Personal Excercise Programme (PEP)

GCSE Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

Kiran Caffery 10VC

P.E.P.

Introduction

My aim for the next six weeks is to improve my general fitness. I will aim to complete one session within 10 minutes and by the end of the six weeks, I hope to have increased my fitness and be able to see a good result from the data. To achieve this I will be doing circuit training to build up my muscles and to work on my cardiovascular fitness using the FITT and SPORT principles. I will have to complete the circuit three times, without resting, which will count as one session. I will do one session every week, and record my results in a table. I will need to record the time I complete each session in, and also my Resting Pulse before I begin the session and my Pulse every 2 minutes after each session to record the Recovery Rate. The stations in my circuit will be; shuttle runs, sit-ups, step-ups, press-ups, skipping, and burpees, in that order.

Fitness Tests

Before the circuit training, 5 fitness tests were carried out. These were the NCF Abdominal Curl Conditioning Test, the NCF Multistage Fitness Test, the Cooper 12 Minute Run, the Harvard Step Test, and the Illinois Agility Run.

The NCF Abdominal Curl Conditioning Test is to monitor the tone and condition of you abdominal muscles. It is carried out instructions on a tape where the athlete is to perform as many sit-ups as possible in time to the beeps for as long as possible.

The NCF Multistage Fitness Test, also known as the Bleep Test, is taken as to measure of how much oxygen is used up by the athlete. They run shuttles between two lines of a 20-metre distance and they must cross the line before the bleep sounds. When the athlete can no longer cross the line in time, the number of shuttles they did is noted and their maximal oxygen consumption is worked out from a table (the higher it is the fitter you are).

The Cooper 12 minute run is a test of aerobic fitness by the distance run in the 12 minutes. The athlete runs round the track as many times as they can and their laps are counted – the further they run, the fitter you are.

The Harvard Step Test is to monitor the athlete’s cardiovascular fitness. They do 30 step-ups a minute for 5 minutes (150 steps), or as long as possible. The bench for the step-ups is 41cm high and when finished, you measure your pulse rate every minute for 3 minutes after to measure your fitness as below:

Result = 30000 ÷ (pulse1 + pulse2 + pulse3)

The Illinois Agility Run is to measure the development in the athlete’s agility. The Athlete runs the course below, starting by lying on the ground, on their front. They have to get up and complete the course as quick as possible.

We did the fitness tests to see how fit we are and to compare how much our fitness has increased during the six weeks that we trained for.

My results

NCF abdominal curl conditioning test = 2mins, 40secs

NCF multistage fitness test (Bleep Test) = stage 5

Cooper 12 minute run = 11 laps

Harvard Step Test = 2mins, 28secs

30000 – (82 + 156 + 116) = 84.7 = above average

The Illinois Agility Run = 11.09 seconds

Once I had the results from my fitness and my aim to improve my general fitness and muscular endurance, I was able to plan my six weeks training programme.

My Circuit

In my circuit I have started with Shuttle Runs as it provides a warm up but I may change the order of the stations. The Circuit must be repeated 3 times in one session and there should be no resting time until all three times round the circuit have been completed.

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The Illinois Agility Run = 11.09 seconds

Once I had the results from my fitness and my aim to improve my general fitness and muscular endurance, I was able to plan my six weeks training programme.

My Circuit

The following table shows the details of each station:

The following Table will be used to show the results if the training session:

The following table will be used to show the time taken for the Heart Rate to get back to normal, working out the recovery rate:

The times will be recorded until the heart rate gets back to normal and I will present the results in a bar graph so the information will be graphically displayed.

It was important to consider the principles of training (SPORT and FITT) when planning my training.

The training needs to be SPECIFIC because then I am able to work on the necessary skills and the body parts to improve my fitness. For example I need to improve my cardiovascular fitness and my muscular endurance as proved in the tests.

PROGRESSION is important so that the amount of work can be increased so that I can improve on things that I need to improve on and this makes the training more effective.

It is also important to consider REVERSIBILTY because if I stopped training my body would adapt to the stress level and any adaptations from the training will be reversed.

My training will be even more effective if I train within my maximum and minimum THRESHOLD, between 60% and 80% of my heart rate, and this will be my target zone.

OVERLOAD is an important principle to include in my training plan because it means that my body is put under stress so I can adapt to cope with the extra training and therefore become fitter.

The FREQUENCY of my training will be once a week and I can overload by increasing the number of training sessions I do.

The TIME is how long I train for within a session – my sessions will be decided by how long it takes me to complete the 3 laps of the circuit (about 10 minutes).

The INTENSITY is how hard I will be working when training and in this case I can overload by working harder within the training session.

The TYPE relates to specificity and it is important to make sure that when I am training, it meets the needs of what I am specifically training for.

