During these placement hours, I conducted testing with the mens hockey team and planned a four week training programme with a focus on strength and conditioning as well as injury prevention.

Reflective Summary

Testing was completed with the mens hockey team, in order to collect baseline data before the four week training programme begins. The same tests were utilised for the mens and women’s hockey team (see reflection from 4th March 2021 for a summary of the tests used). I felt confident explaining the specific tests as I familiarised myself with them before the session. The players seemed engaged with the session which made me feel happy and positive about the placement.

I also produced a generic 4 Week Training Programme for the mens and women’s teams. This is because both teams had the same aims so a general programme has been produced with the progressions and regressions for each exercise, so it can be adjusted for any players that need it. Within the programme you will notice that supersets and compound supersets have been utilised. A superset is the completion of two exercises consecutively for opposing muscle groups without rest (Weakley et al., 2017), whereas compound supersets are successive exercises performed without rest for the same muscle group (Soleymani Gharakhanlou & Rajabi, 2014).It has been suggested that these resistance training protocols can enhance training efficiency and may be an effective mechanism to provide an appropriate resistance training stimulus, in a short period of time (Wakley et al., 2017). For the lower body I included two different compound supersets, one for the hamstrings (single leg glute bridge and a single leg romanian deadlift) and another for the quadriceps (elevated split squats and narrow squats). Reiman, Bolgla & Loudon (2012) evaluated the activation of the gluteus maximus and medius muscle during certain rehabilitation exercises; a single leg glute bridge produced moderate activation of the gluteus maximus and high activation of the glute medius. Similarly, a single leg deadlift and squat resulted in high activation for both of these muscles. For the upper limb a superset protocol was used where the two exercises selected were press ups and single arm rows.

What Went Well

When I was producing the training programme, I considered previous feedback from my exercise and coaching module to ensure it was effective. This included using supersets to fatigue the muscles, as the players will not have access to heavy loads and ensuring sets/reps were only increased by no more than 10% each week.

Areas for Improvement	Action Plan
Encourage the second years to take more of a lead when the virtual training sessions begin	Ask the second years to lead the sessions together while I support their development
Even though the testing was specific to the sport and the needs analysis, we are expecting the players to complete the aerobic tests in their own time which may be a problem	Next time, we could select tests that can all be completed virtually to access technique etc

Closing the Loop

I have arranged a meeting with the other placement students that I am working with to discuss how the training sessions will be run efficiently.

References

Reiman, M. P., Bolgla, L. A., & Loudon, J. K. (2012). A literature review of studies evaluating gluteus maximus and gluteus medius activation during rehabilitation exercises. Physiotherapy theory and practice, 28(4), 257-268.

Soleymani, H., Gharakhanlou, R., & Rajabi, H. (2014). Comparison of Effects of An Acute Bout of Reverse vs. Compound Supersets on Plasma CK, IGF-I, GH Responses in Trained Men. Journal of Sport Biosciences, 6(2), 161-173.

Weakley, J. J., Till, K., Read, D. B., Roe, G. A., Darrall-Jones, J., Phibbs, P. J., & Jones, B. (2017). The effects of traditional, superset, and tri-set resistance training structures on perceived intensity and physiological responses. European journal of applied physiology, 117(9), 1877-1889.