Rowing requires a high standard of endurance and strength, therefore the components of fitness I will concentrate on improving are strength and endurance. For my training programme I will have to consider my current level of fitness, my age, health, my motivation, what I enjoy, and any injuries I have. My current level of fitness is quite high as I participate in a lot of sports.I usually go surfing on average three times a week, I play football for an hour twice a week, I swim for an hour once a week, I train for rowing or row twice a week and also I take part in approximately three hours of sport during school lessons a week.
I am 14 years old so will have to take into consideration the fact I am still growing, taking care to work alternating muscle groups and to not injure myself. At present I have a slight chest infection and am on antibiotics so I should realise my results may be slightly lower than they would be otherwise.My motivation, the reason I want to get fitter, is that I have lots of regattas and head of the river races coming up this season. I enjoy things like water activities and games, but I do not enjoy sprinting.
I do not have any serious injuries at the moment. Before training I will make some certain safety checks. For example, checking the surface and equipment – before running I will need to check the surface is clear of glass etc, and I will have to check the mats and benches are steady and not sliding before using them. All this is necessary so that I do not injure myself.
I will need to make sure I am preventing risks with my technique, e. g. straight back when using rowing machines. In addition I should wear the correct clothing when training e. g. suitable trainers for the terrain I am using. Each training session will include a warm up, the main activity and a warm down. My warm up will be to prevent injury and to prepare mentally and physically.
Firstly I will do a short jog. This will warm my muscles, which will make them more flexible and will lower the risk of injury, it will increase heart rate and blood flow and also warm the synovial fluid to make my joints more mobile.Next I will do a variety of static stretches to increase the range of movement at joints and prevent injury. I will work all the main joints and stretch the main muscles that I will be using.
These are such as hamstrings, gastrocnemius and trapezius. Each stretch will be held for at least 10 seconds with no bouncing I will include some diagrams of the stretches on a later page. To end the warm up I will do another short jog gradually increasing my speed on the way to full pace. As well as working my muscles this will help me prepare mentally.
In my warm down I will help my body to recover. I will start with a few minutes of gentle jogging. This will keep my circulation going so more oxygen reaches the muscles and lactic acid will be cleared away faster. This will help to prevent soreness.
I will finish with some stretches. These will mean less stiffness, as after heavy exercise muscles often get very tight. I will do some active and passive stretching for the muscles I have been using e. g. gastrocnemius, abdominals and hamstrings. When planning my programme I need to think of the principles of training. These are specificity, progression, overload, reversibility and tedium.Specificity will include training certain parts of my body for the specific sport I have chosen rowing.
Progression will involve adapting to my training programme gradually to stop the risk of injury. My training programme will hopefully show the improvement from specificity and progression by monitoring myself pre-training and post-training. Overload is making your session’s harder work than usual to improve your fitness. I can overload each training session in four different ways.
- Frequency how often I exercise
- Intensity how hard I work, e. g. run faster, lift heavier weights
- Time increase how long I exercise, duration
- Type change the type of exercise I do.
This may make it a good idea to run my programme for 6 weeks, with fitness tests in the 1st and 6th weeks, and overloading the main activity each week. I will try and do a variety of exercise throughout the 6 weeks to prevent tedium and boredom. The principle of reversibility means that improvements in fitness are reversible. If I stop exercising the fitness will be lost. I need to be aware of this and therefore do a sensible amount of training at home spread out throughout the week and continuing after the programme has finished.
I will be doing three main types of training: Circuit training for strength Interval training for speed and endurance Continuous training for endurance stamina If my results in the last week of the programme are substantially better in the first week this will prove my training programme was successful. Throughout the training programme I will try my best to complete al the tasks I have set myself.
The strength test – this test was in the form of press-ups. A friend timed me for 30 seconds. They counted how many proper press-ups I did in this time, with my arms going to a right angle. Any false press-ups were disallowed. The speed test this test was in the form of shuttle runs/sprints. I had to run continuously for 30 seconds over a distance of 5 metres, putting one foot over the line before turning.Only full runs were counted. This test measures my maximal oxygen consumption. This is the maximum volume of oxygen I am able to use when exercising. The larger the value, the fitter you are. I ran 2/3rds of a netball court, then turned and ran back.
Both feet must be across the line each time the beep sounds. When the beep speeds up I must speed up to, in order to get to the line in time.Stop when you cannot keep up with the beep. I recorded the level and the number of shuttles I did. My pulse was taken for 15seconds in the carotid artery immediately after the test. I recorded my recovery rate after this by taking my pulse every minute for 5 minutes as I did before, 15seconds on the carotid artery. How did I feel? Evaluating: I found the press-ups test very easy as I do them fairly regularly. I found the speed test hard and I was not especially good at it.
The multistage fitness test started off easy but it obviously got a lot harder. I felt I could have carried on for longer.There were a couple of things that influenced my performance. For the multistage fitness and speed tests I was not wearing very ‘grippy’ trainers, making the turning harder.
I found that my hamstrings felt they were being stretched a lot also as I am quite unflexible. These again are performed on a bench.You simply step up and down quickly on the bench, both feet must be on the bench before one is moved down. These work mainly on the hamstrings, quadriceps and gastrocnemius.
This is an example of concentric and eccentric contraction. The hamstrings and quadriceps working together is antagonistic muscle action. Diagram Bench press These are done by placing a bench safely on the wall bars roughly inline with your shoulders. With your feet apart to about the width of you shoulders, take the bench in your hands and extend your arms until they are straightened.
Bring your hands back down to your shoulders, slightly flexing the knees this is one complete bench press. These work mainly on the trapezius, triceps and biceps, but they are also putting pressure on the legs. Diagram I did regular sit-ups with no one holding my feet on a mat, hands gently on temples, tapping my knees with my elbows. This works mainly on the abdominal.
The quadriceps may be working as isometric muscular action. Diagram Wall bar climbs – Simply climb up and down the wall bars, taking at least 3 footings on each climb, touching the top with 1 hand and the floor with both feet.Be aware of safety – make sure mat is steady and watch foot placing. This is working the main leg muscles that are needed for good rowing.
Done on a low bar, approximately just above by head. I sat on a mat with my legs outstretched in front of me, and lifted my self up so my chin was over the bar, then back down so I almost touched the mat again. This was one complete ‘chin’- up. Pull-ups are an example of isotonic training.
were good as I could choose things I was interested in, such as swimming. The exercises I did were probably very suitable for my chosen sport rowing; I used specificity when I chose which muscle groups to work on, and also the strength and endurance training was originally chosen for rowing. My post training results were mainly improved and this was expected.
I was disappointed my level on the multistage fitness test did not improve but this was explainable, and did not necessarily show my fitness had not improved in this area. I think my abilities of strength and endurance definitely improved, but there were various factors affecting my performance on each given day. My performance in rowing and other sports has improved since I have started my training programme. When rowing I feel I can put a lot more effort into my strokes for a longer time, and afterwards I feel totally recovered a lot sooner than I used to.
In football I think my training has helped too, I feel it is easier to have a sudden outburst and sprint for the ball when I need to, a I run up and down the pitch more competently. If I was to do the training programme again I think I would change the interval training. This is because when I am doing the circuit training I feel it is good to have a certain number more than last weeks score to achieve, but when doing the interval training I am unsure of how fast to do my jogs/sprints.Maybe it would be a good idea to time myself on interval training then I could try and complete the set number of repetitions faster than the previous week.
If I decide to continue to train like I have been, so I do not loose my fitness the principle of reversibility, I will keep steadily applying overload. I may change some of the stations on the circuit to ones I enjoy more. Most things I would probably keep the same though as my training programme has been a success!
