Keith Sutherland

5-7-07
Period 3

Muscular Strength
I have chosen muscular strength as my component of fitness to improve. To

improve my personal muscular strength I will be using the bench press and squat. I can

currently bench 155 Lbs and squat 200Lbs. My goal that I hope to achieve by the end of

the month would be a max bench of 165 Lbs and a max squat of 210 Lbs. I will achieve

this goal by following the workout calendar and pushing myself harder than I think I can

go during the workout.

The principle of overload states that the various systems in your body will

become stronger and function better if increased demands, or overload, are placed upon

them. The F.I.T. formula is an easy reminder of the three ways to achieve overload in

your physical fitness program. “F” stands for frequency and is how often you exercise,

“I” stands for intensity and is how hard you exercise, and “T” stands for time which is

how long you exercise. You must overload in your calendar to reach your goal because if

you don’t overload you will not gain muscle. I used the principle of overload in my

calendar by increasing the weight and repetitions in my workout. I only want to apply an

amount of overload that I know I can lift and at the same time it shouldn’t stress my body

out so that it is unable to adjust.

Because your body adapts as you work harder, you must progressively increase

the amount of work for improvement to occur. This is called progression. I used

progression in my calendar by increasing the weight I lift every week. You must use

progression in your workout because once your body becomes accustomed to the

workout it will no longer gain muscle from the same workout. It is safe to move on if you
do not feel unusually tired during the session or even a few hours after it. It you try to

progress to quickly you will strain your muscles and feel unusually tired during the

session or even a few hours after it. You may also experience nausea or vomiting during

or after the workout.

The principle of specificity means you must do specific exercises to improve

specific components of physical fitness in specific body parts. I have chosen muscular

strength which means I am trying to improve my brute strength. To do this I am using the

bench press and squat which will increase my ability of muscles to exert a force one time.

Easily confused with muscular strength is muscular endurance, which is the ability to use

muscles for long periods of time. Specificity is important to a training program because if

you want to get stronger or better at a specific thing, you must work on the muscles you

use during that event. For example, it wouldn’t make sense for a cross-country runner to

be using the bench press. That would just increase his arm strength and weigh him down

while he is running.

I did not meet my goal because we have only had one week to work on it. If I

continue to follow my workout calendar I believe I will be able to accomplish my goal.

This program didn’t make my workout change very much because I already workout out

at weight training for football three times a week. I did enjoy this program a little bit

because although the workout is hard, you know you are getting stronger at the same time

which makes up for it. If I was to try this program over again I would make it more

flexible because we can’t workout everyday that is listed on the calendar due to personal

reasons. Well I actually am believe it or not. Maybe not this exact program because this

has you work out on weekends, but one very similar and harder to it.