The training session
Every training session has three parts. The warm-up, the training activity and the cool down.
The warm up
What it does
- It helps you prepare mentally.
- It increases the heart rate
- It increases the blood flow.
- It warms muscles and makes them more flexible
- It warms and loosens joints
- Reduces the risk of injury to muscles and joints
- Stretching the main joints is also included in the warm up
The training activity
It could be any training method or a practice match.
What it does
Depending on the activity it can:
- Improve your fitness
- Sharpen your skills
- Improve teamwork
The cool down
What it does
- Prevents soreness by keeping the circulation up
- So that more oxygen reaches muscles to clear lactic acid way
- Loosens tight muscles so they won’t get stiff later
- There is also evidence that it helps you perform better next time
Warm ups and cool downs are essential for every sports activity. They are very important in preventing injury.
Introduction
I have been asked to plan a training programme for a particular sport over a period of six weeks. Each session should be 45 minutes each. I am going to design the training programme for football. I have chosen football as this is not a sport I know a lot about and would like to find out more and improve my skills. The training programme would improve my fitness and also my skills. I will also use the weights room for some of the sessions, as we are fortunate to have the weight room facility as I can use weight training to increase muscle strength and tone. To improve I must use repetitions and sets. We have a selection of weight training equipment available.
Weight training is easy to tell what load you are using, it’s easy to increase the load, it’s easy to work on different muscle groups to suit the specific sport.
Football is a sport that requires strength in all major body parts with particular emphasis on the shoulder girdle, back, hips, and legs. It is also a sport where most injuries are caused by too-tight and inflexible muscles, so stretching and flexibility routines are extremely important, not only to help avoid those injuries, but also to improve agility and speed. A football player, whatever position he plays, needs quickness and power.
I will take down results after every test to monitor my progress.
I am going to include two fitness tests in my training programme. These include the Bleep test and the Cooper Run. I will perform them at the beginning and the end of the six weeks to see if I have improved. I am going to include weight training and certain exercises that can help including a football assault course that I will be carrying out in week 6.
Training Methods
Circuit Training
Circuit training is a method of training. A circuit usually has 8 to 15 stations, where at each station a different exercise is carried out for a certain amount of time. Circuit training can improve muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, aerobic fitness, muscular strength, speed and agility, depending on what stations you have. Circuit training
A circuit-training program may also be designed for a certain sport. Circuits for this purpose will include exercises to improve all the muscles and skills associated with the sport. Example: A circuit training program for football should include skills
Like jumping, kicking or dribbling.
The good reasons to include Circuit training can include a big variety of exercises, which makes it fun. It is also very adaptable. You can design a circuit to develop one or more aspects of fitness, or to suit a sport. It is an efficient way to use training time. The circuit can be indoors or outdoors.
I will try to include all the principles of training in my training programme
Principles of training
Specificity
My training programme is for football and it is based over a six-week period. The exercises are specifically suited to what is needed to play football. The training programme is specified for an outfield player, as there are no goalkeeping skills involved in this circuit.
My training programme is aimed to improve the following over a six-week period. These are all needed for an outfield football player:
- Muscular endurance
- Muscular strength
- Speed,
- Agility
- Cardiovascular endurance
- Ball skills
Muscular Endurance is needed in football to keep the muscles contracting for the full length of the match without them becoming tired or weak.
Muscular Strength is the force your muscles exert when they contract. This is an important part of football as it is a contact sport and it is also very physical, players need to be able to guard the ball and hold other players off when they are challenging for the ball. Also muscular strength is useful when taking a throw-in, good muscular strength in the abdominal muscles is required to throw the ball higher and further to reach a player that is a long distance away from the touch-line.
Speed is the ability to perform a movement in a short period of time. This is essential in football, for example to be able to sprint after a through ball or tackle an opponent who is through on goal.
Agility is the ability to change direction quickly and control movements of the whole body. This is needed to be able to change direction quickly while dribbling or to collect a loose ball.
Cardiovascular Endurance is the ability of the heart, lungs and circulation to deliver oxygen and remove waste during exercise. This is essential for the player to keep a constant pace all the way through the match. It would be better to improve this by running long distances or cycling.
Ball Skills: - the skills in football are all open skills. This means that the movement will change in a different environment. A skill is a particular action or set of actions. These are essential for football as they cover everything from a simple pass to more complicated skills of dribbling the ball in different directions. These are all motor skills as they are skills involving movement.
Obviously not all of these can be covered in 6 weeks but by using all the different types of training including circuit training and weight training, a few of these could be improved.
