Preseason

[BFS]

Its that time of year that everyone hates! Preseason, a time for aching muscles and tired limbs. If your expecting me to say know that it doesn't need to be like that your wrong!
There is no substitute for hard work, and with that will come some soreness. However with a properly planned program the level of soreness and fatigue can be reduced so that you can keep improving over the weeks.

Its difficult to wright a preseason plan that suits everyone because every sport requires different aspects of fitness. But I'l try and give some ideas for a mixture of fitness goals.

What I right now is just my own line of thought, there is no one right way, This is just what has worked for me in different sports.

General fitness for team sports (football, rugby, GAA, Hockey etc).

My memories of my own preseason where of running laps for the first couple of weeks then doing some shorter sprints, then doing some speed work. The theory behind this being that you get your base fitness up then, your multi sprint fitness ( a bit more specific), then your sharpening work (more specific again), then your ready for the preseason friendlies.
This principle of moving from general to specific still holds true, however the acitivies being performed should really move on.

For most team sports the fitness requirement is to be able to perform repeated high intensity efforts, followed by periods of lower intensity recovery. This should be the pattern of your preseason.
Most sports will have studies on them regarding work to rest ratios (time motion analysis). These studies can be searched for on the web, or on the universities web of science.

Once you have the times then you can think about movement patterns. Very rarely do players run in straight lines for longer than 10-30m depending on the sport. Therefore your running drills should mimic this. Instead of doing straight line interval running, why not do agility intervals? Using a varitey of movement patterns involving cutting, swerving, back pedling, jumping, or whatever activity suits your sport.
This takes a bit longer to set up, but is easly done useing small marker cones or agility poles.
The volume of work can then be increased over the weeks, so that you have more reps and more sets of the drills.

Conditioned games are also excellent conditioning for all sports, and for this use your imagination. you can have more attackers than defenders, or you can call people out of the game to perform a specific activity before returning. Games help keep heart rates high to get the fitness improvments, but also improve, decsision making and skills while fatigued.

Speed and agility training
The first thing to remember is that you have to do your speed training when your not fatigued. So early in the week and at the begining of the session. Also recovery between drills needs to be full so that there is quality in the drills. If you don't train fast you won't get fast!!
I tend to do speed training right from the outset of preseason. I just modifiy the intensity of the drills. for example the players can do technique instead of flat out sprints. Or bounding with holds instead of full pyometric drills.
My speed sessions incude a Warm up involving running mechanics, followed by 10 minutes of controlled bounding or plyos. Then we do 10 minutes of resisted runs using speed sleds, with between 15-20kg on the sled) then we finish with agility runs, including zig zag, swerves, N runs and a few others, then to finish with a few specific drills.

As with the fitness the volume of the speed drills can be progressed over the weeks.

I hope I have given you food for thought!! Remember start slow and progress slowly over the weeks. Put a plan together so you know how many reps and sets you will do of each drill each week, looking to peak for the start of the season.

Any queiries or debat post a thread!
Good luck
BFS

[paul_r]

Great thread starter - some meaty stuff in there!

There's a few things that I'm not 100% sure what they mean, and maybe some others would also benefit from having some of that spelt out for them.

I'm wondering if you could take some specific areas covered there and give a little more of a beginners intro to them? One or two basics where I'd appreciate a bit more of an idiots guide including ...

Some specific drills for say strength, for speed, for agility. Suggested times, reps and any equipment to use if available (I should be able to post images of any equipment discussed if relevant).
A bit of the theory behind exercise -> recovery -> exercise. I was always used to some psycho hammering away with the theory that if you trained twice as long, twice as hard, and twice as often you'd be twice as fit. Preferably train every day, rest is for softies etc. I know now that's not right, but I'm sure there are still some people with that attitude. So ... how do you know when to stop pushing yourself, and is there a good way to recover effectively? Couple of things I've heard prompted that question: a) you can only really increase fitness levels during pre-season - once the season starts you only maintain fitness; b) you don't get fit during exercise, but only when recovering from exercise. Are these about right, or old wives tales?
Maybe a bit of an explanation of some of the terms that some users won't be so familiar with, e.g. 'full plyometric drills'
Last in my list (for now) is some sort of guide ref timing of pre-season training starting. So for example if a team expects to start competitive matches in their sport at the start of September, what pattern of training would you suggest per week, and starting when? I'm asking because I know some teams have already started pre-season training while others won't start until after the July holidays. Even professional football clubs here are starting maybe 3 weeks apart, which sounds like a BIG difference to me.
If there are specific questions from users out there I know it is sometimes easier to deal with these than a general question. I have loads more, starting with Nutrition, but they'll keep a few days.

