I also did two tests for flexibility, the sit and reach test and the back flexibility test. The sit and reach test uses a bench and a ruler. The bench is turned on the side so that the flat surface is facing towards you. Sit on the floor with legs straight and heel against the bench, reach as far as you can and measure how far past your heels your fingertips reach.
The back flexibility test is when the person being tested lies on their front on the floor, they then lift their head up as far as possible and the distance from their chin to the floor is recorded.
To test for power I did two jumps, these were the vertical jump and the standing long jump. For the vertical jump the person stands side-on to a wall and the highest their fingertips can reach standing is marked with chalk. They then flex their knees and jump as high as they can, the point where their fingertips touch is recorded. The distance between the two points can then be used as an indication of power.
The standing long jump is a jump with two feet from a standing start. The distance jumped is recorded, from the shortest distance where the feet landed.
The test for agility is the Illinois run. This test also tests for speed. The course is set up as below and the athlete must run the path of the arrows. The athlete must start lying down on their front with their hands by their shoulders. The time taken to run the course is the indication of the athlete’s agility.
The aim of my fitness plan will be to improve my cardio-vascular and muscular endurance. This will improve my overall game play.
Every player in the team needs endurance and the goalkeeper is no exception. Cardiovascular endurance is needed so the muscles that are being used can get enough oxygen to function properly. Muscular endurance is important so the muscles do not get too tired. Endurance is needed so the keeper remains at their best for the entire game.
A training programme must suit the person it is being made for that is why the tests above are important. A training programme also needs to be written specifically for pre-season training or in season training. A big factor in training is recuperation. The body must have time to recover from the strain of training and competition.
The four principles of training are SPOR. This stands for Specificity, progression, overload and reversibility.
Specificity: Every person needs a different training programme that is specific to his or her level of fitness and to the sport. My fitness programme will be specific to my age, hockey and the results of my fitness tests.
Progression: Making steady progress, increasing amount of training. Most of the progression is at the start of Programme.
Overload: Making the body work at a higher level to get fitter. Do this by increasing either frequency, intensity or duration. In my fitness programme I will use overload by increasing the time that I am working.
Reversibility: Fitness level will go down if training is stopped.
A training programme can be planned using FITT. This is frequency, intensity, time and type. Frequency is how often you train. Rest is very important in frequency. After a hard work out at least a days rest should be taken. Intensity is how hard you are training. Time is how long you are training for. Type is what type of activity and for which part of the body.
There are different training methods, which improve different areas of fitness. The aim of my programme will be to improve my cardio-vascular endurance and my muscular endurance.
There are different methods to improve endurance; these are circuit, continuous, fartlek and interval training.
Circuit: - Different activities in a circuit. This method is easily adapted to a specific sport. It can include weight training and aerobic exercise. Doing more reps at each activity, resting for less time or doing the whole circuit quicker can achieve overload.
Continuous: - This means there is no resting. It can improve aerobic fitness but it doesn’t improve sprinting so is not ideal for hockey.
Fartlek: - This training is all about changing speed and intensity. Good for sports that need different paces like hockey. Increasing the speeds of each section or running uphill achieves overload.
Interval: - This is fixed patterns of exercise. It is repetitions and sets of repetitions. It can mix aerobic and anaerobic exercise. Overload is achieved by increasing reps or sets or by allowing less rest time.
Another factor that needs to be considered when writing fitness programme is periodicity, periodicity is the amount of time, which a training programme is planned for.
There are four types:
- Megacycle- four-year block where the long term-goal is a major championship e.g. Olympic games.
- Macrocycle- One or two year block which may include an intermediate major championship such as the European championships.
- Mesocycle- Monthly or phasic blocks within a season, that is pre-, mid-, or post season.
- Microcycle- Weekly blocks, where individual training phases can be planned and minor adjustments made to other cycles if they are insufficient or over ambitious.
