Good shout man
Probably my favourite training system of all time
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Unrelated however no one can even begin to describe the DOMS that follow an impromptu 5 a side game, especially if you havenât played in years
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I quickly skimmed through the plan. Seems like the general phace and Green is what I can go after. To be honest my personal plan looked very similar to what is written in Tactical Barbel. I will read it right away. But it is a very nice suggestion.
A professional club train at my gym and Iâm usually there when they are. There doesnât seem much emphasis on weights; they seem to squat maybe once a week but they do pull ups quite often. The majority of the time theyâre doing jumps and like prehab/strengthening exercises. Iâve overheard them and it sounds like they usually do gym work in a morning then spend the afternoon at the training ground doing more cardio and football specific training.
I donât know if thatâs a good way to do things but itâs their full time jobs so you would thing they know a thing or two.
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Is this during the season though? It doesnt sounds like off season training. But I will take your experience under consideration - lots of plyos, chins and some squats
Thatâs a good point, it was in season.
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Again, not trying to be a dick, but that doesnât add up. Had friends who played in high school (and a few in college) and the entire team ran 5 miles every morning before school. Soccer requires an absurd amount of endurance, so not sure how you can play semi-pro and be in bad shape.
It does not require an absurd amount of endurance for the majority of the positions. It is mostly required in wide positions and if the team is pressing forwards and midfielders. Yet it is not really an insane amount. Just recently top midfielders were reaching over 12 km per game. Nowadays it goes to 15 km per game 90 minutes. And that is mostly slow running and position resetting. It is nothing extra ordinary to run 5 km for 30 minutes.
Semi pro league is 3rd division where I come from. We are a small country with about 7 mil population. Do you think there are players running more than 10km per 90mins in this division? Heck even at the top league players get at about 12-13 average as midfielders. That is like 4km per 30 minutes at a slow tempo in our highest level league.
I am in a mid table team, without a single contracted player. We do not do team practices. Our team practices in a 6x6 amateur tournament. I also played in only 3 games making a total of whooping 90 minutes for the first half of the season. Does it add up now?
I have a neighbour playing at the league bellow. He is like 55 with a huge belly. The local grocer plays for a top team in my league. He is 35, used to ref professional games. Our team average age is like 35. We have only 1 guy who is under 30. So it is not some amazing league and team.
Wasnât trying to call you out or be an ass, guess âsemi-proâ means different things in different spots.
Sorry if you wrote you position and I missed it, but if youâre in that âpoorâ of shape Iâd just run, man. Itâs remarkable what just getting out and doing it can do for your conditioning. Also, if youâre not up to it yet Iâd stay away from sprints and just focus on running a couple of miles and whittling away at your times. One of the fastest and easiest ways to blow a hammy is to jump into sprinting before your bodyâs ready for it. Are you currently running at all?
Cheers for the tag @kleinhound
OP I really hope this post doesnât sound dick-ish. If it does I truly apologise, but Iâm just trying to be direct 
Why did you pick these lifts as KPIs?
How are you standardising intensity for this?
Why did you pick a 4 minute sprint? In all honesty, not only can you not sprint for 4min, but this wouldnât translate to soccer/football very well at all. Soccer, as you know, is very much an aerobic sport with interspersed Galactic explosive intervals. Iâll attach a link to some GPS data for football that you can take a look at. âSOCâ is data from professional soccer, you can adjust numbers accordingly (Iâd estimate a ~20-30% reduction in total load). In this study, high-velocity running was 5.0-6.99m/s, and sprinting was >7.0m/s
Itâs awesome you looked into this stuff man, great work!
Why hypertrophy?
Why these lifts?
I think I already asked, but why threshold runs?
Why?
Could you talk a bit more about what this would look like?
How are you planning on progressing these?
