Netball circuit training?

GCSE Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

Danielle Molyneux

Physical education coursework

Netball circuit

What is circuit training?

Circuit training is a method of training. A circuit 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.

A circuit 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.

Specificity

My circuit-training program is for netball and is based over a 5-week period. The 12 stations are specifically suited to what is needed to play netball. The circuit is specified for a central player i.e. wing attack, wing defence and centre players. It is aimed at muscular endurance, speed, agility, cardiovascular endurance and ball skills. These are all needed for a netball player.

For example:

Muscular endurance – to keep muscles contracting for the full length of the match without them becoming tired or weak.
Muscular strength – the force of muscles exert when they contract. This is important for netball because the throws have to be quick and powerful.
Speed – the ability to perform a movement in a short period of time. This is essential for netball, for example to be able to sprint to receive a pass and getting away from your defender.
Agility – the ability to change direction at speed and control movements of the whole body. This is needed to dodge pass a defender or intercepting.
Cardiovascular endurance – the ability of the heart, lungs and circulation to deliver oxygen and remove waste during exercise. This is essential all the way through a match.
Ball skills – passing, dodging, receiving, intercepting. These are all motor skills as they are skills involving movement.

Overload

To improve the fitness of a part of the body, you need to overload it. This 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 2 ways:

By increasing the frequency of exercise – how often you do it, for example start by exercising for 40 seconds then increase it to 50, then 60 each week
By increasing the intensity of the exercise – how hard you work, for example run faster or rest for a shorter amount of time

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.

Prediction:

I think that the 5 weeks will affect my fitness a little as long as I work as hard as I can every week. Each different exercise should be improved and I am hoping my ball skills etc. will develop with the simple skills that are included in my circuit.

Planning:

This is a preview of the whole essay

Prediction:

Planning:

I think that I am of average fitness for my age. I have become less fit as I have grown up. For example I quit swimming recently and this has meant I have become slowly more unfit. I also broke my collarbone, which stopped me from doing particular exercises for a long time. I do however; involve myself in a lot of sport during the week such as;

I try and join in with all extra curricular activities
I started badminton in January and have just began squash

I wish to become more fit and improve both my intercepting and ball handling skills in netball.

In my circuit I will take these into account by finding a point on the wall and jumping to it – it will be raised every week. I could also run in to receive a pass at an angle, which would help both my footwork and ball handling skills in netball.

In the bleep test I got a level 7 although I do have a knee injury, which has affected my performance. I am not happy with the result.

Pre-programme:

Awareness of safety aspects:

There are a few potential risks in my circuit such as the ball handling skills. This is where there will be a feeder who will throw the netball in front of the runner who will run at an angle to receive a pass and land on their outside foot. This could be dangerous because if the ball is missed or thrown inaccurately it could roll and interfere with other apparatus. To ensure this does not happen I will move this activity so that it is out of the way.

The order in which the exercises are to be done are:

Warm up >> stretches >> the circuit >> warm down

Before the session I will take a short jog, which helps the blood to circulate more quickly and increases the heart rate, warms up the muscles and prepares the body for exercise. I will also stretch all the muscles so I do not strain or ‘pull’ any muscles during the session. It warms and loosens the muscles. This will prevent any injuries to the muscles and joints. The stretches will last 10-15 seconds each.

After the session I will stretch, which prevents lactic acid build up and blood pooling, it also takes the heart rate back to normal, therefore cooling the body down.

If I am going to overload my muscles in the circuit I shall put – for example all the leg exercises together and make sure I pay particular attention to stretching all the muscles thoroughly before and after the session.

Appropriateness or chosen exercises:

One of my exercises is running at an angle to receive a pass. This will help with my netball skills and will teach me to stay on my toes ready to sprint into a space and get the ball quickly. By running at an angle it makes it harder for the opponent to intercept the ball.

Another exercise is where I use the ladder, one sprints through it and each foot goes into every section. It improves footwork and helps with dodging, as you need small quick movements when you need to get past a defender to receive the ball. It can also improve leg muscles, especially the gastrocnemius.

Appropriate application

I will complete my circuit once a week for 5 weeks. In order to help me improve each week I will increase the time I spend on each apparatus but keep the length of rest the same, which will be 45 seconds.

