The tables above show the possible exercises I can use in my training program which focuses on only the upper body muscles. These exercises are all exercises which I can use to improve my upper body strength. Exercises which focus on the leg muscles would not be beneficial to me during my program as I am not focusing on improving my leg power. When considering the order in which I will conduct these exercises it is important for me to remember that I should not over work the same muscles repeatedly and consecutively as it could lead to injury. Therefore it is important that exercises involving similar muscle groups are not placed in a circuit next to each other but spaced out. Using the leg press can be helpful here to use as a break between sets for my upper body.
Before doing any kind of training session it is important to warm-up properly. Warming-up before playing any activity prepares the mind, heart, muscles and joints for the strain that is about to come. Furthermore it improves the athlete’s performance, and helps them to get mentally prepared for the task they will perform. Also it helps greatly to avoid injury. This is because warming-up prepares the body for the activity to come by raising the heart rate. Warming-up increases the flow of blood through the muscles and raises the temperature of them, meaning that they are able to contract quickly reducing the chance of injury. Furthermore the warm-up makes the athlete more alert as the nervous system is stimulated.
Firstly a warm up should include some aerobic exercise, such as a jog for between three to five minutes. This is to increase the heart rate and body temperature, and the body should be sweating slightly. Next the major muscle groups which are going to be used in the sport should be stretched, having said this over muscles groups which will not be used as much should still be stretched. Both dynamic and static stretches can be used. Stretching is a vital part of exercise as it helps to prevent injury while you are exercising and it helps in aiding you to recover after your session. Also it is a good way to increase flexibility. Whilst stretching it is important to use the correct technique; you should never bounce in and out of a stretch but hold it for at least 10 seconds and move in and out of it slowly. If you experience any pain whilst stretching you should stop as it could cause injury. As I will be using the muscle groups in my upper body I will stretch accordingly. The stretches which I will perform are as follows:
Neck stretch
Between each stretch return your head to its upright position
- Tilt your head forward towards your chin. You should feel in the back of your neck
- Then return your head to its normal position and tilt it towards your right shoulder. You should feel the stretch in the left side of your neck
- Now tilt your head backwards so that you are looking up. You should feel the stretch in the front of your neck
- Lastly tilt your head towards your left shoulder. You should feel the stretch in the right side of your neck
Shoulder Stretch
- Take your right arm and place it over your shoulder, with your elbow pointing upwards
- Put your left hand on your right elbow and push down
- Switch arms and repeat the stretch
Upper Arm Stretch
- Place your right arm across your chest keeping your arm straight
- With your left arm use the inside of the elbow to push your right arm towards your body
- Then switch arms and repeat the stretch
Chest Stretch
- Place your hands together behind your back pointing upwards
- Lift your hands up as far as possible, keeping your elbows straight
- Then slowly take your hands apart and free yourself from the stretch
Abdominal Stretch
- Clasping your hands together put them above your head
- Straighten your arms and push them away from your body
- Then pull your hands behind your head
Lower Back Stretch
- Sit down with your back straight and your legs in front you
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Then cross your right leg over your left leg and keep it bent at a 900 angle
- Keeping your left leg straight, twist your torso to the right whilst placing your left elbow on the outside of your right knee
- Push your elbow against your knee to get a deeper stretch
- Then release the stretch and switch sides and repeat the stretch
The aerobic exercise and these stretches will complete my warm-up. To help my body recover after my session I will use a warm-down. It is essential to warm-down after a session as through the time you have been working your body will have accumulated lactic acid in the muscle groups you were using heavily. A warm-down will disperse this lactic acid to the rest of the body, so that soreness and muscle pains are avoided. My warm-down will include a gentle jog for five minutes and then some light stretches. The stretches will be the same as the ones I used in the warm-up however they will be done lightly so that the muscles have a chance to recover and cool down.
Having earlier outlined the possible exercises which are available for me employ I have chosen the following to use in my weight training program to improve my upper body strength:
I have chosen these exercises because they focus on the muscle groups which I want to strengthen.
The exercises concerning the arms will strengthen my forearms, wrists, biceps and triceps. This will help me in my sport to hold onto the ball in the tackle, rip the ball in maul situations, and hand off tackles.
The back, shoulder, chest and abdominals exercises will give me strength in all these areas and improve my core stability. This will help me make tackles and break tackles.
These attributes will improve me as a player as the position which I play requires a lot of running with the ball. As I am already quite quick strength in my upper body to break tackles and hand off players would make me a better player and a more dangerous runner. When defending, strength in these areas will help me in tackling even though a main component of tackling is technique, strength in the shoulders and arms does help.
