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Standard Grade Physical Education
Personal Fitness Record
Name:
Class:
ASPECT OF
FITNESS
TEST
Strength
Hand Grip
Power
Standing
Broad Jump
Flexibility
Sit & Reach
Aerobic
Endurance
Muscular
Endurance
Multistage
Fitness Test
(Bleep Test)
30 Second
Sit Up Test
Speed
Timed Run
DATE
SCORE
RETEST
DATE
SCORE
SPEED
What is Speed?
Speed is a measure of the time it takes you to move from one point to
another. This depends on your reaction time, for example how quickly you can
respond to a starter’s pistol, or to another player’s moves. It also depends on
how fast your muscles can move your joints, such as when running, or
reaching for a ball. The fibres that make up your muscles are the key to your
ability to work at speed.
Fast and Slow Twitch Fibres.
Your voluntary muscles are a mixture of fast and slow twitch muscle fibres.
This mix is why voluntary muscles are known as ‘striated or ‘striped’ muscles:
Slow twitch fibres use a lot of oxygen to make energy aerobically, and so are
bright red. Fast twitch fibres come into play during intense, anaerobic work,
so do not rely on a large oxygen supply, and are almost white.
Most people’s mix of fibres is around 60% slow and 40% fast. This can vary
dramatically between people, and is genetically influenced – your own mix will
depend very much on what your parents’ muscles are like. The mix is a large
factor in performance. Fast twitch fibres are vital for speed, and slow
twitch fibres deliver endurance. Based on what you know about your own
performance, would you say you have more fast or slow twitch fibres?
Top sprinters can have as much as 80% fast twitch fibres.
Top endurance athletes (like marathon runners) can have around 80% slow
twitch fibres. This will partly depend on their genetic makeup, but will have
been improved over time by using the right training.
Aerobic Capacity – Low to Medium Intensity Activity
Build your aerobic capacity by using one or more of the methods for
cardiovascular training. This will help your heart to work harder, for longer,
so that your muscles receive all the oxygen and glucose they need for
energy. Over time, you will develop more slow twitch fibres. Think FITT:
Frequency, Intensity, Type and Time.
Anaerobic Capacity – High Intensity Activity
Where bursts of intense speed are vital for performance, your anaerobic
capacity is critical. Use interval or fartlek training methods to mimic the
demands of your sport and build up your anaerobic capacity. Over time, you
will develop more fast twitch fibres. Think FITT: Frequency, Intensity,
Type and Time.
Speed, Reaction and Your Nervous System
Your reaction time is the time you take to respond to a stimulus. This
depends on how fast your nervous system can communicate information from
your senses (for example your ears or eyes) to your muscles. To improve this
you need to train specifically for your sport. Your training should include a
session each week that focuses on:

Starting e.g. for runners, rowers and cyclists

Short distances at race speed, again for racing sports

Short sprint, for team sports

Reaction drills, to control a ball and/or change direction, for team
sports
This training also helps your nervous system to control your movements as
fast as your sport requires, firing impulses to your limbs fast enough to keep
up with what your new strength and stamina will allow.
The Importance of Recovery
Recovery is vital for speed training, especially where anaerobic training is
included. Your fast twitch fibres are exhausted quickly and need time to
recover. This should include short-term recovery, by including resting or
low-intensity work within your speed training session. It should also include
long-term recovery, by including a rest day each week and scheduling your
speed training for the day after, when you are fully rested. You should also
plan in recovery time after an important competition or event.
TESTING for SPEED
Testing each aspect of your fitness is a vital part of any training programme.
Testing will help identify areas for improvement, monitor your progress over
time, and help you to set and achieve training targets.
General Tests for Speed:
Timed Run – The distance can be chosen to suit your sport or activity, and
could be anything from 100m upwards.
Timed Shuttles – Shorter distances can be timed as an indoor shuttle run,
between cones 10-20m apart – again, the total distance can be chosen to suit
your sport, for example the length or width of a court or pitch for ball or
racquet games. Alternatively, use a ‘bleep test’.
Specific Tests for Speed:
Timed Races – For race events, such as running, rowing or cycling, race
performance, or timings under race conditions, should be recorded and
monitored during training.
Reaction Time – Measure using a metre rule drop test, recording the
distance (in cm) a metre rule drops between finger and thumb before being
gripped.
Skill and Agility – Measure using a series of skill and agility-based tests,
either the time taken to successfully complete a set number of actions, or
the number of successful actions within a set time. Both skills and agility
play an important part in speed in many sports, and your tests should reflect
the needs of your sport.
STAMINA
What is Stamina?
Stamina is how well you can perform over a long period of time. Training for
stamina means helping your body to meet the demands placed upon it by your
chosen sport. This means increasing your endurance, and improving your
cardiovascular fitness: your stamina depends on how long and how hard your
muscles are able to work, and on how effectively your lungs, heart and blood
vessels work together.