Evaluation

Results Assessment

15/03/06

This was my first training session and my resting heart rate was 66, which slower than usual for me. I started with the shuttle runs so that I could warm up my legs and then I tried to go in the order that I had planned but it was quite difficult as there were sometimes too many people at one station. So instead I went to a station that gave the muscles I had just worked on a rest, like after step-ups I went to sit ups instead of press-ups. Near the end I was getting really tired and my asthma started to kick in but I managed to hold up okay. I finished at 7 minutes, 18 seconds and my working rate was 132. My recovery heart rates were; 2mins: 120, 4mins: 116, 6mins: 92, 8mins: 70.

22/03/06

My resting pulse was 80, which is normal. I wanted to improve my time from last week and changed the start station from shuttle runs to skipping which also acted as a warm up. This time I didn’t really worry about the order I had planned but I went to the stations that gave my muscles a rest from the station I had just been on. I found press-ups the easiest but I found the burpees really hard and struggled to do them so I always ended up doing them last as I resented them the most. My time was 7 minutes, 2 seconds and my working rate was 140. My recovery heart rates were; 2mins: 118, 4mins: 108, 6mins: 96, 8mins: 80.

31/03/06

My resting pulse was 96 and I started with the shuttle runs again to warm up. This session was much easier and I felt a real difference in how much my muscles could take. I still found the press-ups easiest and still hated the burpees but overall I was much quicker and felt fitter. My time was 5 minutes 50 and my working rate was 160. My recovery rates were; 2mins: 124, 4mins: 116, 6mins: 106, 8mins: 98.

05/03/06

My resting heart was 96 and I started with the shuttle runs as usual. This time instead of normally doing the skipping earlier on in the circuit, I left them near the end and was tired so kept not jumping over the rope properly, which wasted time, as I kept having to stop. The burpees were a little easier to bear this session, as was the rest of the circuit in general. I finished in 5 minutes 17 and my working rate was 160. My recovery rates were; 2mins: 130, 4mins: 125, 6mins: 100, 8mins: 96.

14/04/06

My resting heart rate was 94, and again I started with the shuttle runs as the warm up and did the skipping as station 3 so I wouldn’t waste time later when I was tired. It felt a little easier as my body was getting more used to the work, but the burpees as usual stayed as my weakness but still had improved. This time I completed the circuit in 5 minutes and 29 seconds and my working heart rate was 156. My recovery rates were as below:

21/04/06

My resting heart rate was 80, and I did my training session fairly similar to the previous week as I was now getting into routine so started with the shuttle runs and did the skipping again third. I again went to the stations which rested the muscles I had worked on in the previous station and I could definitely feel and improvement in my burpees and also the whole circuit in general. My time was 5 minutes and 12 seconds and my working heart rate was 138, which is an improvement. My recovery rates were as below:

23/04/06

This training session I did continuous training, and my resting heart rate was 76. I cycled on an exercise bicycle for 20 minutes without a rest and I found it quite difficult but managed to keep going. When I got off the bicycle I couldn’t really feel my legs, which was a bit of a shock when I tried to walk straight after. My working heart rate was 146 and my recovery rates were as below:

My results tables

These are my results in graph form to show the comparison of the working heart rates of each session.

The graph shows that on the first training session my working heart rate was really high and then decreased dramatically for the second session. The third session gradually increased my working heart rate and at the forth session it was at the highest before slightly falling in the fifth session. At the final circuit training session my working heart rate was fairly low and at the continuous training it was slightly higher as I found that more difficult.

Fitness Test Results after Training (26.04.06)

The NCF Abdominal Curl Conditioning Test – 4 minutes, 38 seconds. I have improved by almost 2 minutes, which shows that my training had a good effect on my abdominal muscles.

The NCF Multistage Fitness Test (Bleep Test) – 6.1. I have improved from stage 5 so my cardiovascular fitness has improved.

The Harvard Step Test – 3 minutes. I improved by 32 seconds, which isn’t as much as I hoped but it still shows that the training improved my muscular endurance at some extent.

Illinois Agility Run – 10.91 seconds. I improved by 0.18 seconds, which shows that the fitness training improved my agility.

Evaluation

My Circuit Training has improved my general fitness in all aspects as my results from the fitness tests show how much progress I have made when they are compared with the fitness tests taken before the training. I have improved my Cardiovascular Fitness, Muscular Endurance, Muscular Strength, Flexibility, and agility so I have achieved my goals to improve these components of my general fitness. I used all the FITT principles and the principles of training to plan my training and my aims so I included everything we have learnt, which was useful and beneficial to my PEP. Also, it was a really good feeling when I found the fitness tests after the training much easier and feeling that my hard work had paid off, I could feel the difference that the last 6 weeks had made on my body.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed doing my PEP and I would do it again as it had a positive effect on my body, both physically and mentally. If I did it again, I wouldn’t change much, except make sure I had a good order of stations in my circuit and also have more determination in the endurance test and the Bleep test to keep going, because I think I probably could have got a bit further. My circuit could be easily adapted to someone else as all the circuit stations are just for general fitness so for someone else, they would simply change the exercises and maybe the number of times each one is carried out, for there own individual needs as the training needs to be specific.