The order in which I perform the exercises will be as follows:
- Bicep curls
- Seated row
- Press ups
- Lat pull down
- Narrow grip pull-ups
- 3 way crunches
- Upright row
- Bench press
- Sit ups
- Triceps pushdown
- Wrist curl
- Single arm lateral raise
- Front press
This is so that I do not injure any of the muscle groups by doing exercises which focus on the same muscle groups consecutively. This would lead to extra strain being put upon them and lead to injury.
Through my personal exercise plan my training will progress as I see myself improving. Currently I am not as physically fit as I can be, therefore when I begin training I will not be expecting to lift as heavy loads which I have done previously when I have been in training. I will start of by lifting the maximum I can for one lift and then train by lifting weights which are 80% of the maximum load I can lift. I will do 10 reps. I will do three sets of each exercise. I will be working harder each session as in the first session I will be adapting to lifting the weights. As I progress into the later sessions I will be lifting heavier weights and therefore working harder.
Justification for this is the four training principles of specificity, overload, progression and reversibility.
Specificity
Specificity is training with exercises that have a specific effect on the specific muscles which you will be using in your sport suitable to your aims. Therefore this means that before starting any training you should decide what it is that you want to improve and then choose exercises that will achieve this.
I decided that I wanted to improve the strength in my upper body, meaning that I would be focusing on the all the muscles in my arms, the abdomen, the chest and the back. The exercises I chose were suitable to improving the strength in these muscle groups as they call upon these muscle groups to lift the load. I didn’t incorporate exercises on my lower body as I was not training to improve those muscles.
Overload
To improve any kind of fitness for a particular body part you have to make it work harder than it has been worked before. Overloading a muscle in this way will make it adapt over time to the increased demand which is being put upon it making it fitter.
Overloading the body can be done by increasing how many times you train a week; or the intensity of your workout; or the duration you spend exercising. By increasing any one of these you will overload the body.
However it is important not to push the body too far. When I am weight training I will not overload the body by trying to lift weights which are beyond my capability. I will increase the weight I am lifting gradually so that I do not injure myself, but still have the same result in my overloading my body.
Progression
This principle relate to the previous. The body cannot adapt to the increased intensity of the tasks it is being asked to be perform in an instant, and instead adapts gradually. If you exercise too hard before your body is ready to cope with the demands injury will occur such as torn muscles.
Reversibility
When training it is important to understand that however much you improve your fitness whilst training, if you stop training you will loose any fitness you gained and return back to the state of fitness you were before you began training.
Therefore if I want to keep my fitness I will have to keep training throughout the season.
I will know if I have been overtraining because I will see these signs: sleeping problems; soreness and joint pains; tiredness; loss of appetite and colds or flu’s. However this should not be the case as I have spaced the training sessions out, leaving a day or more of rest between each session. This means that my muscles should have sufficient enough time to recover before the next training session.
MONITERING
Over the five sessions I have now completed I have been pleased with improvement I have achieved in strengthening my upper body. Although some of the sessions were quite tough I found that the program was not too hard in intensity and was at a suitable level for me to achieve my aims. By the end of my sessions I had strengthened every each major muscle group in my upper body. Also my heart rate 3 beats per minute and I was not expecting for this to happen. However the change is unlikely to have been caused by my personal exercise plan, but rather the rugby training sessions I had twice a week. This is because strength training is not a cardiovascular exercise such as running or swimming. Therefore when strength training my heart rate does not enter my training zone, which is between 60 and 80% of my maximum heart rate. Training in this zone would have an affect on my heart rate, because I would be working hard meaning my heart would be working hard to keep pumping blood to provide oxygen to my muscles. Like any other muscle in the body the heart would adapt to the high intensity and become stronger, reducing my heart rate, as it needs less beats to pump the same amount of blood because of the increased strength of its walls. After some sessions I did feel some soreness which could have been prevented by warming down more thoroughly. I feel happy with my progress throughout the sessions, but in order to keep increasing my strength I must keep training in the same way. If I stop training my muscles will atrophy and I will have the same weaknesses as a player that I did before starting the training program.
EVALUATION
Evaluation of planning
Before the program I carried out the following tests which would help me gauge the improvement I had gained over the course of my personal exercise plan.
The program which I designed was at the right level for me as I did not feel whilst doing the program that it was too demanding so that I couldn’t complete the sessions. Having said that the program was not too easy as I did see improvements within myself meaning I used the training principles correctly.