Aerobic and Anaerobic Work
Aerobic activities use oxygen to fuel energy production in each muscle cell.
It’s the heart’s job to get this oxygen to your muscles, so the more
effective your heart; the better you can work aerobically. Aerobic activities
can require a lot of oxygen, but they can take place for long periods of time,
such as a marathon run or a long distance cyclist.
When you need to work even harder, there is not enough time for your heart
to get enough oxygen to your muscles to meet their demands. When this
occurs, energy is produced anaerobically, using stored chemicals in your
muscles. This can only happen for short periods of time. Anaerobic energy
production produces lactic acid to build up in your muscles. This is toxic, and
causes rapid muscle fatigue. This lactic acid can only be removed when
oxygen is returned to the muscles. The amount of oxygen needed to break
down the lactic acid is known as the oxygen debt.
Although anaerobic activity can only take place over short periods of time, it
can be of very high intensity, such as during a 100m sprint.
Increasing Your Aerobic Capacity
The key to increasing your stamina is twofold: getting your muscles used to
working hard for long periods of time, and increasing your heart’s capacity to
pump blood to your muscles. This means giving your heart the equivalent of a
weight lifting routine: you need to make it work harder than normal, to build
a stronger, fitter heart. So training for stamina is all about improving your
cardiovascular fitness.
Training for Stamina
You can train for stamina using one of many training methods, but vital to
each one is knowing just how hard to work. You can find this out by
calculating your training threshold. You can then use this to plan a personal
exercise programme that will help you build the stamina you need to perform
at your best.
TESTING for STAMINA & CARDIOVASCULAR FITNESS
Testing each aspect of your fitness is a vital part of any training programme.
Testing will help identify areas for improvement, monitor your progress over
time, and help you to set and achieve training targets.
Calculating Your Training Threshold – Your training threshold is a guide to
working at a level that will improve your stamina, but won’t place too high a
strain on your heart. It is a level that is safe, but effective. There are many
ways to calculate your training threshold, to improve your cardiovascular
fitness.
Resting Heart Rate – Your resting heart rate is a good measure of your
cardiovascular fitness, and is a useful guide to how your stamina is improving
over time as you train. To calculate your pulse:
1. Place two fingers on your inner wrist, near the base of your thumb.
Move them until you can feel your pulse.
2. Either count your pulse for 15 seconds, and multiply by 4 or count your
pulse for a full 60 seconds.
MY RESTING HEART RATE IS
BPM.
Training Threshold – To calculate your training threshold follow the three
simple steps below:
Step 1 –
Calculate your maximum heart rate
Subtract your age from 220
Step 2 -
Calculate 80% of this maximum rate
Step 3 -
Calculate 70% of this maximum rate
Your training threshold is the higher figure – 80% of your maximum heart
rate. The lower figure is the minimum heart rate you should aim to work at,
to improve your cardiovascular fitness. So for example, an 18 year old would
have:
Maximum heart rate = 202 bpm (beats per minute), 80% = 162 bpm, and 70%
= 141 bpm
So to the nearest 10 bpm, this person’s training threshold is 160 bpm, and
they should aim for their stamina training to keep their heart rate in the
range 140 to 160 bpm.
MY TRAINING THRESHOLD IS
MY TRAINING RANGE IS FROM
BPM.
BPM TO
BPM.
Recovery Time – Work at your training threshold for 10 minutes. Take your
pulse every 30 seconds to estimate how long it will take you to return to
your resting heart rate.
Cooper Test – Run as far as you can for 12 minutes, and measure the
distance covered.
Bleep Test (Multistage Fitness Test) – Complete shuttle runs between two
markers, 20m apart, following a bleep tape/CD. The test is progressive, so
the time between bleeps is shortened every 10 bleeps. When three bleeps in
a row are missed, the maximal level is calculated as, for example 9.5, where
9 indicates the level, and 5 the number of bleeps completed at that level.
SUPPLENESS
What is Suppleness?
Suppleness is a measure of how flexible you are. It’s the range of movement,
or mobility that is possible at one or more of your joints.
Suppleness is important for all sports or active pastimes. To perform well,
you need to be able to make the full range of movement your sport requires,
often at speed. You need to be able to do this without risk of injury, for
example from torn muscles. This can happen when you move a joint further,
or faster, than it is used to or capable of moving.
Suppleness and Your Muscles
Your suppleness depends upon how well your muscles allow each joint to
move. Remember, when you move a joint, the agonist muscle contracts. This
is resisted by the antagonist muscle, which needs to relax to allow the
movement to take place.
So a key factor in suppleness is how well your muscles can relax when they
are the antagonist, allowing full movement of the joint to take place. This
applies to all joint movements, such as flexion, extension, rotation, adduction
or abduction.
