and then doing the same to the right. This process will stretch the trapezius and the platysma muscle in your neck. Next you can swing your arms forwards and backwards to get the shoulder joints moving. Do this for 8 seconds and swinging your arms backwards as well.
Next you pull your right arm past your left shoulder and hold it in a fixed position with your left arm so that your right arm is pointing to the left. Do this with your left arm and hold both of your arms in this position for about 8 seconds. This stretch will help stretch your deltoids and it is essential for goalkeepers as they will have to make saves that involves diving and jumping and even landing in awkward positions. The next part of the body you can stretch is the waist. This is important because there will be a lot of friction between the femur and the pelvis with the ball and socket joint. Another stretch that will help to prevent injury near the waist is the hip extension. Firstly you take a large stride forward as possible and keeping your back leg straight and the body upright, sink down by bending the front leg: hold in the lowest position for 8 seconds and change the leg and repeat this two times. Another stretch where u can stretch the hip is the hip abduction. You first take a large stride as in the hip extension exercise, but face the front again, keep one leg straight to your side, body straight, bend the other leg and sink as low as possible. Hold in this position for 8 seconds and repeat it twice with both legs. Stretching this waist will make sure that the ligaments and tendons do not tear especially in the hamstring. This is the next stretch where we make sure that the hamstring does not get damaged during the game of football and during the training in the circuit. The hamstring stretch is as follows- sit on the floor, legs together and out straight in front and bend forward to try and touch your toes. Try to keep in the position with your hands reaching as far as possible towards your toes or further if possible and hold it for 8 seconds. Then do the same process with your other leg and repeat twice. The next stretch will be for the quadriceps. This can be done in two ways.
1) Sit on your heels with toes pointed and knees on the ground. Try to lean back as far as possible to produce a stretching along the top of the thighs. Hold for 8 seconds whilst using your hands to support you behind at first, but if you can manage without, so much the better.
(2) The second way is the more popular way, where you stand on one leg and you hold your other foot. If you are holding your left leg, then use your left arm to hold it and vice versa.
The next stretch will be to the calf muscles and the Achilles. The first step is to make sure that you are standing upright with both of your feet together. Then you place your right foot over your left foot beside it. Once you have done that, you bend down but very slowly until you feel the stretch in your calf muscles. Once you feel that you cannot bend down any further you must stay in that position for 8 seconds to have an effect. Do this twice with both of your legs. Next you can also do circulations with your feet/ankle to make sure that you do not twist it. You just need to continuously rotate your ankle in both directions for 8 seconds. Do this with both of your ankles. The benefit of doing stretches is so that you stretch the muscles as far as possible after the warm up and before the game so that you don’t pull any muscles during the game. Doing a stretch before a game of football will decrease the probability of having an injury caused by overstretching, however it does not make the chances of being injured by reckless challenges any smaller.
Now that a warm up and the stretches are completed you may want to do a skills practise and in this case that would be related to football. To start off the skills practice, you will need a few small cones and a football. You will need to set up the cones in a straight line and about 1-2 metres apart from each other. If you are on your own then you can try dribbling in and out of the cones. First try it with your preferred foot and with the inside of that foot. Do this twice and going round once also includes coming back. Once you have done this twice, try dribbling the ball around the cones with the foot that you do not prefer with inside of that foot. Next you can go back to your preferred foot and try dribbling around the cones twice using only the out side of your foot. Once you have done the same thing with your non-preferred foot you can try dribbling past the cones twice with both feet and using the outside and the inside part of your foot.
If you have at least 4 other friends, then one skill practice you should try is piggy in the middle. For this practice you need 4 small cones and 1 football. One of the 4 players will need to be randomly picked to be the defender in the middle. The middle will be in the area of the 4 cones laid out as a square. The rest of the 3 players must pass the ball around making sure that the defender in the middle does not intercept and get the ball. The presence of the cones are there to make sure that the 3 players notice that there is a square. This is important, as the players are not allowed to move anywhere but on the lines between the cones. Only the defender in the middle is aloud to move around in the area. The best strategy is for the 3 players between the cones to form a triangle all the time. This will give you more options. If the defender gets the ball off the players then he will have to swap positions with the player that gave the ball away to the defender.