I think that the exercises were in the right order as best as they could be. I did not want to put exercises which would use the same muscle groups next to each other in a circuit as this would make the muscles extremely tired and then through over exertion I could cause damage to them. However as I was exercising only the muscles in my upper body, and many of the machines I was using involved using more than one muscle group did mean that I did get tired, and had to rest for longer between sets. In between some exercises if I was feeling tired in a muscle group such as the arms, I would do some extra abdominal work as this would give a chance for those muscles to recuperate, and I did not find the abdominal work as taxing. I especially found the press ups difficult after the biceps curls and seated row, so I think it could have been placed somewhere else in the circuit to give the arm muscles a chance to recover.
I applied the training principles effectively in my programme. I firstly specified exactly what I wanted to achieve through my training programme, and then I began firstly training at a comfortable level. I did not attempt to rep maximums, as I knew this would probably result in injury. But this did not mean I did not overload the body; I was working for a greater duration than I had before and at a higher intensity. This meant that my body was being worked harder than it had done before. I applied the principle of progression by not realising I would not see changes in my body overnight, but gradually. Therefore I did not train everyday or too hard, but spaced out my training sessions so that my body could adapt to the changes progressively. This would give me the greatest benefit from my training programme.
The exercises I choose were the correct ones for my aims to improve my upper body strength to make myself a better rugby player. The bicep curls, press ups, pull ups, seated row,, wrist curls, front press and the triceps pushdown all were used in strengthening my biceps, triceps, forearms and wrists. This is required in the game of rugby for ability to hold on to the ball in the tackle, to help tackling and to hand off the opposition. The 3 way crunches and sit ups were the correct exercises for improving my abdominal strength, which is necessary in rugby to help break tackles. The lat pull down, single arm lateral raise, bench press, upright row, front press and seated row were all used to improve the my chest, shoulder and back muscles. These are also important in rugby to break tackles, and for strength in mauls.
Evaluation of Performing
During the training programme I applied the training principles to good effect. I began training with weights that were not too stressful and difficult for me to lift. This was so that I would gradually build up to weights which I would overload my body with, but this could not be too soon as If I were to do this my body would be put under too much strain, which could cause me to injure myself. Therefore I began weight training at a level which was below my maximum so that I would first progressively build up my strength. After I had become used to these basic weights I began to overload by increasing the weight I was lifting. This was of course difficult as I was working my body harder than it had been worked before to lift these more demanding weights, however I had progressively built up to overloading and my body was able to cope with the added demand of these weights. Now that I had overcome this barrier in lifting a heavier weight, I would again progress by adapting my body to lifting this weight and then once again overloading it with an even heavier load.
The exercises chosen were the correct ones in order to increase my upper body strength as they required the muscle groups I was trying to strengthen to lift loads. I was not aiming in my program to increase my aerobic fitness or explosive leg power and therefore my program did not incorporate any swimming, or sprint exercises. The exercises I choose were specific to the aims I wanted to meet. The other aspects of my game were being improved in team practices. This is an important of rugby to train as a team as the game is played by 15 players who must know how to work together in order to be the most successful they can. In rugby training sessions I performed skills training such as passing, and also trained in improving cardiovascular fitness. Therefore I did not need to focus my personal exercise plan on these aspects of my game, which helped me to choose the right exercises to perform in order to improve my upper body strength.
The program was easily manageable as I could perform the sessions in my school’s weights room and for no charge, so it was more convenient than joining a gym. I could train on any day of the week I wanted whether it be at lunch or after school. The program was manageable because of its flexibility; if I could not do a session on a scheduled day, if I was too tired or for any other reason, then I could make it the next day or very soon after. When using the weights room there were obviously other people using the room so if they were using a machine that I wanted to use, I could use a different machine or free weight and come back to it later, which meant that my program was manageable as it was not too rigid.
Whilst performing my program I found that it was difficult to perform some exercises as the muscle groups they involved were too similar to the previous exercise and therefore I found I had to take a rest to allow the muscles to recover before I did another set. However by in large the exercises were mostly in the correct order, as I kept apart exercises which used the same or very similar muscle groups. For example I did not perform press ups and triceps pushdown consecutively. I also used sit ups as a rest between exercises involving the back and arm muscles as I found that it would give these muscles a suitable rest before doing another set, and my abdominal muscles would not tire as easily.
I enjoyed my training programme as I found that it was pleasing to watch see myself get stronger over the course of the programme, which would help me to become a better player. I was motivated to continue training and not miss a session if the weather was bad because I could see the change that was occurring and I wanted to further that development. This is the reason I am carrying on the program after the scheduled sessions, because I want to become a better player of the game and do not want to see the hard work that I have put into the program deteriorate and for me become less fit again.
