I have been going to the gym every second day for the past 6 weeks to develop my overall stamina and strength. I have been mainly focusing on strength training as I am someone with naturally high stamina and aim to develop myself into an overall allrounder. The aim of my strength training is to aid in my other activities such as softball and boxing.
I have focused my strength training on my back and shoulders. This is as I was born with slight scoliosis and have had very weak shoulders since I was young. I wanted to develop this as it is a real weakness and affects my ability to throw repeatedly in quick succession, something that is quite important in things such as softball and AFL. The first 3 weeks of my training focused on the upper body.
First 3 weeks to develop a basis
- 1 Bench press.* 10 (25kg)
- 2 Bent-over row.
- 3 Overhead press.
- 4 Lateral raise.
- 5 Seated dumbbell overhead press. (10kg)
- 6 Dumbbell triceps extension. *10 (15kg)
- 7 Pull-up. *15
- 8 Barbell biceps curl. *10 (15kg)
- 9 Push up *45
After this, I gradually increased the weight used by up to 5 kg. Although the training itself was not too difficult as I have been doing similar strength training for a while on and off, keeping the routine proved itself difficult. The fact that I had a set plan and schedule help a lot during the first few weeks while I was still making this a habit. I believe this shows LO3 and LO4 as I not only had to create a plan but stick to it.
On the fourth week, I introduced a lower body element as well.
- Barbell Back Squat: 3-5 sets of 6-8 reps.
- Romanian Deadlift: 2-4 sets of 8-10 reps.
- Bulgarian Split Squat: 2-4 sets of 6-10 reps.
- Glute Ham Raise: 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps.
- Standing Single Leg Calf Raise: 2-4 sets of 6-10 reps.
- Seated Calf Raise: 2-4 sets of 10-15 reps.
Once again, the workout itself was not too difficult and as I have quite strong legs I had no problem dealing with this basic set of exercises. As I have been running every day since I was 11, I have quite high stamina and powerful lower body, as such I made some modifications to the original plan, increasing the number of reps from pretty much all of the exercises. Additionally, as this plan was made with the aid of my supervisor, who is also a licensed physiotherapist who has been treating my scoliosis for years, we were able to create a set of exercises that will strengthen my weak points. As mentioned, the main point of this was to strengthen my shoulders and back, this will help in sports and to aid my back and neck problems.
Overall I found these first 6 weeks quite easy going, although quite tedious and annoying to repeat and often found it hard to stick to my set out plan. I have found that after these first 6 weeks the strength of my shoulders and back have improved quite a bit and am now able to use them for far longer without getting fatigued. I believe my next step should be to build muscle on my legs, despite them already being very strong, they are quite scrawny. Although this is good for long distance running and high/long jump, I would like to develop my short distance sprinting by improving the fast twitch muscles.
I believe throughout this process I also demonstrated LO5 as I worked collaboratively with my supervisor to develop a plan to rectify some of my weaknesses and develop my strengths to improve my abilities as an athlete.