Another process that you must include is a cool down, which must be done after a period of work as training or a football game. A cool down will prevent your muscles hurting the next day. Your muscles hurt and become stiff because of the build of lactic acid in your muscles after an intense activity, when the demand for oxygen can outstrip the supply. A cool down after an intense football match will get rid of some of the lactic acid in your muscles. The best way to do this is not to just stop working but to take a very slow jog or walk and stretch off your body muscles. Once the vigorous movements cease, the body breaks down the lactic acid by using up extra oxygen to do so. Panting after exercise is an automatic mechanism to ‘pay off’ the oxygen debt.
By looking at the circuit, I will start off with some simple step-ups. This station will help to improve the quadriceps. This is one type of muscular endurance and aerobic fitness involving mostly the leg muscles, which will gradually build and tone. This is an important station, as it will improve your cardiovascular endurance (health related fitness) and at the same time the station will work on your quadriceps and to improve your stamina.
The next station is press-ups. This station will have an effect on your biceps and deltoids. This will improve an athlete’s muscular endurance and will gradually increase the size of the biceps and its tone. This is one type of strength, which is applied when the athlete is not moving. We call this static strength. In football strength isn’t the most important factor but it does effect how well you withstand physical pressure from other players. In the game of football there will be times when players will try to pull you down, push you down or simply try to foul you for personal reasons. In order to prevent falling you must have the upper body strength to withhold the pressures. This station is health related fitness and it improves your strength as a component of fitness.
The next station is the shuttle run station. This station will be concentrated mainly on the legs and is one type of cardiovascular endurance and anaerobic fitness. Shuttle runs are very important that they are included. Shuttle runs will help to improve your agility and speed. Shuttle runs will help your capability of moving around off the ball. A player needs to be good off the ball, especially midfielders and strikers because there are the same amount of players on each team in the game of football (unless a player has been sent off), you are most likely to be marked. This is why it is important that your are good off the ball and can make or find space by moving/running away from opponents and turning quickly to put them off balance. This is why agility and speed is important, which are exactly the components of fitness shuttle runs help you to improve. This station is health related fitness.
The next station will help build your abdominal muscles. This station will be focusing on the abdominal muscles by doing sit-ups. Sit-ups will improve your muscular endurance and will gradually build up the abdominal muscles and tone those muscles. This will be an advantage in football because you build up your upper body strength, which aids you to hold off defenders or vice versa. This station again is health related fitness and it improves your strength.
The next station is called burpees. This station involves you to start at a position as is you were doing some press-ups with your arms straight and not bent. You need to move into 2 positions. From the starting position, you bend in your legs as if you were about to start a sprint race. Then from this position, you jump up with your arms pointing upwards. These 3 steps have to be done in one completely swift movement. This exercise is very tiring as it involves many muscles. Burpees are health related fitness and it will increase the strength in the quadriceps, calf muscles and decrease the risk of having hamstring problems.
The next station in my circuit is skilled related fitness. Its called kick ups and the exercise involves you to keep the football off the ground by kicking it up continuously. This is a test to see how much skill you have to keep the ball off the ground. This station will help to improve you static balance, and reactions if any. This is a good practice to make sure that in a game of football you are able to perform this skill and it also helps to improve your ‘first touch’, which is very important if you are a striker. If the striker scores a goal and it was because he/she received the ball before shooting, then it is very likely that the first touch was a good one. Strikers need to have a good first touch to put the ball into an area in front of them to both run on with the ball and get away from the defenders or to make another pass with the first touch. The next station is also skill related fitness and involves you to keep up the ball using your head. This is skill related fitness. The components of fitness that this exercise involves are co-ordination and static balance. The main objective is to keep the ball up by using your head only and to see how many headers you can to in one minute. This exercise will obviously become harder and put more strain on your neck every week, as the amount of rest time is decreasing by 5 seconds each week.
If you feel that the training is not effective enough (too easy) or if your fitness level had already improved then there are many ways to increase your fitness level. Firstly you can increase the number of stations in your training circuit. This means that it will take longer to make your way through one whole circuit and you will have one extra station to get through, which increases the amount of training in one revolution of the circuit. Another way to increase ones fitness levels is to increase the amount of time spent at each station. This will increase your fitness level because you will be spending more time on the stations and therefore improving the muscle groups on those specific stations. You can also increase the number of repetitions at each station to improve your fitness level. Finally you can complete a greater number of circuits. It is also important that you include stations that they are varied so that you do not get bored of doing the same types of exercises/stations. However there is a more important reason why the stations should vary in type. The main reason is to prevent fatigue and the best way to do this is to make sure that the circuit is designed in a way that the same muscle group stations do not follow one after the other.