Evaluation of monitoring
The exercises chosen were the correct ones in order to increase my upper body strength as they required the muscle groups I was trying to strengthen to lift loads. I was not aiming in my program to increase my aerobic fitness or explosive leg power and therefore my program did not incorporate any swimming, or sprint exercises. The exercises I choose were specific to the aims I wanted to meet. The other aspects of my game were being improved in team practices. This is an important of rugby to train as a team as the game is played by 15 players who must know how to work together in order to be the most successful they can. In rugby training sessions I performed skills training such as passing, and also trained in improving cardiovascular fitness. Therefore I did not need to focus my personal exercise plan on these aspects of my game, which helped me to choose the right exercises to perform in order to improve my upper body strength.
Whilst performing my program I found that it was difficult to perform some exercises as the muscle groups they involved were too similar to the previous exercise and therefore I found I had to take a rest to allow the muscles to recover before I did another set. However by in large the exercises were mostly in the correct order, as I kept apart exercises which used the same or very similar muscle groups. For example I did not perform press ups and triceps pushdown consecutively. I also used sit ups as a rest between exercises involving the back and arm muscles as I found that it would give these muscles a suitable rest before doing another set, and my abdominal muscles would not tire as easily.
When I was in the first session of my exercise programme I felt that the warm down I did was not thorough enough which resulted in me feeling soreness in my muscles afterward, due to the accumulation of lactic acid in the muscle. The warm down I implemented in that session was only some light stretching which I did not do for the required 5 minutes. After that session I made sure that I would stretch properly after each session and go for the warm down jog.
Performing in the session 5 made me tired afterwards, as well as sleepy. I found that it was difficult to concentrate in the lessons after this session and generally I felt lazy after it. However after session 3, when I improved the weights I was lifting, I found that after the session I felt full of energy and pleased because of what I had seen myself achieve in a relatively short amount of time.
The results I achieved were what I expected in that I would see improvements in the weight I would be able to lift. However over five sessions I did not expect to see such an improvement which I was quite impressed with. I knew that I would achieve my aim in increasing the strength in my upper body but I did not how much I would do this by. I expected to improve because I knew that I had not previously been weight training and two sessions a week would mean overloading my muscles causing them to adapt and the muscle fibres to expand. When you begin to weights train you do expect to see a quick improvement in the early sessions because the body doesn’t have to adapt too much to lift the required weight. However as the weights become more heavier it becomes harder for the body to adapt and it takes longer than it would do to adapt lifting lighter weights.
Final Evaluation
The above table compares the tests I conducted before carrying out my PEP with the results I obtained after having completed it. Since beginning my exercise plan I have grown by 2cm but this is not influenced by the exercises I did within the programme. The distance I jumped in the standing broad jumped also increased by 6 cm, however this is not due to my PEP as I did not incorporate any exercises concerning my leg muscles into it. This may have been influenced by the amount I have grown or the jump just being better than the previous one, or my rugby training helping my leg power. My back muscle strength increased by a significant amount and this is to do directly with the back muscle exercises I have been doing in the weights room. My weight has remained constant but my body fat has decreased which may be involved with more body fat being converted to muscle, or the change could have been brought about by a change in my diet. The speed in the agility run decreased but again this is not concerned with my PEP but other factors, such as rugby training.
The programme I found was easily managed as I could choose the days I wanted to train suited on the way I was feeling and other plans I had. The exercises were flexible and I found that I could change the order of the exercises suitable to which stations were available without disturbing the effectiveness of my programme.
As a result of the programme I have made the following improvements in my strength:
This table shows that during the sessions I have in improved in all the exercises undertaken. It is evident that the training programme has made me stronger in the upper body, which well help me to become a better player. If I continue with the programme I would see my strength improve even further.
I enjoyed completing the programme very much, as achieving your goals and seeing yourself improve is very pleasing and gives you a lot of motivation to keep going on with the training. Knowing that you have improved yourself in your physical fitness is good to know as it can boost your confidence. I think that I worked to my limit as I felt at the end of the session that I had done as much as I could have done.
If I were to continue with the programme, which I am confident I will as I want to continue to improve myself as a player, I would change the programme by incorporating free weights into the program, which are good for developing power. I would use the free weight bench press, and do exercises such the clean and jerk. Having developed my strength I could develop my power by using heavier weights and decreasing the number of repetitions, performing each repetition quickly. This would mean that I would be exerting the maximum amount of strength over the minimum amount of time, which would cause me to become more powerful. Also I would look at using the leg press to increase the strength of the leg muscles. I would try and develop the explosive power in my legs which would help me to accelerate quicker, meaning that I would be able to beat defenders and make me a more accomplished player.
