The Introduction: -

 

  • Age: - age matters when doing physical activity, but varies on the sport you are doing.  For example a gymnast would usually peak, at which they perform the best in there early teenage years and as they grew older into their twenties they would digress.   But for a rugby player they would peak in their late twenties, early thirties.  I was testing strength and suppleness at the ages of   14 / 15; it is expected that people of our age group will do relatively well, in comparison to someone who is much older or much younger, because of the average peak age of this activity.

  • Gender: - Gender can affect performance in sport just as much as any other aspect because depending on gender can affect whether a person is suited or not for the sport, also in many unisex sports either gender can perform better that than the other.  For example, weight lifting, mostly this is a predominantly male sport because men tend to be stronger that women.  Also in the larger porting events, men and women don’t compete against each other because man and women with obtain very different results.  In out fitness programme gender is of no importance, as male and female will be doing the same activities.

  • Current fitness level: - Your current fitness level can affect you performance in physical exercise as if you are very unfit it can cause damage or injury to your body.  My current level of fitness, in my opinion is quite average, as I maintain a high level of exercise throughout the week.  I am a competitive hockey, netball and tennis player and so keeping fit for those activities is hard but needs to be done.  My strongest area of fitness is strength and suppleness but I have chosen to carry on improving this because in netball it is very important to be able to make strong moves around the court and strong passes.  I also need to be very agile to be able to move around the court, get away from my opposition and also mark them effectively when the other team is in possession of the ball.

  • Health problems and injuries: - Health problems and injuries obviously have an effect you performance during physical activities.  It can affect your performance in many ways ranging from slightly to a lot depending on the nature of the chosen sport.  By this I mean if you have a long-term injury it can affect your play as when you have recovered finally you may not be as strong and have to start back at basics to regain the strength in that area.  But if you just have a small injury or an illness, for example a cold you won’t need to start again and will just be able to pick up from where you left off.  I do suffer from asthma, although it isn’t really that bad I do have to make sure I carry round an inhaler just in case.  Also just before we started this fitness programme I sprained my ankle quite severely and therefore as you will see later I didn’t’ take part on a couple of the exercises because it was important I didn’t stress my ankle in any way whilst on the way to recovery.    

  • Your lifestyle: - Your lifestyle can affect your performance during physical activity in many different ways.  Ways in which your lifestyle can affect you performance are: -

  1. Environment – Whether where you live or train is a suitable place for the sport you have chosen to take part in.

  1. Travel – Whether you are able to travel to where you need to be when required, for example if you are attached to a sports club you may need to be able to travel up and down the country to play sports fixtures.  This may take a lot of time and effort and can result in making the chosen sport too expensive and not accessible.

  1. Cost – Whether or not you can afford to do your chosen sport, if you are attached to a club you may need to buy a kit/uniform and these may be expensive.  For example if you belong to a pony club you may need to pay extra for lessons, new tack, uniform, shows entry fees, travel, rent of horseboxes…etc.

  1. Diet – whether or not the diet you eat is an appropriate for the sport you choose.  You need to a eat a varied diet to keep healthy and different sports require different amounts of each type of food and this can affect your performance if you eat the wrong things or the wrong amounts.

     All of these aspects are important for the development in a sport.  My lifestyle is very much suited for my chosen sports and therefore I am very much acquired to comply with the demands of my chosen sports.

  1. Involvement in physical activities – if you enjoy physical activity or are keen to improve or succeed in what you do then you are more likely to succeed in improving in your performance.  I take part in all school sporting activities, compulsory and if I am available then I try to contribute to sports fixture against other schools in the local area.  I also take part in out of school sporting activities for example I go swimming a few times a week and I play out of school tennis, netball and soon hockey as well.  

Components of fitness: -

     

     The components of fitness we are all going to improve are strength, suppleness, stamina and speed.  We had the choice of which two we would like to improve, we had the choice to do both strength and suppleness or stamina and speed.  There were specific exercises for each so that the target was met.  All of these components are important to the success of a performer.  These components must be worked on and either improved or certainly maintained in order to keep the performer at the top of their abilities.  

     There are also other components of fitness that performer’s require in order to be successful in their chosen sport.  These include:

  • Agility – it means that a performer is able to or can vary speed and direction with skill or pace, improving a game or physical activity.
  • Muscular endurance – It means whether or not a performer’s body can cope with frequent straining and/or for long periods of time.

Purpose and aim of the programme: -

    I am a quite serious and competitive netball player and so the aspect of fitness I have chosen to improve is strength and suppleness.  I play goal defence or goalkeeper meaning that I need to be agile and strong in both my play and my decisions.  For goal defence I need to be able to move easily around the court.  I need to be agile to follow my goal attack and make strong interceptions of the ball.  I also need to make quick passes and dodges, especially at the centre pass.  Speed is useful on the court and in game play, however strength and suppleness is just as or even more important as you need to be able to move freely, and with good intentions and strength, to make sure you can carry out your movements.  It would be no good to you if you can make good doges but your muscles were not strong enough for you to make them, causing you either injury or a failed movement.  It can be more important on the court to stamina and speed because the netball court itself is not that large and there isn’t much continuous long distance running involved with the nature of the game.  You need tactics and to be able to move agilely and with strength.  Strength and suppleness is the key to good court play in netball and therefore that is the reason why I chose to try and improve it.  By choosing this aspect it means that I will be carrying out the U.S navy test and I will be carefully planning and carrying out the test and recording my results every week.  

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     The amount of exercise I already do in an average week is average, but I still which to improve this, and to increase my daily/weekly amount of exercise.  My average week in relation to amount of daily/weekly exercise is as follows: -

  • 50 minutes of games lessons within school a week. (Taking part in netball, hockey, athletics, rounders…etc.)

  • I walk on average a mile a day, sometimes with 10 minutes walking and 10 minutes running at timed intervals.

  • I go swimming on average about once or maybe twice a week for an hour ...

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