DEVELOPING SPEED THROUGH CIRCUIT AND INTERVAL TRAINING
By Bienvenido Constantino

Here in the Philippines, developing speed in our high school students has been a challenging task for coaches. We've found that many of our high school students tend to be very tardy and lazy during training. As teenagers often more concerned about social interactions with their peers than sports performance, it's been tough to get students to dedicate themselves to the time needed to improve speed. In reflecting upon this challenge, we recognized that one solution to this dilemma was to introduce speed training to entire physical education classes. That way we might also discover potential athletes not previously identified.

We also noticed that traditional approaches to improving speed were not working. Students remained unmotivated, and improvements were not forthcoming. We realized that we needed a new and different approach.

The speed training program outlined below is being tested on high school students taking Physical Education from three schools in Puerto Princesa City in the Philippines. A special mixed group of students from first year to fourth year were formed in order to test the program. The training considered variations that exist between athletes with regard to their physique, age, and ability to perform the task.

Circuit and interval training were used as two different methods to improve speed, and also to change our students' attitudes towards training. One group of students performed the circuit training, and the other group of students performed interval training. During the first week, the researcher employed a bench marking or time trial in order to establish the basis for improvement. The average time for boys in 100m was 15.01 seconds. The average time for girls in 100m was 17.20 seconds. The average time for 200m for boys was 31.0 seconds and 37.72 seconds for girls.

The circuit training is done Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes. Interval training is performed during Tuesdays and Thursdays for 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours. Saturdays are allotted for time trials. Sundays are allotted for rest and are strictly observed. A light schedule of training was given during the first week, a heavier schedule during the next two weeks, and another light training during the last week.

With this intervention program, we've found that the physical education program has become more exciting and interesting. And it's become easier for coaches of different fields to choose potential athletes among these participants.

The following are samples of activities given to the students:

• The circuit training is started with a 30 minutes total and proper warm up which includes:
  o Stretching
  o Jogging
  o Calisthenics

If improvement is too slow, one can add more repetition and increase the intensity.

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