I think, above all else, you should go in with the mindset of:
âAlways do as little as possible, but as much as neededâ
So here are my thoughts, Iâll do a TL:DR first:
- Concurrent periodisation / Vertical integration is the way to go in team sport preparation, as opposed to block periodisation
- Your lactic capacity doesnât really matter a whole lot
- Your number 1 KPIs for sports preparation will always be, in descending order of importance:
- Technical skill
- Speed
- Aerobic capacity
- You need to do a needs analysis for your sport
The first point: concurrent periodisation
I imagine youâve seen this terminology thrown around, but if you havenât, concurrent periodisation is the practice of training all relevant physical capacities at all times, and varying the volume and intensity you devote to each capacity in accordance to your weaknesses and the time of year relative to your competitive season.
As opposed to 2 blocks GPP and 1 block SPP, I think you need to blend the two together. What that means is that, at all times, you should be addressing (in descending order of importance)
- Technical skill
- Speed and agility (arguably placing agility at a greater premium than straight-line speed)
- Aerobic capacity
- Strength and body composition
You mentioned that you see your key weakness as aerobic capacity and fitness. I think itâs awesome that youâre self-aware about this. As such, I would the start of your off-season to hammer aerobic capacity. This means regular LISS (I would recommend off-feet LISS to minimise fatigue, like a bike or pool) and swapping your lifting to something along the lines of EDT (give it a google, itâs quite simple once you understand the principles). It is imperative however that you are still addressing your technical skill, speed and agility at all times during this phase. I would do so by using a higher volume of short (<15m) sprints, emphasisng multi-directional landing mechanics as opposed to full change-of-direction drills and lots and lots of practice of basic ball-handling skills.
Later on, as you progress (and this is not time-dependent, this is based on self-reflection and assessment) and your aerobic base is bigger, then shift the volume of training away from aerobic work and push the loading in the gym a little bit more and the length of your sprints a little bit more. Please keep in mind that you still shouldnât be dropping aerobic capacity work (which you werenât planning on regardless, so kudos for that mate).
2: Lactic Capacity
Uhhm what can I say?
I think lactic work is an excuse for coaches to think their doing good for their athletes.
Like you can see in the GPS data, the majority of soccer is low-intensity aerobic with occasional short bursts in sprinting. Longer (>30s) bursts only occur a handful of times throughout a match. Therefore, it doesnât make sense to do a high volume of lactic capacity training.
Additionally, like I mentioned earlier, speed and agility are your number 2 priority in sports preparation. You will not get faster doing lactic work, in fact you may get slower. In contrast though, getting faster usually leads to improved performance in lactate sprints. To somewhat prove a point, high-level 400m sprinters (the most lactic sport in the world) rarely sprint longer than ~150m in training.
3: KPIs
I think Iâve addressed this one fairly well, but I might just put a justification in.
Technical skill is your number 1 priority because, well, thatâs the sport. For example Usain Bolt signed with the Central Coast Marriners here in Australia, but never got to play because his technical skill wasnât up to scratch. This was despite being the fastest man in the world, even though speed is your number 2 KPI.
Speed and agility are your number 2 priorities because it is nearly always bursts of absolute speed that result in goals scored, not the ability to sustain efforts. Additionally, improving speed and agility almost always lead to improved aerobic capacity, lactic capacity and strength measures in the majority of athletes. The exception are individuals who are already close to maximising their aerobic capacity (marathoners, triathletes etc), lactic capacity (400m sprinters, fighters) and strength measures (powerlifters).
Aerobic capacity is your third KPI because:
- Greater aerobic capacity allows for improved recovery between speed and agility efforts
- Athletes who have a greater aerobic capacity are able to make better technical and tactical decisions during play
- Like it or not, soccer has one of the highest aerobic demands of any team sport, second only to Aussie-Rules Football (which, by the way, is totally worth the watch if you have access to it)
Strength and body composition rank 4th because they tend to have the lowest carryover to sports performance. Additionally, improving the three prior KPIs will usually lead to improvements in strength and body composition if you execute correctly. To put simply, strength is slow, speed is fast. No one wants to be slow in the soccer field. Please, do not take this to mean that strength in the gym is worthless - this is absolutely not the case. However, strength and muscle mass should never be placed at a higher priority to technical skill, speed/agility, and aerobic capacity or you risk short-changing your preparation. Strength and body composition are still important though, due to:
- Correlation and greater relative strength and reduced incidence of non-contact injuries
- Reduced skeletal and joint loading upon ground strikes with leaner athletes
- Strength is the foundation to power
Some particular areas that are important for strengthening are:
- quads (reduced ACL tear risk)
- calves (reduced achilled rupture risk and because foot-ankle stiffness correlates well to speed/agility)
- Hamstrings, in both knee flexion and hip extension (reduced hamstring strain risk)
4: Needs analysis
I really think this is just the amalgamation of my three prior points:
- You donât need to be very strong to be an exceptional football player
- You do need to be technically masterful, fast, agile and have a big âgas tankâ
However, something else I want to mention is crossover in training.