Evaluation: - I have produced a table of results representing my fitness over a 5-week period. The table shows my progression If any over a period of 5 weeks. Overall I believe my training circuit was a success because it tested all the areas of fitness, which needed to be tested for a football player. There was no real problem with equipment as I designed my circuit/types of exercises in a way so I did not have to include much equipment. The only equipment I needed was a small stool to do the step-ups and obviously a size 5 football for the kick-ups and heading station, which helped me to improve my skills. My first station developed the endurance of my quadriceps and hamstrings. I did not improve on this station over the 5-week period, as there was not enough time for me to get use to the exercise and also I did not increase the time of work. The next station was press-ups, which improved the muscular endurance in my biceps, triceps, and the chest. In this exercise there was a slight improvement towards the end of the 5-week programme. This is because the muscles that were involved in this station could now cope with the stress put on them. During the end of the 5-week programme the result backs up this as I did more press-ups and I could feel the effect the circuit was having on my muscles.
The third station was the shuttle-runs and this really helped to improve my agility and speed towards the end of the 5-week period. It also improved my cardiovascular endurance and endurance of my quadriceps, hamstrings and calves. My table shows that towards the end of the 5-week period there was a sign of progression as I ended up doing more shuttle runs than the previous week. Next was the sit-ups station and this station was very tiring and you can see that, as there was increase in the amount of sit-ups I did in one minute, but all there was a gradual decrease. However I did increase the muscular endurance in my abdominal muscles and I could feel them getting stronger. Normally after a work out, you can see a slight increase in the size of your muscles but that is only because there is a lot of blood in those muscles. But after about 34 weeks I could feel and also see a slight increase in the size of my abdominal muscles.
The next station was burpees, which improved many area of fitness for me including cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance of my quadriceps and hamstrings. I found this exercise the hardest of all the other exercises and the most tiring. Station 5 was the kick-ups station. This station improved my control of the ball and also my balance. In the end of my 5-week period I increased the control of my left foot by a great margin but only slightly improved my control of my right foot, as I was already good at doing kick-ups with my right foot. Another reason for this is that I am a right-footed player. The next station was heading the ball. I did this well during the first week because I have great accuracy and eye co-ordination. But as I developed through the 5-weeks I realised that that was not important, as I started to feel the strain on my neck. I felt the strain on my neck because I don’t usually do this exercise and also the time of rest was decreasing every week so by the time I got this station I had done 6 other stations and I was really tired.
If I was to do this circuit again I would make the rest time decrease by the extent I did this time. This would insure me to do better next time, as I would not feel as tired. Another way I can make the circuit a bit easier is by decreasing the work time. I started off with a work time of 60 seconds. Maybe the next time round, I can start off with 50 seconds. By looking at the results table you can see that I did not improve my fitness in some exercises. The main reason for this was because to make any improvements in your fitness the frequency must be of at least 20-30 minutes a day, 3-4 days a week. You should also try to work at 60-80% of your maximum heart rate, which I did. Another main factor is that it will take you 2-3 months of intense training to make any improvements in your fitness levels. I did not have that much time, which is why there was no increase in my fitness levels.
It also very important that if you make a programme for any areas of fitness or any circuit, e.g. weight training, you must not stop because it takes you 3-4 months to improve your fitness levels, but it will only take you 2-3 weeks to lose the levels of fitness.
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Activity
Time Rest Time Rest Time Rest Time Rest Time Rest
60 sec 50 sec 60 sec 45 sec 60 sec 40 sec 60 sec 35 sec 60 sec 30 sec
Step-ups 52 50 sec 51 45 sec 50 40 sec 48 35 sec 49 30 sec
Press-ups 45 50 sec 38 45 sec 37 40 sec 35 35 sec 38 30 sec
Shuttle-runs 4 50 sec 4 45 sec 3 40 sec 2 1/2 35 sec 3 1/2 30 sec
Sit-ups 55 50 sec 53 45 sec 50 40 sec 47 35 sec 46 30 sec
Burpees 30 50 sec 26 45 sec 24 40 sec 21 35 sec 21 30 sec
Kick ups 50 50 sec 50 45 sec 49 40 sec 47 35 sec 50 30 sec
Heading 35 50 sec 35 45 sec 33 40 sec 30 35 sec 32 30sec