I will be training once a week to start off with. I will then increase this to twice in the third week and then 3 times by week 4. I will start off with 30 minutes training sessions. I will then increase this by 5 minutes every week. By week 6 I will have 45 minutes training sessions. A warm up and warm down must also be included.
Overload
To improve the fitness of a part of the body, you need to overload it. That means you need to make it work harder than usual. Over time, it adapts to meet the increased demand by getting fitter.
You can overload your body in three ways:
- By increasing the frequency of the exercise. In other words how often you do the exercise. For example start by exercising twice a week, then move up to three or four times a week.
- By increasing the intensity of the exercise. In other how hard you work. For example run faster or lift heavier weights.
- By increasing the time you spend on the exercise. If you are very unfit you might start off jogging just for 5 minutes a session, and work your way up week by week to 30 minutes a session.
Progression
Your body takes time to adapt to the increased demands on it. So you should build up your exercise level gradually. But once it reaches a certain level when it can comfortably deal with the level of exercise, it will not improve anymore. This is called plateauing. To prevent this from happening the exercises must be made progressively harder to ensure that the body continues to improve.
Reversibility
Your fitness level changes all the time and it will go down if you stop training. It takes much longer to gain fitness than to lose fitness. Therefore it is essential that exercise be carried out regularly to keep your fitness level up to scratch. I have made sure of this in my training programme by doing it on a regular basis.
Tedium
Tedium should be avoided in all training programmes. By using a variety of training methods we will keep our enthusiasm and not become bored.
Training programme
Each week then will be different. The reasons for doing the similar exercises would be so that averages could be taken in the results and would be easy to conclude and analyse. This method would also reduce tedium during the training programme.
Warm up
As I mentioned above, before every activity there should be a five-minute warm up. This is essential because the warm up would increase the blood flow to the muscles, stretch the muscles and concentrate the mind on the training.
Our warm up should include:
- A period of moderate exercise using the entire body, for example, light jogging.
- A period of gentle stretching. We should work on the joints most likely to be emphasized during our central training session. The main muscles that need to be stretched are:
1.Hamstrings
2.Quadriceps
3.Gastrocnemiuis
4.Triceps
5.Deltoids
6.Trapezium
- In your stretching include all four types of stretching: - static, passive, active and PNF stretching.
- Practising the various techniques and skills to be used in our training session. For example, a football player would perform some free kicks, throw-ins, etc.
Warm down
As I also mentioned above, before every activity there should be a five-minute warm down. This is essential because the warn down helps replace the oxygen debt in your muscles and also gets rid of the extra blood in your veins.
Safety points
- Always prepare the body for exercise
- Always wind the body down after exercise
- Always have your hair tied back
- Always take off any jewellery
- Always use instructions when using apparatus and equipment
- Never overload the body
- When using the weights room you should always make sure that the load is not too heavy as you can badly injure yourself.
- Weight training is not suitable for people under 16, as your frame is still immature and you can be injured easily.
I am going to do two tests at the beginning of the programme so that I can repeat them at the end of the 6 weeks and see the improvement made.
Tests
Cooper Run
When a whistle sounds, run around a track as many times as you can in 12 minutes. The amount you run is recorded. The more times and therefore more metres you can run the fitter you are.
Bleep Test
You must run between two lines about 20 metres apart. Start on the first bleep. Your foot must be on or over the next line when the next bleep sounds. The time between the bleeps gets shorter so you have to run faster. The levels go up to 15 and there are ten bleeps in each level. Record what level and what number bleep you get to.
Both of these exercises measure the amount of endurance, speed and agility. The results below are the average results of the exercises.
WEEK 1
Week 1 will be a circuit-training programme for football. This will be carried out just once and for 30 minutes only.
Equipment
- 3 Cones
- 20 Hoops
- Footballs
- 1 Measuring Tape
The Circuit
The orders in which the exercises are to be done are:
Warm up >> The Circuit >> Warm Down
Station One
On this station the cones will be placed like this:
2
3
1
On this station you have to start at the line, sprint to the first cone then sprint back to the line then sprint to the second cone, then sprint back to the line then sprint to the third cone, then back to the line. Then sprint to the second cone and back then to the first cone and back to the third cone and back to the line to complete the exercise. This counts as one ‘run’. Try to perform as many as you can in one minute. This will improve your speed, agility and muscular endurance of the quadriceps and hamstrings. All of these qualities would be useful in a football match.