I want you to think about your gym work as âpluggingâ the gaps of everything else. If youâre doing lots and lots of sprinting in training, you probably donât need to also be doing lots of plyometrics. You should instead be trying to âfill the gapâ of strength training (which you will perform at the minimum effective volume, always). If youâre doing lots of concentric/eccentric strength training, you should do at least a few isometrics (particularly for foot-ankle complex and knee), since speed and agility are based on isometric muscle contractions.
Finally, you sound like a guy who is pretty interested in strength and conditioning, so Iâd like to point you towards some really great resources to look up:
- Fergus Connolly on sports preparation
- Jason Feariheller on multi-directional plyometrics
- Lee Taft on change-of-direction mechanics and training
- Joel Jamieson on conditioning for sports
- Charlie Francis on sprint training and vertical integration
- Alex Natera (search: Run-Specific Isometrics), Cal Dietz (search: Triphasic Training) and Christian Thibeaudeau (search: omni-contraction) (hope I spelt that right) on muscle action (particularly isometric) in sports
If youâre into podcasts, the best podcasts for sports preparation, imo, are Joel Smithâs âJust Fly Performance Podcastâ and Rob Paceyâs âPacey Performance Podcast.â If you like reading, try justflysports dot com
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Well these seem like the standard strength measuring lifts. I wanted to measure them in over 8 reps, because I thought I need to train in higher rep range for soccer at this stage.
No intensity for LISS. It is just the ability to run slowly and continuously for 45 mins. No stops for walks. It is challenging for me due to shin splints, not due to conditioning to be honest. If I am able to make 90 min run by the end of it without shin pain and my ankles, calfs, shins, knees and all leg muscle feel fine it will mean my body is ready for the season.
The 4x4 method is something we used when I was training as a child and teen in a professional club. It was a measure for match readiness. We would do that every Thursday. We had to compete with the players in our positions for starting 11 based on distance covered.
I am only thinking and not sure about it. But I wanted to start with increasing some muscle size and LISS in order to get my body ready for the beating with high volume training. Also muscle for injury prevention. Let me know if my logic is wrong.
It is easy to do post workout on the threadmill. Everything that was easy to do was a go for more. Also I wanted to increase the tempo in my play. That is actually what I did mostly during the season when I was not playing. If I hit the gym once or rarely twice per week I would combine some lifting with a Threshold Run. I was hopping for 20 mins max as a sub and I had to be able to play at maximum tempo during these 20 mins. So ⊠Threshold Runs
Progressing on LISS and Threshold runs - there is no specific plan. Just add small amounts every week? This is why I came here to ask.
Okay, I see the logic behind and it is reasonable.
Sounds like a plan. Technical skills in soccer are not a problem really. I have been playing soccer my entire life and was in an academy from age 7 to age 17. I have good technical skills in defending, ball control, passing and shooting. I may be one of the most technical players in the team if you take defending skill (tackling, positioning, closing down) in the mix of technical skill. I am not worried at all here. Can you elaborate on multi-directional landing? My agility âtrainingâ at the moment is limited to the 6x6 games (lots of change of direction in these games) and doing some small pogo jumps, change of feet on a box drills, jump rope. All of them for very short time - 5 sets of 20 seconds.
Sounds reasonable
I agree on the KPI analyses.
Okay notes taken on cross training - less to no plyos when sprinting more. Would it be reasonable to start with plyos and move to more sprinting as a progression?
Would you please explain concentric/eccentric strength training? Does it mean the compound lifts? And what would be isometric exercices for ankle and knees?
