Here’s a video of Man United’s recent physical training prior to a match with Everton. I can’t speak much to the context of the training session but what is shown is, in my opinion, why physical prep for soccer is still far behind other sports. I’m assuming this isn’t a recovery and restoration session since they are clearly doing what appears to be strength and plyometric work. I think it is a good idea to do some neuromuscular stimulation prior to matches but the key is picking the right exercises, keeping the intensity high, and the volume low so players come out to the pitch on game day with fresh but fired up legs. What is shown in this video appears to be half-hearted effort, sloppy exercise execution with gimmicky (bands?) or inappropriate loading (light med ball for low box step ups?) using poor exercise selection. Agree or disagree…post thoughts to comments.
Please note, this is NOT necessarily an indictment of the fitness coach. As a fitness coach with two clubs I know it’s possible that he may not have had control over the physical training for the session or the worst examples of what things should look like were caught on video for the short promo clip.
Mike Young
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
I agree. It’s the culture in football. Sometimes a fitness coach might find it easier to demonstrate , to a football or skills coach, what they’re doing when bands / gimmicks are involved as opposed to simple exercises with good quality movement.
On a side note I was at an ac Milan game today where the warm up involved a lot of static stretching and minimal dynamic / mobility exercises. There was very little in the way of preparing them for the energy system or speed demands of the game.
@Owen-
It’s a shame that that what is done at the highest levels of this sport for so many teams is so far removed from best-practices. It seems the sport is among the leaders (with Rugby and AFL) in player monitoring but among the worst for actual athletic development.
I am sure that the objective of the session was to prepare the athletes for the training session, but I don’t know what specifically they were trying to achieve by doing these things i.e. general strength, jump circuits, and some gimmicky “corrective exercises”.
To my understanding, the day before a game should be a window of opportunity to allow athletes to prepare themselves tactically. At that point in the season, the hay is already in the barn. Any physical preparation is coming in the form of an extended warm-up and neural priming as mentioned above.
Who knows, maybe the athletes perceive themselves to be better prepared for competition.
Sadly reminds me of some of my poorer prep sessions when coaching high school and college level. I think this has to fall back on the coach to work with the fitness/physio staff to build effective and timely programs. And the coach also needs to build belief in his players that the work they are doing here is going to prepare them for the match.
Agreed. This kind of thing seems to pretty much be the norm.