Step Test

Equipment: Stopwatch, 30cm step, Pen and paper

Instructions: Step up and down the step for 3 minutes as fast as you can. To measure the distance use a school ruler. Try to maintain a fast, steady pace throughout. At the end of the 3 minutes immediately record your heart rate for one minute. As in the 1km run, compare your results and see if you are getting fitter.

Finding your Muscular Strength

Push Ups

Equipment: Flat Surface, Pen and Paper

Instructions: Do as many push ups as you can and record the results.  When doing the push ups keep your hands shoulder width apart. If you feel you cannot do normal push ups you can do modified ones. You can bend your knees and put them on the ground. When doing them do not stop to have a rest in between. If you cannot continue write down how many you did.

When making your plan you need to consider if you want to improve your fitness level or just maintain it. You need to adapt your program to the type of exercise you like to do and the type that you want to do. Clear goals should be set up so you have something to work to. Every time you do your fitness tests update your goals.

At the beginning of your program stat out lightly and build up slowly. In your plan you should include what day you are going to do activities, what the intensity level is and how long you are going to do it for. You need to plan time in between your exercising to rest. Resting and recovery is an important part to plan because it is when you are resting that your body gets stronger by building up the muscle.

To get fitter you need to “overload” your body or work hard than normal. You do this by doing one of the following increasing intensity (heavier weights e.g. 15kg instead of 10kg or faster running e.g. 3km in 15 min instead of 3km in 17min), increasing frequency by training more often but not more intensely or increasing the duration of the training session. Two things will determine the duration of training. They are the type of exercise you are doing and what type of pressure it puts on your body e.g. shot put or weightlifting put excessive strain on the body. The second thing is the mental pressure that you are out under e.g. rock climbing can cause mental pressure, so can playing a tennis final when you need to win so the team will win.

You need too slowly increase one of these like running an extra km or training every day instead of every second day so the risk of injury or burn out is lowered.

Overload training must not be done daily. It will increase the chance of injury by not allowing muscle fibre to grow. You could do light training in between hard sessions which can help the muscle fibre to grow.

You can also loose your fitness level if you do not exercise or your muscle strength if you stop using a certain muscle.