My Personal Exercise Plan

These are statistics that I have collected concerning Gareth Bale’s recent performances. This is the kind of level that I personally want to perform at, and using my analysis, I can determine what I need to improve in order to achieve this level of performance, If I then compare this with my own test results, I can easily define my needs and the suitability of my Personal Exercise Plan.

Personal Tests

I have performed several tests to find out about my personal ability. The results are as follows:

Test 1: 100m sprint (Pace)

My target for this test is to achieve a time of 12.8 seconds over 100 metres. That means I will have to lower my time by 0.24 seconds; and therefore increase my average speed to 8.3 m/s (an increase of approximately 0.6 m/s).

Test 2: 1 min Press-Ups (Muscular Endurance/Strength)

My average of 41 press-ups over 60 seconds is decent, but does not indicate adequate Muscular Endurance and judging from the results I did not keep a steady rhythm. My target is to perform 60 Press-Ups in 60 seconds, equating to 1 Press-Up/Second. This is an increase of 19 Press-Ups per minute and 0.3 per second.

Test 3: Bleep Test (Cardio-Vascular/Muscular Endurance)

The average of 13.2 (or 57.73 VO2 Max) is average for the level I am training for. My target is an average level of 14, meaning I must increase my VO2 Max by 2.91.

Test 4: Pull-Ups (Muscular Strength)

The average of 5.7 pull-ups matches the capability of athletically able people of my age and ability, however, my target is to rise above average, and so Muscular Strength is a concern for me. My target is to be able to perform 8 pull-ups. To do this, I must increase my average by 4.3, and my Total Weight Lifted by 138kg.

Test 5: Illinois Agility Run Test (Agility)

Agility is not quite a strong area of my physical fitness. It is not a priority. However, in the interest of constant improvement, my target is to get my average down to 15.0 seconds, shaving of 0.17 seconds.

Test Analysis

Looking at my test results, I can determine that the two areas I need to improve most in are:

• Muscular Strength
• Cardio-Vascular Endurance

Therefore, I have designed a plan to improve these areas.

Safety and Injury Prevention

In order to perform my Personal Exercise Plan safely I will need to use all equipment sensibly and properly. I must make sure that I have a spot when doing bench-press, and that when using weights and machines that I know how to use them and am aware of any safety issues there may be.

To prevent injuries and stiffness, there are two vital components of any training session: the warm-up and cool-down. I must always warm-up in order to prevent the pulling of muscles and dislocation of joints. I must, after the exercise, also cool down to make sure my muscles will not get stiff or achy the next day, resulting in a reduced performance.

In order to make this effective, I must combine it with a wealth of fluids being taken in before, during and after the exercise. This will provide energy, hydrate my body, and also prevent cramp and injuries. It is vitally important that I always drink a lot when in a fitness programme like this.

Plan

Using the results I found above I have been able to devise a 6-week plan for my exercise. I have followed the FITT principle which is the following:

• F – Frequency, how regularly exercise is performed. This is followed and increase in accordance with progression methods to adapt with overload principles.
• I – Intensity, how hard a person exercises. The Overload principle is the most effective, where I will push my body to 60-80% of it’s ability in order to constantly improve. Obviously, the 60-80% area will increase as I train, so therefore it constantly has to be adapted.
• T – Time, how long one trains for at a time. A person may wish to adapt this in accordance with earlier training to reduce injury; or increase it in stages to follow the Progression principle.
• T – Type, the specificity of an exercise to one’s sport, i.e. using certain body parts and methods which would be used in a performance of the sport.

I will use a selection of exercises:

The plan will look like this:

Evaluation

After performing my PEP I can come to several conclusions. I performed the plan all the way through and there were no need for alterations.

The plan worked as I had hoped. Following the end of my plan, I once again performed two of my earlier tests: the bleep test and the press-up test:

Bleep Test

I have increased my bleep test average from 13.2 to 14.3, meaning an increase in VO2 Max of 3.79. This is solid proof that my Cardio-Vascular Endurance has definitely increased, meaning that part of the plan was completely successful. My original target was an average of 14, meaning I have bypassed even that by some margin.

Press-Up Test

This test was also a success as I increased my average number of press-ups a minute by 20, meaning an increased in 0.3 press-ups a second, bringing it up to my target of 1 a second, i.e. 60 over a minute. This means that the muscular strength part of my plan also worked very effectively.

So, to conclude, my PEP has increased my Cardio-Vascular fitness and Muscular Strength to the level I wanted, as specified in my planning. I can therefore say that the plan was successful and fit well with what I needed. I can therefore also assume that my performance in my sport will be of a higher quality now than what it was before the programme; which is the ultimate aim of increasing your physical ability.