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No worries, man. And yeah I am running. Doing Threshold Runs post gym and some LISS once or twice per week. Tackling the 45 min LISS without stopping and just tackled the 2 miles for 20 mins Threshold run. I know it is pretty basic, but it is a start for me. There is a lot of time still.
Fair enough man, well-justified. I will say though that shin splints are a workload volume, and getting shin splints is evidence to me that youâre running too much, hence a transition to off-feet would be useful. You could still always do off-feet 4x4s. My personal bias away from 1-5min efforts at 90+% HRMax is due to the increased fatigue cost from those kind of efforts compared to 20-30min at 65-75% HRMax, but if it works for you then go ahead. Iâll look into that conditioning method more closely.
Itâs not wrong per se, but I think your original plan had you chasing too many goals at once. With the EDT stuff I mentioned you can get some really solid volume in whilst keeping your HR in the aerobic zone for a full session.
Iâm also cautious recommending true hypertrophy blocks to most athletes due to the fibre type shift of 2B fibres to 2A. Granted, for a guy your age Iâm not sure if the ability of muscle fibres to change type is as pronounced as it would be with the teenagers that I typically work with.
Fair enough, I think I explained why I personally prefer LISS, but youâve got a fairly decent justification here anyways. Again, if it works and youâre happy with it, stick with that
Yeah, during times when youâre focussed on developing your aerobic base you can either up intensity or duration. Like Iâve mentioned, Iâd prefer to up duration than intensity, but both will work. Keeping the shin splints in mind, itâs likely you might need to go to off-feet aerobic work for 2-4 weeks and design a gradual transition back to high volumes of aerobic/conditioning running. This would/should take the rest of the off-season to be most effective imo
Beautiful!
Youâll have to forgive me, but this is a massive can of worms Iâm not keen on opening just yet. Have a look around for Jason Fearihellerâs and Lee Taftâs stuff. If you canât find anything, or have questions after that, Iâd be happy to answer that.
As a brief TLDR, I just mean landing from jumping from various positions. The most applicable to football are likely to be landing onto a single limb from:
- sideways/lateral jumps
- oblique jumps
- jumps with rotation
Yeah, so most training you do in the gym emphasises concentric and eccentric muscle contractions. For example, a squat will primarily train your ability to decelerate a load as you go down, and accelerate a weight as you go up. This is certainly useful, but it is important to recognise that in sprint acceleration, max-velocity sprinting, jumping/landing and certain change-of-direction tasks, muscles tend to contract at a fixed length, isometrically, whilst the tendons length and spring back to place. This is particularly relevant at the ankle (soleus and gastroc contract isometrically as the Achilles tendon lengthens and shortens) and knee (quadriceps, hamstrings and gastroc contract isometrically as the patellar tendon lengths and shortens). Therefore, itâs very beneficial to train isometric strength of a muscle for athletic transfer, as opposed to concentric-eccentric only. As a bonus, muscles contract with better âactivationâ (%MVIC) isometrically than they do concentrically or eccentrically.
Alex Natera uses run-specific isometrics (a set of 3 exercises) as a primary strength stimulus (google those, it would be too difficult for me to explain with text only) to train isometric action across the hip, knee and ankle for most of the year (IIRC). Cal Dietz periodises isometric phases of training in 2-4 week blocks (what he refers to as a Triphasic training cycle). Cal will use paused split squats and isometric heel raises at various hip and knee ankles Thibs dedicates one training day each week to isometric strength as part of his omni-contraction system, and uses squat and o-lift variations with pauses.
Yes it would, this is a very common strategy. When sprint volume is low, lots of pogo hops are often used. As sprint volume increases, pogo hops are reduced/removed.
That said, I usually have my athletes sprinting throughout the year at a reasonably consistent volume, and just have them start with short distance sprints and build in length over time/as required by the season. So, early off-season will have lots of 5s, 10s, and 15s. As you approach pre-season, short sprint volume will reduce (but not disappear entirely) and longer sprint distance will increase.
