The Importance of Exercise

Regular physical activity increases your fitness level and ability to exercise for longer. It also has helps you to remain healthy and plays an important role in preventing heart disease and other health issues such as high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure. If exercise is combined with a healthy diet, it can also help you to lose weight. In addition sport and exercise can be a great way to spend time with your friends and have fun.

Physical fitness

Physical fitness is made up of:

- Strength
- Speed
- Endurance
- Flexibility

Strength

Strength activities are based around weight training but it important that you only complete weight training under the supervision of someone who is experienced, to reduce the risk of injury. You shouldn't begin weight training until you are at least 16 and even then only very light weights. Until then you can improve your strength by completing activities using your body weight such as press ups, pull ups and sit ups. You can do this in your bedroom before you go to bed or even in front of the TV on an evening or at the weekend.

Strength plays an important role in most areas of the game including tackling, running with the ball and playing the ball. Strength training comes in a number of formats. Players will take part in a number of weight sessions during a week where they will complete a number of different weight exercises for the whole body. They also do body weight exercise such as press-ups, dips and pull ups.

Endurance

Endurance can be improved through brisk-walking, skipping, running, cycling, dancing and sports such as rugby, football, hockey and basketball where you need to run for a continued period of time. Endurance is important for our players to ensure that they continue to play at the highest level for the full 80 minutes which involves running around the pitch for an entire game. It also prevents them from getting tired which will have a negative effect on the performance of skills.

For example if a player is tired he is more likely to miss a tackle or drop a pass. Tiredness also affects decision making. The players take part in a variety of activities to improve fitness including running, cycling, rowing, boxing and swimming. They also complete conditioning games. These are games that require lots of running but also include skills such as passing and catching so the players can practice their skills whilst tired.

Speed

You are likely to be taking part in speed, agility and quickness activities without realising it. Playground games such as 'tig' and 'stuck in the mud' will improve your speed in a fun way. Also playing small sided games such as netball and 5-a-side football can improve speed.

Speed, agility and quickness are practiced in nearly every training session. We use a specialist speed coach to learn the correct techniques and drills to improve speed. The conditioners will also use a variety of equipment such as ladders and hurdles to improve the players' speed quickness and agility. In addition, games such as 'ball tig' and 'tig' are used to train the players for speed. As obvious as it sounds, the main way to get faster is to do everything as fast as possible, however it is often more fun to do as part of games or in a competition such as relays with friends.

Flexibility

Flexibility is extremely important for our players, especially for the prevention on injuries. Players stretch each muscle regularly to prevent strains and pulls that could occur, especially in speed sessions. They stretch before and after each part of training and do something called pre-hab where they prepare muscles and strengthen joints for the types of impact they might go through whilst playing and training. Flexibility can be improved by stretching your muscles on a daily basis. You should also stretch as part of a warm up and cool down before each time you.

All these aspects of fitness are extremely important for successful performance in rugby league and our players train to improve these daily throughout the season. Completing activities in any of these areas can improve your fitness and overall health.

Advice from Aleks Gross: Leeds Rhinos Match Analysis

It is important to do 30 minutes of exercise everyday. Exercise can consist of anything from playing individual and team sports to gardening or going for a run to cleaning the house. It is more likely that you will exercise if you have fun and have someone to enjoy it with, so choose something you like and do it with your friends and family.