For example:

Week 1 – exercise for 40 seconds – rest for 45 seconds
Week 2 – exercise for 45 seconds – rest for 45 seconds
Week 3 – exercise for 50 seconds – rest for 45 seconds
Week 4 – exercise for 55 seconds – rest for 45 seconds
Week 5 – exercise for 60 seconds – rest for 45 seconds

This increases the amount of work I am doing which should help me improve.

I will also make the exercises harder for instance one of my exercises include jumping to reach a point. Each week I will increase the height of the point by 3cm. This means I will be working harder and for a longer period of time. The exercise helps with my leg muscles.

My two strongest sessions were Stations 2 and 3. In both I beat the first set scores. I thought the resting time would affect my performances more than it did. They did not make a significant difference in my results. In most the results showed an improvement overall, but in a few there was a decrease in improvement.

The results are varied and so are the heart rates. This is probably because I did little sport for a six weeks and I became gradually less fit.

Evaluation

My circuit was easy to set up and it was easy to record my progress. I thought the way I set up my circuit was good because it included variety - in parts the training was easy and in others more intensive. I feel I worked as best I could and I enjoyed it but felt it is easier to do it against someone because that means you have something to beat, because in a circuit you set your own goals and if you are not motivated then these can be very low, and it is easy to not work hard.

I felt my circuit worked on all aspects of training. The exercises were in the correct order because some were skills and some were overload and improving muscle strength - there was variety. I changed the length of time we were resting and exercising for to improve endurance and progression etc. A lot of the time I felt very tired after the circuits but it also made me want to do it more because I knew it was improving my fitness and skill in netball. I did not think there would be any drastic change in my fitness but I thought there would be more effect than there is. I think this was because the training was so spread out; I would have to train more frequently for my fitness to improve more noticeably.

In general my circuit program was successful, it tested each area of fitness I wanted it to. Although it was successful, because there were so many people doing their own circuit program there wasn’t enough equipment, groups had to be formed so the equipment could be shared.

Station 1, sidestepping around cones, this was a successful station because I felt my agility and speed had improved. Station 2, the ladder, this helped with my speed and small stepping however I do not feel it improved my speed and endurance as much as I had hoped it would have and this shows in the results as they are very mixed. Station 3, step-ups, I found this station tiring yet I feel it help it improved the endurance of my quadriceps and hamstrings. Station 4, sit ups, after each time I performed this exercise I could feel the abdominal muscles becoming stronger. I improved throughout the six weeks. Station 5, shooting, this station tested my accuracy. This was one of the easier stations as shooting isn’t a very strenuous workout, but I did improve over the weeks. Station 6, running a distance of 12 meters as quickly as I could proved to be very strenuous work, as I had to push myself to go as fast as I could. I felt it improved my muscular and cardiovascular endurance. Station 7, triceps curls, this was painful and I had to make sure the technique was correct because of my shoulder. Station 8, hurdles, I had to jump over these which proved to be harder than I had firstly anticipated because it was using mainly my gastrocnemus, and this was quite painful. But I felt my endurance improved, however the results do not show this, as they are very changeable. Station 9, Jumping to a point tested both my legs as after every fifth jump I would turn around, I pushed myself to jump to the point and I raised the point every week, I think this helped with improving my quadriceps’ strength, it did not improve my leg muscles significantly. Station 10 was jumping with a twist the help the abdominal muscles. This tested my motivation because it was tiring and I could feel my abdominal muscles getting stronger. Overall I improved. Station 11, passing, this helped with accuracy and my speed. Both have improved. Station 12, skipping, helped with everything, especially my leg muscles and cardiovascular endurance. However, overall I do not think it improved my fitness noticeably. I found they circuit very intense and quite tiring, but it was overall effective and improved all areas I had hoped.

Although I had improved during the five-week period I had only improved slightly, so if I repeated this program I would do more weeks so improvements could be noticeable. If the circuit was not made harder the body will stop improving in areas of muscular endurance and aerobic respiration. The body must train to prevent reversibility. This is when the affects of training decrease and the benefits are lost There was a decrease in my bleep test score; this was due to the fact that I did not finish the training within 5 consecutive weeks, there was a six-week gap after the first 3 training periods. I think that the summer did not improve my fitness. However I do think my skills have improved mildly.

I think that my bleep test and step test went lower because I took a break for 6 weeks over the summer and therefore the results are very spread out.