As a soccer fitness coach, I want my players to be capable of sprinting fast, repeatedly and with minimal rest between efforts. This is the holy grail of soccer fitness. Before one can train the ability to do this, you need to first understand what limits an athletes ability to do it. In a recent review paper (Girard,?Mendez-Villanueva,?Bishop, 2011) the researchers looked at factors contributing to fatigue in repeat sprint ability. A brief synopsis of the review indicates that:
- Fatigue from repeat efforts is inversely correlated to initial sprint performance.
- Limitations in energy supply, which include energy available from phosphocreatine hydrolysis, anaerobic glycolysis and oxidative metabolism, and the intramuscular accumulation of metabolic by-products, such as hydrogen ions are key factors in performance decrement.
- Neural factors (magnitude and strategy of recruitment) are related to fatigue.
- Stiffness regulation, hypoglycemia, muscle damage and environmental conditions may also compromise repeat sprint ability.
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Mike Young
Director of Performance at Athletic Lab
Mike is the Head Fitness Coach for the North Carolina Courage and North Carolina FC. He is also the owner and Director of Performance at Athletic Lab sports performance training center. He previously served as the fitness coach for the Vancouver Whitecaps and Carolina Railhawks. He has a PhD in Biomechanics, an MS in Coaching Science, and a BSS in Exercise Physiology and has coached Olympic and professional athletes in Skeleton, Track & Field, MLS and NASL Soccer, PGA Golf, NFL Football, MLB Baseball and Olympic Weightlifting. He has lectured around the world and authored 2 books and dozens of research and coaching articles.
Latest posts by Mike Young (see all)
- Brilliant Hamstring Injury Observations from Dave Joyce - September 26, 2018
- Sprint exposure for speed enhancement AND injury reduction - April 4, 2018
- Variance in the Soccer Warmup - April 3, 2018
[…] Speed, Training 0 Comment In one of my last posts, I looked at a research review on what limits an athlete’s ability to perform repeated sprints.??That research team did a follow up article on what previous research indicates as recommendations […]
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[…] high quality. I try to address what research indicates as the limiters of repeat sprint ability?(1,?2). On one extreme of that continuum, I do traditional acceleration / speed development runs of […]
[…] high quality. I try to address what research indicates as the limiters of repeat sprint ability?(1,?2). On one extreme of that continuum, I do traditional acceleration / speed development runs of […]
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[…] high quality. I try to address what research indicates as the limiters of repeat sprint ability (1, 2). On one extreme of that continuum, I do traditional acceleration / speed development runs of […]