Fitness Training
Soccer fitness training must be done right in order to preserve speed, agility and power. Fitness training done incorrectly may also lead to injury. Conditioning for soccer is a key component to soccer success. Only 2-3% of the game is spent with the ball. This means you need to spend a significant amount of time increasing fitness levels for your team.
When planning an effective training program for soccer it is important to consider: aerobic fitness level, repeat sprint ability or RSA, speed, strength, power, agility and playing ability, etc.
Soccer is an intermittent sport consisting of sprints followed by periods of walking or jogging.
As mentioned previously trainers might spend day after day having their athletes do countless number of sprints to condition their athletes. Although there is a place and time for doing anaerobic work, we can’t ignore the aerobic system in training.
The Science of Soccer (1) mentions 3 objectives of aerobic training:
1) Improve the capacity of the aerobic system. Thus a larger percentage of the energy required for intense exercise can be supplied aerobically, allowing a player to work at a higher exercise intensity for prolonged periods.
2) Improve the ability of the muscles to utilize fats during exercise. Thereby a larger portion of glycogen can be preserved and a player can exercise at higher intensities at the end of the game.
3) Improve the ability to recover after a period of high intensity exercise. As a result, a player requires less time to recover before being able to perform in a subsequent period of high-intensity exercise.
Aerobic training not only influences the endurance performance of an athlete but also the ability to repeatedly perform maximal exercise bouts.
To improve your team’s ability to perform in games you need to reduce team fatigue. Studies have shown a significant drop in distance covered from the first half to the second half, but this decrement should be minimized. Reilly and Thomas (1976) have shown an inverse relation between aerobic fitness and decrement in work rate. The players with the higher aerobic fitness level did not show a significant decrease in work rate. This can be a huge advantage for teams that train the aerobic component.
It has also been shown that the higher the aerobic power the more distance can be covered in a game. Smaros confirmed the relationship of aerobic power to distance covered in a game, but went further to explain that the number of sprints attempted in a game is also correlated to aerobic power. Victory also seems to correlate well with aerobic fitness.
Mognoni (1992) underlines the fact, that in the Hungarian league some years ago, the team with the higher average aerobic fitness level had a better finishing result. The team winning the league recorded an average value of 66.6 ml/kg/min, 2nd 3rd and 5th had 64.3, 63.3 and 58.1 ml/kg/min respectively.
Victory may actually depend on your aerobic fitness levels. Jan Hoff and Jan Helgerud have demonstrated through research that an improvement of 5-6 ml/kg/min in VO2max is followed by:
1) 1500-2000 meters more covered in a game
2) doubled number of sprints
3) 30% more involvements with the ball
Doing countless number of hours a week running mile after mile will affect negatively your athlete’s speed. Remember, the body adapts to the stimulus put on it. So if you do long slow running your players muscles will adapt to long slow running. And your athlete’s might be more susceptible to overuse injuries. An effective way to build aerobic fitness levels, in a soccer specific way, is to do Tempo runs.
Kenny McMillan the Head Sports Scientist for Newcastle Utd FC
1) What fitness qualities are most important for youth soccer players u-13 to u-18 to develop?
All !! Speed, agility, flexibility, strength, power, and aerobic. All of these fitness attributes should be trained by using soccer-specific exercises as much as possible though. The youth players should be getting as much time with the ball as possible.
2) What are some big mistake in training for fitness that you have seen some soccer coaches make?
The biggest mistake is making the training like that of an endurance runner ! Most of the fitness training performed should be performed using the ball, and through implementation of small sided games, and larger scale games.
Another mistake is pounding players on a regular basis with repetitive interval work that floods the muscles with acidosis.
3) One of the biggest constraints soccer coaches have in America is they play year around. How can soccer coaches properly prepare their teams by having such a short preseason period? Or is that not even a concern.
In the UK, most professional teams may only have a pre-season of 2-4 weeks duration. This is not enough. Conditioning has to be performed in season when possible, although this is difficult when teams play 2-3 times per week. Players have to be catered for on an individual basis if possible. By maintaining day to day records of players training, and even better, HR monitoring of every session, allows the fitness coach to monitor how much training a player is doing per week. Based on this info, extra training, specific training, or perhaps less training can be advised
4) What are effective ways to develop anaerobic capacity in soccer and why is that important?
As the quality of soccer play increases, anaerobic capacity of the players becomes more important. But the ATP-CP and aerobic energy systems are the most important. Anaerobic capacity can be increased by small sided game play alone, e.g. 1 v 1 and 2 v 2’s.
5) What are some effective ways to develop aerobic capacity in soccer players without sacrificing speed and why is that important?
Aerobic POWER is the most important aspect to improve on. I regularly advise players to perform aerobic power boosting sessions (e.g. 4 x 4 min intervals at 90-95% of VO2max) in addition to normal training. Aerobic capacity and peripheral adaptations can be increased by match play at approx 80-90% of HRmax for extended periods. By carefully periodising intensive and extensive match-play, aerobic power and capacity can be improved. By performing as much of your conditioning work in a soccer-specific way, sprint performance is not sacrificed, and can be improved. "Sprint endurance" is increased also.