Training for suppleness complements training for strength or stamina. If
you’re working hard to improve how hard your muscles can work, and for how
long, you should also ensure that they remain able to allow the full range of
movement your sport or activity demands.
Suppleness and Muscle Tone
The phrase ‘muscle tone’ is often used to describe how your muscles
physically look. However, this is not the correct use of the word. Your
muscle tone describes how well your muscles react to the nerve impulses
that control them. Well-toned muscles can react quickly and smoothly. In
fact, your muscles are always slightly contracted – without this you would go
completely floppy!
Training for suppleness helps your muscle tone. Muscles that are wellstretched are able to react quickly to the nerve impulses that contract or
relax them.
Stretching and Warming Up
Make sure you don’t confuse stretching with warming up. Your warm-up
should take place before any training session, including stretching. Warm
muscles will respond better to your stretching exercises, and are less likely
to be strained by a deep stretch.
Your warm-up should start with low-intensity activity such as jogging or
gentle cycling, gradually raising your heart rate above 120 bpm to increase
your blood supply to your muscles.
TESTING for SUPPLENESS
Testing each aspect of your fitness is a vital part of any training programme.
Testing will help identify areas for improvement, monitor your progress over
time, and help you to set and achieve training targets.
Sit and Reach Test – Sit on the floor with legs extended, and feet flat
against the testing box. Slowly and gently lean forward and rest both hands
on the box, reaching forward as far as you can. Measure the distance (in cm)
that you can stretch your fingertips beyond your feet (for a positive result)
or from the feet to the fingertips, if you cannot reach that far (a negative
result).
Shoulder Test – Lie face down on the floor and grasp a metre rule in both
hands, a shoulder width apart. Keeping your arms straight and your chin on
the ground, raise the stick as high as you can. Measure from the ground to
the level of the stick in cm.
Trunk Extension Test – Lie face down on the floor. Touch your hands to
your temples, or behind your head, and raise your head and shoulders as high
as you can. Keep your feet touching the ground. Measure from the floor to
your chin in cm.
These tests are very specific. You should also notice how you are able to
make longer, deeper stretches in your routine. Make a note of how this
progress feels, each day that you train for suppleness.
STRENGTH
What is Strength?
Strength is your ability to use a muscle or group of muscles to apply a force
against resistance. Training for strength means developing the right
strength for your chosen sport or activity. There are three types of
strength: Static, Dynamic & Explosive.
Your skeletal, or voluntary muscles give you what you think of as ‘strength’ –
they are the ones you can see, and control. So to develop your strength, you
need to devise a training programme to build and work your skeletal muscles.
How Muscles Work?
Skeletal muscles move your joints. Each end of the muscle is attached to a
bone by a tendon. The points of attachment are the origin and insertion. The
insertion gets pulled towards the origin.
Skeletal muscles work in pairs or groups. As one muscle contracts, or gets
shorter, the other will relax, or get longer. When a joint closes, for example
when you bend your knee, this is called flexion. When it opens up, for
example when you straighten your leg again, this is called extension.
As the muscles move a joint in one direction, the contracting muscle is called
the agonist, and the relaxing muscle, the antagonist. But when the joint
moves in the opposite direction, the muscles swap roles. For example, when
you flex your arm, the bicep contracts, and the tricep relaxes. The bicep is
the agonist, and the tricep, the antagonist. But when you extend your arm,
the tricep contracts (and is now the agonist) and the bicep relaxes (and is
now the antagonist).
Muscle Fibres
The fibres that make up your skeletal muscles are a mix of fast twitch and
slow twitch fibres, which describes how quickly they can contract and relax.
Fast twitch fibres also get exhausted more quickly than slow twitch fibres.
They are most suited to explosive events, like sprinting or shot put.
Slow twitch fibres are more suited to endurance events, like long distance
running or cycling.
Training for Strength
We all have a different natural amount of muscle. This muscle is made up of
your own personal mix of fast and slow twitch fibres. The result is that
we’re all suited to different sports and activities. To develop the right
strength for your sport, you need to think about the type and amount of
strength you need to use, and the sort of strength you are naturally built
with.
TESTING for STRENGTH
Testing each aspect of your fitness is a vital part of any training programme.
Testing will help identify areas for improvement, monitor your progress over
time, and help you to set and achieve training targets.
Hand Grip Test - The subject to be tested holds the dynamometer in one
hand in line with the forearm and hanging by the thigh. Maximum grip
strength is then determined without swinging the arm. The best of two
trials for each hand is recorded. The values listed below (in kilograms) give a
guide to expected scores for adults. They are the average of the best
scores of each hand.
RATING
MALES (Kg)
FEMALES (Kg)
Excellent
> 64
> 38
Very Good
56 - 64
34 - 38
Above Average
52 – 56
30 - 34
Average
48 - 52
26 - 30
Below Average
44 - 48
22 - 26
Poor
40 - 44
20 - 22
Very Poor
< 40
< 20