- Press-ups: Press-ups are a very simple exercise to carry out, but they are very effective. They work on the muscles in the arms, and are essential exercises to carry out, if playing football. Press ups work on the biceps and triceps in the arm, and the deltoids in the shoulder region. The exercise should be done in the correct way to decrease the possibility of injury. Your back should be straight and toes pointing to the ground. The arms must be straight then from that they should be lowered so that your head nearly comes into contact with the ground. From this position you must raise yourself so that your arms are straight and this then repeat this whole process. They will increase the amount of upper body strength, which is needed in football. I have decided to include press-ups in my circuit, as over a period of time they will help to increase the amount of upper body strength. This is needed in football, as you use your arms to hold off anybody trying to tackle you, or to gain possession of the ball by using your upper body strength to knock the player off the ball.
- Foot to hand sprints: The main use of these exercises is to increase the amount of strength in your legs. They also help to increase speed and acceleration. Your hands must be placed flat on the floor to carry out the exercise, and your feet must sprint from your maximum reach with your legs to your hands. It is important too not move both your legs at the same time, as otherwise this wouldn’t be a foot to hand sprint. I have chosen this exercise as part of my circuit, as speed and acceleration is needed in football. These exercises work of the leg muscles such as the gastrocnemius.
- Shuttle runs: These are when you run from on fixed point to another and work mainly on leg muscles. The quadriceps hamstrings gastrocnemius and gluteus all benefit from this exercise. It also imitates the running motion and turning effect when playing football, so would be a very good exercise to include in my circuit.
- Vertical jumps: The vertical jump exercise is probably the simplest exercise to carry out. From a flat-footed position you must jump vertically and try to reach the highest point possible. This exercise works on the gastrocnemius and imitates the jumping motion that is present in football, when jumping to head the ball. I have decided to include this exercise, as it will help to increase the height at which a footballer will be able to jump. This will benefit him/her, as jumping is a key part when trying to win balls in the air.
- Step-ups: This exercise also works on the leg muscles and helps to increase the speed of your feet and the muscle endurance. From a standing start you must step up one foot on to a platform which is at a suitable height (e.g. 20-30cm). Then you must raise the other foot on to the platform and then take the first foot off. This is part of my circuit, as this exercise will help to increase the general muscle strength and endurance of the muscles in the lower leg.
- Squat Thrusts: This exercise should be done with your hands placed flat on the ground and your legs moving together. The legs should start stretched out and then with one single jump they should come into the body. I have chosen to include these as they will work mainly on the abdominals but also work out the quadriceps. Both these muscles have a use in football, so I believe that it is an ideal exercise to include. The quadriceps is used when running in football and the abdominals help to increase your overall strength on the ball.
- Bicep curls with dumbbells: These should be carried out with weights that are comfortable to use and are not to heavy, but not to light so that they are to easy to lift. To carry out this exercise your back should be straight and head should be level. The dumbbells should be lifted from your waist to your upper chest. The reason for inclusion is that they help to increase the upper body strength. This is needed in football as it helps to shield the ball and dispossess.
- Chin-ups: Chin-ups will increase the amount of strength in your arms. It works on both biceps and triceps. The hands should be placed around a secure bar that is at a suitable height so that your palms face your head. Then you should pull up from the bar to your chin, then slowly release and repeat this. This will help to increase upper body strength and the endurance of the biceps and triceps. This will be useful in football as you will be able to protect the ball easier as you will be able to hold off the attacking player.
- Leg raising over head: This should be done laid flat on your back with both legs bent at a 90 degrees, then you should raise one leg over your head and then slowly replace back on the floor. This exercise should then be done with the other leg and continue to down this. This will help to increase flexibility and strength. The main muscle that it will be working on is the hamstrings and gluteals. This is an important exercise to include as the flexibility and strength of these two muscles is vital
2) Skill activities:
It is important in a training programme that you do some sort of training or activity with the equipment used in the sport. This is because it helps to increase the your levels of skill, so when it comes playing the sport you should have a knowledge of what to do and how to do it. As my chosen sport is football, I will do some activities with a football. This will help to increase my skill within the game. Below is a list of activities that I have included in my circuit programme.
