Within my chosen activity of football the component of cardiovascular endurance is a strength of mine. Cardiovascular endurance is the ability of the heart and the lungs to supply oxygen to the working muscles. As a defender (centre back) and winger, i have to be quick both in defence and attack.
The role of a defender is to prevent the opposing team from scoring goals. I as a defender have to be decisive on the ball and pull everyone else into the line of it, i have to make sure everyone is in position so we create a strong line that repels opposition attacks easily and it cant be easy to get through. Cardiovascular endurance is needed in centre back when you have to get into space to receive a ball, or make repeated runs to support attacks and chase back to defend and get into position. This is needed because the energy required to do this is supplied aerobically,which requires your heart, lungs and blood system to supply oxygen to the working muscles throughout the game if you are to last the full 90 minutes of the game. Cardiovascular endurance is also needed because if a player gets past our team players than only us the defenders have the chance of getting back to catch them. Although Cardiovascular endurance is important for a player to last a long time in a match, it is essential for a centre back to remain concentrated and motivated. One example of cardiovascular endurance is from a recent match i played against a quite competitive team who had strong and agile strikers which meant that our defence had to be unbreakable. so it was a corner to them and i was man marking a specific player but i was extremely fatigued and i failed to stay focused on the movements the opposing player was making, i couldn’t stay on him because he was changing speed quite rapidly in different directions and he managed to get free from me and open up the defence leading to us conceding a goal.
On another occasion, the opposing team were on the attack and they had gone past the forwards and midfielders by continuously passing to the wingers and than the strikers would speed pass our team players until they got to the defence,where we were prepared with adrenaline running through our bodies and we were ‘pumped’ up. Than they tried to open a gap in our line but it was a 50/50 ball and i managed to get possession of the ball,win it back and kick it all the way to the other side.
