Over the past few weeks I have attempted to make a start on my personal fitness so that I am prepared and fit for the coming football season. I initially started by doing HIIT workouts as well as an ab routine in order to improve my endurance. HIIT workouts (High Interval Intensity Training) is a popular workout technique which provides bursts of high energy, intense exercise with short breaks/recovery periods afterwards – this is ideal to some of the situations/atmospheres that you undergo whilst playing football so using this technique of exercise works well for me. Recently I started working out with someone who lives in my building as this lockdown often takes away motivation to keep up with a healthy exercise routine. Having a partner has been a great experience because I feel that doing it with someone else really pushes you and motivates you to keep going. I think I feel more of a drive to workout when with a partner because my competitive side comes out – which isn’t a bad thing necessarily because the more competitive I get, the more effort I put into what I am doing. Feeling competitive and enjoying competing is a feeling that you get when playing sport, and reliving that feeling was refreshing. I feel that in terms like this it can actually be a positive push towards success. Now that I have done these workouts for some time, I think I also know what I can do to further my skills throughout myself. Another goal that I would add to my list would be to build up/develop some more upper body strength – which can also be applied to football, as being in defence requires force/strength to get throw-ins further down the line.