[BFS]

As you said its difficult to give specifics from general questions, if anyone has specific questions feel free to post a thread.

There are hundreds of books out there and thousands of articles on strength, speed and fitness training. I can not do justice to the subject in a quick thread.

Strength
For most sports your legs are the most important. Firstly a good strength program reduces the chance of injury, and secondly all things being equal if you become stronger and more powerful in the gym the faster you will be.
Most Important: Get advice from a fitness instructor in the gym you use to make sure you have the corect technique!

Useful exercises might be:

Squat
Lunge
Leg press
Deadlift
Romanian Deadlift
Single leg squat
Back extension
Then you have more technical exercises such as the power clean, power snatch, push press and squat jump.

As I said takw this list to a qualified instructor and they can teach you the correct technique.

Standard quidlines for reps and sets are to start with low sets and high reps (3 x 10), and work down to high sets and low reps (5 x 4). THis usually happens over a 4-8 week period. eg. 3 x 10 for 2 weeks 3x 8 for 2 weeks, 4 x 8 for 2 weeks, 4 x 6 for 2 weeks, 5 x 4 for 2 weeks.

BUt mot to repeat myself, talk to an expert about your goals and they can give you a plan.

Speed drills
I mentioned the drills I do and the equipment, Tchnique drills, Speed sleds, Agility runs using the poles.
Plyometric drills are drills that involving a quick ground contact followed by an explosive action, such as bunny hops, or hurdle hops. Again a fitness instructor could advise you in more detail, or there are some good books on speed and agility training.

Agility runs can be any shape, they just need to inclue the activities and patterns you would use in your sport.

Fitness
Generally starting with 24 reps of intervals, perofrmed in 6 sets of 4 or 4 sets of 6, is a good starting point. The type of interval depends on the sport. Then you progress by adding a set on each week.


Recovery
Its true that you get fitter with recovery, but you also need to work hard first. The recovery will depend on the training, so specifics are hard. Generally you need at least 24 hours bewtween fitness sessions for beginners, and may take 48hrs. For speed training it can be 72hrs because of the higher intnsity.

You might plan your week like for a four day training week:

Mon: Speed and conditioned game

Tue: Multi sprint fitness

Wed: Rest

Thurs: Speed and skills

Fri: Fitness

or for a three day:

Mon: speed and conditioned games

Wed: Fitness

Sat: Speed and Fitness

Your sessions should be 90min tops.

Recovery techniques include, rehaydrate properly and eat as soon as possible after training. Sleep well. Some people like to have cold baths or showers afetr training. SOme people where recovery tights.

In terms of time. Well the longer the better. If you start now with a progressive program you'll be fitter than if you start in 2 weeks!
6-8 weeks is long enough to get in shape (depending on your starting point).
As I said previously, plan your 8 weeks with ever increasing overload in your program, making small increases every time.

bfs

[bymfc]

BFS, I really want to know more!! My team starts training on Monday and I am trying to plan our pre season and I would really like to do it right! Would it be possible for you to help me work out a schedule, the only training aids I have is ladders, hurdles, cones and balls! We will be training Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sa****ay, our season starts the second week in Sept. The three locations we can use are Stormont, Helens Bay and a pitch. The first place I was going to use is Stormont. What sort of drills should I be setting up?

Cheers Stu

[bymfc]

I really haven't got a clue, when I was training years ago, my manager just ran us into the ground!! And until he quit not so long ago, from a very well know club, was still using this as his training methods!!! But I will say in his defence that he won loads of trophies in the local game!! So i was going to go for this approach but now after reading this I don't want to, but I have no idea where to start

[bymfc]

Ok found this site and what I am planning now is:

Monday
warm up
http://www.soccerfitness.net/ss1.html
conditioned game

Tuesday
Warm up
Multi sprint fitness (Any examples of drills for this?)

Thursday
Warm up
http://www.soccerfitness.net/ss1.html
Skills

Saturday
Warm up
http://www.soccerfitness.net/ss1.html


Is this ok or are there things i should change? Any help would be grately appreaciated.

Stu

[paul_r]

Looks useful to me, though I'm not a fitness expert. Maybe you'd like to post those links, or a link to that site in the Football forum too?

We also have a load of books and videos on training drills, to go along with the SAQ equipment. I'll talk to our Teams & Clubs specialist.

[BFS]

Your week looks good. I would add some resisted running in on the monday. I use speed sleds with about 10-15kg on them. There were alot of pictures of the germans using them for their world cup lead in.

Then on the saturday reduce the recovery of the speed drills so that it is more fitness based.

Multi sprint drills can be dead simple.