Station Two
This station is a sit up exercise. Perform as many as you can in thirty seconds. These will improve muscular endurance in the abdominal muscles; this comes in handy when a throw-in needs to be thrown over a long distance. This is explosive strength because it is done in one explosive movement.
Station Three
This exercise station concentrates on a player’s chipping ability and accuracy. Twenty hoops should be placed 5m apart. Place a ball behind the line and chip it so it bounces in the first hoop, then chip a ball so it bounces in the second hoop and so on until you get to the twentieth hoop. See how many hoops you can chip in the hoops.
Station Four
This is a shooting exercise. Place two cones 5m apart, then line up five balls 10m away from the cones and one cone 2m behind each ball. Strike the first ball then turn around and sprint around the cone and strike the next ball then turn around and sprint to round the cone etc. this will improve muscular strength and accuracy. See how many of the five balls you can get between the two hoops.
Station Five
Use a minute to rest and relax. Some light stretching can be done to remove the lactic acid that has built up in your muscles during the first four exercises.
Station Six
The exercise on this station is ‘burpees’. Burpees are squat thrusts and star jumps merged together. Do a squat thrust then stand up and do a star jump. This is one ‘burpee’. This will improve your agility, cardiovascular endurance and muscular endurance and strength of the quadriceps and hamstrings. See how many you can do in one minute.
Station Seven
Place six cones 1m apart then dribble a ball in and out of them and sprint back to the start. This is one ‘dribble’. Try to do as many ‘dribbles’ as you can for 1 minute. This will improve ball skills, speed and agility.
Station Eight
The exercise on this station is kick-ups. Do as many as you can in one minute. This will improve ball control, and muscular endurance and also coordination. Try to use one foot and then the other and then try using both.
Station Nine
Set up four cones 5m apart. You stand 10m away from the cones. Get a partner to run to the first cone, you should time your pass so the ball reaches the cone at the exact time your partner reaches the cone. Do this with each cone. Try to use both feet to pass. See how many complete passes are done in 1 minute. This exercise will improve the ability to pass the ball accurately and ball control.
Once the circuit is finished, a warm down will take place.
The table below displays the average results of this circuit.
WEEK 2
In week 2, I used the used the weights room one day for 30 minutes.
WEEK 3
I now increased the training to 40 minutes per session
Press up’s
This test measures the muscular endurance of our chest and shoulder muscles, which play an important part in football. The press up test is carried out by doing as many press ups as possible in 1 minute. The more press-ups we can do the more fitter we are.
Free kicks
A square, which is 4m by 4m, is chalked in any place on a wall. The player should stand at least 10m away with a football. The point of the exercise is how many times out of fifty can you hit the square. Try to use both feet. This exercise measures accuracy, ball control and is useful in free kicks.
Penalties
With a partner have 40 penalty shots at a goal. Your partner will be the goalkeeper. You should aim for different spots in the goal to improve your accuracy and ball control. Try to use both feet. This exercise measures accuracy and ball control.
For the second session of this week I used the weights room
WEEK 4
Heading
This exercise needs a partner. A partner throws you the ball at an appropriate height. While the ball is in the air your partner must tell which spot of the goal to head it in. See how many of the headers out of 50 you can get in the correct spot. Ask your partner to vary the height and speed of the headers to improve your headers. This exercise improves accuracy and ball control.
Volleys
Your partner throws the ball and calls a spot in the goal and you have to try to get it in that spot. See how many volleys you can get out of 50. Ask your partner to vary the height and speed of the volleys to improve your volleys. This exercise improves accuracy and ball control.
For the second session of this week I used the weights room for 40 minutes.
Week 5
I used the weights room twice this week increasing it to 45 minutes per session. I also repeated The Circuit as in week 1. I found this a lot easier as I was a lot fitter by then. We can see this from the results.
Week 6
As this was the final week I decided to do something different. I put all my skills into practise and made up an assault course.
Football Assault Course
This ‘assault course’ is for the general skills of football. Start with shooting practise. Place 8 balls in a diagonal line. Place a ‘goal’ 18 m away. Run past each ball without stopping and shoot the balls in the goal. See how many balls you can get in.
Next there will be a ball and 10 cones. Dribble through the cones in a zigzag way as fast as you can.
Next is passing. There should be a 5m by 5m square. Do 30 passes between it to your partner on the other side. You should be standing 10m away from the square.
Next is chipping. There will be 10 hoops and 10 balls. They will each be 10m away from each other. Try to accurately chip each ball so it bounces in the hoop.