- Dribbling around cones: This activity will help to increase the amount of skill whilst dribbling. A set of cones will be placed either in a straight line or in a circle and you must dribble a football around these cones with as much control of the ball as possible. You could then see how fast you could complete this activity but remembering to have as much control over the ball as possible. I have decided to include this as one of skill activities as it will help to increase the amount of control I have of the football when it come to a game situation. As dribbling is a very large part of the game, it will be a very good activity to include.
- Shooting the ball into a goal: This would be useful, but only if the person doing it, needs it for his/her part of the game. As I would need it because of my role in a game of football I have decided to include it in my training programme. I would help to increase the amount accuracy and power that I have in my shooting and would be a valuable part of my training. Due to my role in the game, which means that I need to shoot in football, I believe that this activity is needed in my skill activity. Using a football I would practice shooting it into an open goal. The range at which I shoot would change and whether the ball is rolling or stationary would also be a factor that I would change. I would also change the angle at which I shoot to the goal. With all of these factors I could change, it would be a very good idea to include this activity in my training programme as it would increase the amount of skill I have when it comes to shooting.
- Passing the football to a target: This activity would help to increase the accuracy of my passes. I would put the ball down and from that I would pass the ball to different targets. The target would be another person, and he/she could move around to make the pass more difficult. The person could also stand at different lengths to make the pass more difficult. As time progressed the target would get further away and start to move so that the pass would be more difficult to do. I believe that this activity would be very good as one of my skill activities. It would help to increase my skill of passing at different lengths and moving targets. This would be great help as when it came to a game situation the training will have helped to make me better at passing. Passing is a large part of game of football so I think that the activity would be much needed.
3) Organisation/Implementation/Monitoring:
It is important that this training programme is carried out with accuracy, safety and organisation. This section will describe how I will organise the programme, how I will carry out the programme and how I will gather my results and findings.
I have already shows which exercises I will do for this programme and why I have chosen them, but there is still a lot to decide. I have to decide whether to do a timed circuit or a fixed load. A timed circuit is when the performers of the programme work for long at each station and then rest before going on to the next station. A fixed load is when each station has a labelled amount of work the performer has to do. For my circuit I have decided to use a fixed load system. This is because there is a large difference between how many I can do of some exercises than others. I am not as capable to do some of the exercises than others, so I have decided to use a fixed load system. For each of the exercises that I will include in my circuit I have already worked out how many of each I will aim to do on the first few days of my circuit. Below are a list of the different exercises that I will be carrying out, and the maximum of each that I am able to do. These are not my targets for the first day, as it is important never to work at your maximum level, as it can cause injury.
Press-ups = 35 Squat thrusts = 30
Foot to hand sprints = 40 Bicep curls with dumbbells = 30
Shuttles = 40 Chin-ups = 20
Vertical jumps = 45 Leg raising over head = 35
Step-ups = 35
As it is important not to work at your maximum level, I have decided to work at about 65% of my maximum, and then increase this to about 85%, over the period that I do the circuit. Thus, my targets for the first day are.
Press-ups = 23 Squat thrusts = 20
Foot to hand sprints = 26 Bicep curls with dumbbells = 20
Shuttles = 26 Chin-ups = 13
Vertical jumps = 29 Leg raising over head = 23
Step-ups = 23
I have decided to use a fixed load system, so the only other factor to consider is how many circuits I will decide to do. After thinking about this I have decide to do 2 circuits. I have decide to do this amount of circuits as I believe that this will give me a very good work out, without doing to much or to little.
When doing the programme I have to think of factors that will effect me. The programme will be carried out inside, so I don’t have to worry about the weather. One of the factors is that of safety. I must make sure before hand that I am comfortable with the equipment that I will use, and the amount of reps I will do for each station. I also have to beware of other users and what they are doing during the time that I am carrying out my programme.
After every time I complete a station I will give my self 30-45 seconds to rest and get ready to go on to the next station. This time can also be used to note down whether I found the amount of reps easy or difficult. This can help my to decide whether I am ready to increase the amount of reps I do, and if so by how many.
The monitoring of the programme is also necessary. I must think about when to increase the amount of reps and whether to increase the number of circuits I carry out. I must make sure that I am not over working myself or putting too much pressure on my body. Every time I do a circuit I will write down the amount of each exercise I have done a whether I have found that amount to easy or to hard. This will give me the information I need to decide whether I should increase the amount of reps I do for any of the 9 stations.