All you need is a distance eg 100m a plan of sets eg 6 sets or 4 reps
then guidlines for time eg you go on a running clock and start every 45 seconds.
So you just sprint your distaance then rest their until recovery up and sprint back, then repeat as planned.

example of distances and times are:

distance reps per set time on running clock(sec)
100m 4 45
70m 4 35
60m 6 30
50m 6 25
40m 6 20
30m 8 15

Complete 6 sets to begin with and add a set each week or session. As the weeks go on you can also reduce your time on recovery. Take 90s between sets.

[bymfc]

I have no speed sleds is there any thing else I can do? Also I have been looking through the site that I posted the links to and am now worried that the above drills are for kids? What do you think?

Stu

[paul_r]

I have no speed sleds is there any thing else I can do

We sell quite a few parachutes (http://www.oursportstore.com/online-shop/cat/143/id/771/training-aids/training-aids/parachute),
http://www.visport.co.uk/filestore/images/training_aids/parachute.jpg
and some people would use Power Speed Resistors (http://www.oursportstore.com/online-shop/cat/143/id/773/training-aids/training-aids/power-speed-resistor)
http://www.visport.co.uk/filestore/images/training_aids/power_speed_resistor.jpg
I'm honestly not sure what the benefits of one over the other are, or what is most effective. We sell speed sleds too but don't have them on the website yet - they'd be more expensive than either of the above.

[BFS]

Do you mean the agility drills you posted?

If so they are fine for either kids or adults. I use similar drills with both U18/U16 and professional players. You can use your imagination with them. But they are all variations on themes.

Accelerate up to cones/poles then step/swerve/jump/backpeddle then accelerate out. Depending on how long you want them to go for you can join several activities together like the circuits at the bottom of your link.

I like to use the sleds because I can monitor the weight and then progress it. But the Shutes and harnesses do the same job. You just need to be careful with the harnessess that not too much reisistance is applied. They still need to be running quite quickly to get the speed benifit.

The other thing you can do is hill sprints. But if your doing it for speed then you need 10-30m distances and take lots of recovery between sets (3min+).

[bymfc]

So how many reps and sets should I do for the first night of the hill sprints?

Cheers Stu

[BFS]

Normally with beginers you'd start with 4-6 reps of 10-20m. Then as with everything progress each week or session by 1 rep, so that your building up to 8-10 reps. Thats stacks for a speed session! and remember lots of recovery for speed.

[bymfc]

Thanks BFS, training went very well tonight, didn't get through everything but that was more down to me not being organised more than anything else.

[bymfc]

I actually meant to post the following link for my Saturday fitness session, would it be better than the speed one?

http://www.soccerfitness.net/cc1.html

[BFS]

Thats some good ideas for you interval running. It does't need to be a full pitch you can make up your own grids, of different sizes so that each run is a differnt time.

The sprints with the jog in the middle and then sprint again. I call them hollow sprints. These can also be done over a varied distance. eg. 10m or 20m sprint followed by 10-20m east and repeat 3-5 times up the pitch. Then recover at the top and repeat every 45-50s.

Then you can add an agility course in the midle of the intervals.

[bymfc]

Ok training is coming on well, hoping the numbers will pick up a bit now the holidays are over but we'll see. As from tonight we are going to be training on the beach and I just wanted to confirm that it is ok to just keep doing what I am doing or should I change it for the beach, or is there anything I should add for the beach!!

[BFS]

Beach? My physio would have a heart attack. We do not let are players run on sand because of stresses on the groins and hamstrings. Training on sand also has no benifit for speed, because you have no feedback of the surface. We have used sand pits for ankle rehab but never for fitness or speed. Thats not to say you shouldn't do it, but its not something I do. You can probably do the same things, and if your players are used to it then it should be fine.

[bymfc]

So all in all its a bad idea then!

[BFS]

As I said, I don't do it, but I'm sure there are other people out there who do, and have got good results. If it's worked in the past then go for it, but think of your reasons for doing it!!

[spoiledali]

hu,

I'm sure there are other people out there who do, and have got good results. If it's worked in the past then go for it, but think of your reasons for doing it!!
I like to use the sleds because I can monitor the weight and then progress it. But the Shutes and harnesses do the same job. You just need to be careful with the harnessess that not too much reisistance is applied. They still need to be running quite quickly to get the speed benifit.
We also have a load of books and videos on training drills, to go along with the SAQ equipment. I'll talk to our Teams & Clubs specialist.

tnkx.

[Paul m]

I currently coach 10-12 year olds and I find that quite a few of them don't run very well ie. leg/arm coordination, leg lift, pace etc. I know this is a specialist area but what simple things should I be doing as a coach to promote better running mechanics in this age group. Is there good reference material I can get my hands on?

[tenklassik]

Greatful to you for sharing all the wonderful tips, besides exercise routines what should be the diet in preseason? write about it also