My fitness programme will be a microcycle as I will be changing the programme weekly, this will be to produce overload and progression.
For a training programme to be effective all of these factors must be considered. Another factor that should be considered when designing a training programme is diet. The diet of an athlete is very important as the energy for exercise is gained from the food we eat.
Carefully planned nutrition must provide an energy balance and a nutrient balance. The nutrients are:
- Proteins - essential to growth and repair of muscle and other body tissues.
- Fats - one source of energy and important in relation to fat soluble vitamins.
- Carbohydrates - our main source of energy.
- Minerals - those inorganic elements occurring in the body and which are critical to its normal functions.
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Vitamins - water and fat soluble play important roles in many chemical processes in the body.
- Water - essential to normal body function - as a vehicle for carrying other nutrients and because 60% of the human body is water.
- Roughage - the fibrous indigestible portion of our diet essential to health of the digestive system
For a balanced diet Protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals are needed. In a balanced diet 55% of food we eat should be carbohydrates. This is because carbohydrates provide energy for exercise. There are two types simple and complex, simple carbohydrates are found in sweets and cakes but these are not the ones needed for long-term training. Complex carbohydrates should be the biggest part of every meal, they can be found in bread, pasta and potatoes. Enzymes in the gut break these down into glucose. Some is used immediately but the rest is converted to glycogen and stored in the liver and muscles. Proteins are important as they help the body grow and repair. Sprinters need muscle power so will eat lots of protein for muscle growth.
A 10 minute warm up and warm down should be performed before and after each of the activities in the training programme. This will normally consist of a light jog for 5minutes, and then some stretches. Some diagrams of stretches that can be used are shown on the next page.
In all training there must be a warm up and warm down. A warm up is important to increase blood flow to muscles, stretch muscles and joints to prevent injury. Warm downs are needed to replace the oxygen debt in muscles and remove lactic acid that could cause stiffness. Stretches should always be performed at the start and end of every session of exercise. They are important at the start so the muscles warm up and you are less likely to pull or strain a muscle. Stretches should be performed at the end of exercise to release the lactic acid that is trapped in the muscle, causing stiffness later on.
A diagram of the stretches I will perform during my warm-up and warm-down are shown on the next page.
Because the aim of my programme is to improve my cardio-vascular endurance and also my muscular endurance, the best method of training for me would be a circuit training session. This is because the individual stations can be changed to suit the performer of the circuit this is specificity. The circuit will improve my cardio-vascular fitness because your heart rate is always above rest, so you are working continuously.
In my circuit training sessions I will be working with two other people. We will all do the circuit together; this is so when we do the circuit it will have an element of competition. This will motivate us to keep going with the circuit. My circuit will consist of 8 stations, I will be working for 30 seconds then resting for 30 seconds. Between the circuits I will rest for two minutes, during this rest I will walk so my heart rate does not return to rest. This is to make sure that the circuit is still the continuous training method. The 8 exercises that I will be doing are: Skipping, burpeze, step-up, press-up, tuck-jumps, sit-ups, step-ups with weights, bench jumps. I will always do the exercises in that order to avoid confusion.
The aim of the different exercises in my circuit session are shown below.
- Skipping- Improves muscular endurance of the gastrocnemus, quadriceps and the hamstrings.
- Burpeze- Muscular endurance of quadriceps hamstrings.
- Step-ups-cardio-vascular endurance, muscular endurance of quads and hamstrings.
- Press-ups- Muscular endurance of bicep, triceps, pectorals.
- Tuck-jumps-Muscular endurance of quads, hamstrings and gastrocnemus.
- Sit-ups-Muscular endurance of abdominals
- Step-ups with weights- Muscular endurance of quads, hamstrings, bicep and triceps.
- Bench jumps- Muscular endurance of quads, hamstrings and gastrocnemus.
My training programme will also consist of a session a week to improve my cardio-vascular fitness. I will achieve this by using the continuous training method. This method ensures the heart is working above rest for a certain period of time with no rest in between.
