For someone who has always been inclined towards sports, fitness serves as a backbone to providing this strength to play those sports. I could naturally adapt to a lot of sports but I seem to struggle when it comes to my fitness. In order to stay fit, lose weight and improve my performance in the sports I play I planned on taking home workout as my CAS experience. This experience will help me in several ways such as building up my muscle strength, increase in my stamina, improved endurance etc. With the busy schedule,extracurriculars and scad submissions it was difficult for me to workout daily so I decided to do it 5 times a week and for 45 mins each.
LO1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
As I formerly mentioned I saw myself lagging behind because of my heavy weight and lack of fitness. I identified these weaknesses soon when I felt weak, got tired too easily, when I couldn’t sprint fast enough and later decided to create myself a plan to strike out all these problems and update my body in terms of health and fitness. To bring my body weight back to normal I decided to follow a diet to lose all the fat and extra weight that I had put on and then follow a fitness routine to gain muscle strength. For a diet plan I consulted a nutritionist who could provide me a diet plan that meets my conditions as in a diet that is protein rich but at the same time it doesn’t include bad calories. After practicing this for a few months I could see myself progressing, I felt active throughout the day, I felt less sleepy and lazy and the most important I could play my sport better. I could play longer rallies, reach the ball faster and could attack more with powerful shots.
LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
The most challenging part was the beginning, in the start it was very difficult for me to get used to this new plan that I made for myself. At first I had to start slow and invest more time in cool down and stretching because the next day I would have sore muscles.Another reason for starting slow was to avoid injuries such as muscle pulls that could stop me from playing any sport whatsoever. Once I got a hold of the workout it wouldn’t pain as much and I could steer clear of the injuries. During the lockdown I became lazy, I did everything that shouldn’t be done such as overeating, I slept a lot and didn’t care much about what I was eating. So I had to turn everything around, as in I woke up early in the morning to work out, stopped eating in between meals, eat healthy and lastly sleep early at night to get the minimum hours of sleep. This not only improved my physical health but it also helped me cope with my studies, be more productive and all in all I felt fresh and active throughout the day. While working out I discovered that I have good leg strength because of cycling and tennis but weak arms and core as I didn’t work as much on my upper body. So I was clear about what I had to focus and work most upon to get the ideal body I wish to have as an athlete.
LO3:Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
In order to keep track of my workouts I organized myself by making a plan/chart of an entire week. This plan not only included my workout routine for the day but also my diet plan. The routine was mostly for the five days of the week and I decided to leave the weekends for rest or for other activities such as playing badminton with my friends in my society.
The plan was simple, it included the part of my body I would want to target on a particular day while working out, for example core, legs, arms, hips etc. I am usually a very organized person who keeps track of her daily tasks by making to-do lists so it was not so challenging for me to come up with a workout plan for myself. The execution on the other hand was complicated because it required almost 2 hours from my daily schedule, 1 for working out and then another hour for bathing and getting ready. But with proper planning I could manage my time well, and could reciprocate for the days I didn’t workout.
This experience has taught me how necessary it is for me to keep up with the plan I make and also has helped me in organizing myself. This has made me well aware and now planning any future events will be a lot more simpler now that I have a bit of an experience.
LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
As I mentioned before I became very lazy and I procrastinated working out, this made it very difficult for me to actually start and even after I start it was necessary for me to practice it daily to have the ideal results that I wish to achieve and so this fact made me not want to start at all. But when I heard my friends discuss their workout routines it made me realise that it’s time for me to start working on myself not because others are doing it but because my body needs it. At first I couldn’t do the easiest of exercises but after months of commitment and dedication I could finally survive long workouts be it quick hit or cardio.
LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
During the span of this pandemic while watching the news we came across a lot of actors and politicians who were infected by the covid 19 virus but we encountered a very few not none but very few athletes who were infected. The point I am trying to make is that sports and fitness keeps you fit and people inclined towards sports seem to have a stronger immune system than any others. So daily exercise and sports helped me to stay fit and tough enough to keep myself away from the disease.
This experience directly connects with goal 3 of sustainable development goals : Good health and well being. Proper nutritious diet and regular physical training helps in maintaining this goal. The learner profiles depicted are balanced and reflective. Balanced because maintaining my workout routine and diet allowed me to stay physically fit and made me more active and efficient in studies or in other words it improved my mental health too. And reflective because I kept in mind my level of fitness I took into consideration all my strengths and weaknesses and made a goal for my own personal development.
To sum up this experience has provided me with a great deal of knowledge for what has to be consumed or not in terms of diet and what exercises have to be done for which parts of the body for improved strength and stamina. This challenge helped me to rediscover myself as a completely new and different person. It helped me achieve a whole another level of fitness that I never thought I could reach and could possibly aim on reaching but I am proud to myself for all the hard work that I put in to have a fit and muscular body.