The key to this exercise is time and speed. The exercise is timed and it should be done as fast as possible. The faster the exercise the more skill involved.
I then completed my task by repeated the tests to see how the 6 weeks training programme helped me improve my fitness.
Results
Weights room
Here are my results from using the weights room
Recovery Rate
Resting rate = 64
100m run x 2 = 200m run - Heart rate = 66
5 minute break
100m run x 2 = 200m run - Heart rate = 67
2 minutes = Time to get back to resting pulse
Evaluation of Performance
In general my training programme was successful because it tested each area and principle of fitness that I wanted it to. I think that, my training programme not only tested my fitness and my football skills, it also improved them.
The shuttle runs, this station was very successful. By the end of the week, I had improved my speed as I did more runs in one minute. Improving my speed was an encouraging result of the training programme because; speed is an important factor for playing football. It also improved my agility and the endurance of my quadriceps and hamstrings.
The sit-up exercise was very tiring; after each time I performed this exercise I could feel my abdominal muscles stretching and becoming stronger. I improved throughout the five weeks because as my results show I could do more sit-ups at the end of the training programme than in the beginning of the training programme. But as a whole I improved the strength and endurance of my abdominal muscles.
Chipping balls into hoops, I found this exercise fairly uncomplicated. Although my accuracy and chipping ability are somewhat good, they still improved as a whole.
The shooting exercise tested my shooting and accuracy ability. This was one of the easier stations as shooting isn’t a very backbreaking work out, although I did improve in the five-week period. I could pinpoint a spot between the cones and then usually get it there. This improved my accuracy.
The burpees’ exercise was the exercise that I found quite difficult, during the training programme, as it was very tiring and challenging. Overall, this did improve my agility, cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance and strength of the quadriceps and hamstrings.
The dribbling exercise was a fairly easy exercise. I have improved on my speed and ball control. I noticed that I could do dribbling faster at the end of the training programme than at the beginning. I also noticed that I was not as tired as I was before.
The kick-ups exercise, I could not do kick ups when I first started, but I was able to do them by the end of the programme.
The passing exercise, this exercise tested my right and left foot, my accuracy and my speed, my left foot has improved a lot by doing this exercise, my right foot has slightly improved.
The 12 Minute Cooper Run was a very tiring exercise. It greatly improved my muscular endurance, speed and agility. To do it three times a week was very challenging, but I observed that at the end of the week, I could complete more metres than at the beginning of the week. This was a sign of improvement. I also got rid of the habit to start walking; I kept going at a steady jog throughout the run.
The Bleep Test needs a lot of muscular endurance, speed, agility and aerobic capacity. Especially just after completing the 12 minute Cooper Run, the results may have been a bit low.
The pull-ups were not very hard. They tested my muscular strength. I found that after doing the pull-ups my arms were very sore. I learned that it was better to do pull-ups at a constant speed than doing them quickly, because if you do them quickly then you tire out your voluntary muscles very quickly.
The press-ups were hard. They tested my muscular strength and maybe muscular endurance.
The free kick, penalties, headers and volleys exercise tested my accuracy at being able to pinpoint a spot to shoot at. My accuracy is good and I found that I was able to be even more accurate in my shooting and heading.
The ‘football assault course’ was just a way to reduce tedium but also to see if I could combine all of my football skills together. The key to the course was speed but also to fulfil each section as best as possible.
How did I find the training programme?
Evaluation of monitor
I found the training programme to be very intense and tiring, but very effective as my training programme tested all the areas I wanted it to. I was very tired though after completing each week of the program, my muscles were aching and my heart and breathing rate had increased drastically. The positive aspect was that I recovered quicker as I went on in the training programme.
If I was given another chance to perform he training programme again, I would have included more tests and exercises such as wall-sits, combination tests and dynamometer.
Although I had improved during the six-week period I had only improved slightly, so if I were repeating this programme I would make it last 12 weeks so improvements could be seen more easily. Once the training programme becomes too easy I would have to make it harder (overload) to affect reversibility. If the training programme is not made harder the body will stop improving in the areas of muscular endurance and anaerobic respiration. The body must train regularly to prevent reversibility. Reversibility is when the affects of training decrease and the benefits are lost.
I thought the programme was interesting. Because I used the weights room as well it made it much easier and not so boring. It was good as there was more variety and more things to improve on.
My health improved in both mental and physical. I felt good about myself while training as I was aiming myself to achieve results. I felt motivated as it was not boring which helped me to enjoy it more.