This session will be either a rowing or cycling session, these activities are easy to do as all I will need is an exercise bike or the rower. I don’t need anyone else with me to do this session. There are no real safety considerations for using the rowing machine or the exercise bike.
When cycling and rowing, the muscle that this exercise is aimed at is the heart. Making the heart work above rest for long periods of rest will increase the size and strength of the heart. This will allow the heart to pump more blood around the body in one beat. This will reduce the resting heart rate.
The safety considerations for the circuit training session will be different for each exercise. The main safety consideration for all of the circuit training will be the amount of space available to do the circuit in. e.g. when skipping there must be enough room so that nobody gets hit with the skipping ropes. The equipment involved will be skipping rope, step for step-ups, dumbbells and a bench. This equipment will need to be checked that it is suitable for use before every session. The equipment will need to be set out so that it is easily accessible during the circuit, also so there is enough room to perform the exercises safely. The circuit training session will be performed in the sports hall, so there will be enough room to set out the equipment safely. Also there is enough room to perform the warm-up and cool-down inside.
I will also be performing a training session at my hockey club, In these sessions different aspects of fitness are being worked on, there is also lots of work to improve skills during this session.
I will produce overload and progression in my fitness programme by increasing the amount of time I am working for. In the circuit training sessions I will increase the amount of time I am doing each exercise form, whilst keeping the rest time the same. I will also increase the amount of circuits I will perform. To produce overload and progression whilst rowing and cycling I will increase the amount of time I am working for, as this is continuous training there is no need to consider rest time.
The detail of how much progression there will be in my circuit training and cardio-vascular training are shown in my fitness timetable on the next page.
Evaluation
I have produced a training programme for a hockey goalkeeper. The aim of this fitness programme was to improve my cardio-vascular and muscular endurance. To measure the improvement in my level of fitness I performed the following fitness tests :- Multi-stage fitness test, queens college step test, sit-ups and press-ups. I performed the Multi-stage fitness test and the queens college step test, as these tests indicate the level of cardio-vascular fitness. Sit-ups and press-ups indicate the level of local muscular endurance. These were the two components of fitness that my training programme aimed to improve.
My results of these tests are shown below, compared to my results before the fitness programme and also the National averages.
I did not perform the multistage fitness test before the programme, due to injury, so I cannot compare these results. This is why it is usefull to do 2 tests for each component of fitness. By looking at my results for the queen’s college step test, I can see that my cardio-vascular fitness has improved due to my fitness programme.
The reasons my cardio-vascular endurance improves was because of the continuous training I did. This was rowing or cycling plus the circuit training session. There was also some continuous training at my club training session.
developed all the different aspects of my fitness.
The chosen method of training and the specific exercises were relevant to the game of basketball and the level of intensity was suitable for me. The overload and progression worked well and defiantly made me work hard. I now
understand how to implement gradual changes to the intensity without
risking injury and fatigue. I also have a better understanding of the need for
adequate recovery time and the importance of a proper cool-down period.
Before following this PEP I used to only spend time warming-up.
The exercises were followed safely and the quick safety check of equipment was carried out each session.
The retest results show I have improved in all areas of fitness. I was particularly pleased with the vertical jump and flexibility results. These improvements have allowed me to be more effective in the matches I am playing and I am starting to make less mistakes in my passing and shooting skills. I also seem to be more effective under the basket when rebounding. However I still feel I need to
develop my upper body strength.
I found the evaluation of each individual session useful and will continue to do this in the future, not only for training but matches to make my goal
setting more effective.
The PEP helped my levels of motivation, as I wanted to constantly strive for
improvement as well as my levels of concentration. Because I was getting tired I found I had to focus on the technique and I have started to transfer this to the game situation which has helped my skill performance.
I will continue to incorporate circuit training into my overall programme and aim to gradually increase the work intensity, after reducing the recovery time between the circuits.
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