4) Progression:
It is very important to consider progression when carrying out a training programme. I am going to increase the amount of reps I do for each exercise after I have completed two days where, I have had the same circuit and same amount of reps for each station. I am going to increase the amount of each exercise by 3 more reps. This should help to give me a good gradually progression, and also prevent any injury that could happen if I did to much to soon. I could also think about increasing the amount of circuits I carry out, but I don’t think that this is necessary as 2 circuits will be enough and just increasing the amount of reps will give the correct progression needed.
5) Evaluation:
The exercisers that I said I would do for the training programme have now been completed and the results have now been noted. My training programme was designed for football and with myself in mind. An important part of any training programme is the progression. I said that I would increase the amount of reps I did for each exercise by 4. This increase of the exercises will only take place when I completed two full days of the same circuit.
I have now carried out the training programme and I have noted the results. When I was carrying out the training programme I found that progress was made. The exercise that I found gave the most progression was press-ups. When I first started doing the circuit I found that I could only manage to do 23 reps, and at this amount of reps I found that quite hard, but as the training programme progressed I was able to increase the amount of press-ups to 32, while feeling very comfortable. This increase was very dramatic and very noticeable. The full list of the amount of reps I could do before I started the training is below. This is also a list of what I did on the first day of the circuit, which is 65% of my maximum.
Press-ups = 23 Squat thrusts = 20
Foot to hand sprints = 26 Bicep curls with dumbbells = 20
Shuttles = 26 Chin-ups = 13
Vertical jumps = 29 Leg raising over head = 23
Step-ups = 23
Above is the amount of reps I could do for each exercise before I started the training programme, and below are the amounts of reps I can now do after completing my circuit 8 times.
Press-ups = 28 Squat thrusts = 24
Foot to hand sprints = 32 Bicep curls with dumbbells = 24 Shuttles = 32 Chin-ups = 16
Vertical jumps =36 Leg raising over head = 28
Step-ups = 28
You can see that in some of the exercises a lot of progression was achieved, but in others not as much was achieved. The most important thing is that progression was made in all of the exercises. The exercise that had the least amount of progress was the chin-ups. I found that the chin-ups where the hardest of all the exercise and where also the most difficult to complete.
From the activities that I choose I feel that the right choice was made. All of the exercises have improved my strength, and all are reverent to football. The most noticeable difference is the amount of upper body strength I now have compared to before the training programme started. I found that I had to make one alteration to the programme when I completed the first day of the circuit. I found that the exercises where in the wrong order and so I decided to move some of them. The original order that the exercises where done in are listed below.
1) Press-ups 6) Squat thrusts
2) Foot to hand sprints 7) Bicep curls with dumbbells
3) Shuttles 8) Chin-ups
4) Vertical jumps 9) Leg raising over head
5) Step-ups
The problem that I found with this order was that there where too many leg and arm exercise next to each other. This made it very difficult to complete the last part of the circuit, as I had to complete the Bicep curls with dumbbells with the Chin-ups start after them. As this was a problem I had to make a slight change to the order in which I completed the circuit. The revised order is below.
1) Press-ups 6) Shuttles
2) Foot to hand sprints 7) Bicep curls with dumbbells
3) Chin-ups 8) Leg raising over head
4) Vertical jumps 9) Step-ups
5) Squat thrusts
This new order was a lot easier to complete and I found the circuit more enjoyable to do.
The schedule of the circuit was now very enjoyable to do and wasn’t too difficult to complete. I found that the amount of reps that I completed was correct and the progression and increase in the amount of reps was correct. This feeling was brought about by the fact that I knew I was getting some where and the circuit was working for me. The circuit also gave me a lot more confidence and knowledge of what my limits are. This made the circuit a lot more enjoyable as I knew that I was getting some where. The circuit was also very interesting as I found what my limits where and what I was able to do.
I found that the schedule easy to set up and complete. This is due to the careful planning and consideration that I put into the circuit before I conducted it. I made sure with preliminary testing that the orders of the exercises were in the right order and that the amount of reps was correct.
The training programme has been complete now and there is no need to continue with the training. This will result in reversibility and means that all of the hard work that I have done will be lost and if I ever wanted to start the circuit again I would have to start again and work from the bottom. However, I am pleased with the results of the programme and have decided to carry on with the circuit training.
Now that I have completed a circuit and know a lot more about them I could use this knowledge to conduct future planning of a circuit. I believe that the circuit I did was very well planned and was an enjoyable task to complete. The circuit has worked and the desired effect was achieved.