They are, but not really for any particularly great reason. FWIW, my KPI lifts for most athletes are chin-ups and trap bar deadlifts. If those two are improving, I think the athlete has a decent chance of improving in their sport. Other KPI tests could include:
- Beep test / YoYo Intermittent Recovery Test
- 10m Sprint
- 40m Sprint
- 5-0-5 Change of Direction
If you could simultaneously improve all 6 of these (a mighty challenge indeed) you have placed the athlete at an incredibly high chance of demonstrating improvement on the field/court/pitch
I donât think an 8RM is a particularly useful test for soccer. If youâre measuring gym lifts, it tends to be to improve maximum strength and/or power production, in which case a 1-5RM test is best (I like 3s). Trying to search for duration specificity in the weight room tends to be disingenius
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Hey man, thanks a lot for your time and effort. I am taking all notes. I will keep researching based on your recommendations. I will try to lay off a staring 4 week plan shortly if possible would you please look into it. I will make sure to tag you.
But I need more research for the time until February. Right now I only know that I am home office until the end of December. So I have plenty of time to train and can actually make a plan to stick to it.
I would like to hear your comment shortly on the 6x6 games. Our team as said practices in a competitive amateur league for 6x6 games. We make sure everyone gets at least 15 to 20 mins. The goal is to get as many players to play with each other. We are usually 8 to 10 people for these games. They are not very hard due to high rest times. Although the tempo is very high. For example tonight I will have such a game. And next week I will have 2 of these.
And 6x6 games in a non competitive environment. These are more physically demanding, but at a much lower tempo. We play approximately 60-70 minutes. Usually both teams are with good amateur players from the 3rd and 4th division, but we keep it friendly and we are doing it to âjust to moveâ as we call it.
As a what kind of a training would you qualify these small sided games? There is really a lot of change of directions, some short sprints and lots of movement.
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Small-sided games (SSGs) are an exceptional training stimulus. My background is in rugby union and we use SSGs all the time.
Firstly, I think itâs worth identifying the difference between closed-loop agility and open-loop/reactive agility. Closed-loop agility involves stuff like cone drills, where the athlete knows exactly where, when and how they must change direction. I look at closed-loop agility as an opportunity to develop coordination and special-strength qualities in positions that will athletes will achieve during play. Open-loop agility is stuff where the athlete must change direction in response to a stimulus. These stimuli could include the coach telling the athlete to change direction on command, or reacting to other players. SSGs will always train reactive agility, not closed-loop agility. Both are important.
They are very difficult to qualify between agility training and conditioning work, and I think the category you place them in depends on how long you do them for and the number of players / space available. Longer SSGs with larger teams and greater field area fit more on the conditioning end of the spectrum. Shorter SSGs with smaller teams and smaller fields fit more on the speed/agility end of the spectrum.
As a coach, I tend to use SSGs as a conditioning stimulus more frequently than as a speed/agility stimulus, but thatâs only because I use other non-specific games - like gang-up tag or british bulldogs, for example - to train reactive agility.
In your scenario, I would consider the shorter SSGs as your reactive agility stimulus and the longer SSGs as a good chunk of your aerobic conditioning stimulus. This pretty much only leaves closed-loop agility as an untrained quality.
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Amazing, thank you again
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No problem man, I look forward to seeing what you put together
Dude, getting started is the hardest part. Youâre obviously motivated to improve, so the rest will be cake. Youâre also gonna be blown away at how quickly your times drop. Go get itđ€đ»
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This shit right here is why I love T-Nation.
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Okay so lockdown happen and I was planning to propose my girlfriend, after last week our plans failed due to her mom being very sick. Now these week my plans failed due to the lockdown. I had to reschedule hotel nights and etc. But in the end I got tired of all of it, just drove my girl to a nice place with an amazing view and proposed her. Now I am a happily engaged man.
Anyway, I did not have much time to write down a plan and do a proper research.
I took notes from you and tactical barbell, researched what is EDT and here is a little 4 week plan I would do, until the lockdown lasts. We will be in lockdown until December 21, but I think it will continue a week or 2 more.
I will start with the analyses of the needs.
I agree with you on the speed, agility and gas tank needs; then the body composition.
LISS and gas tank training - I think I should start with 2 workouts per week. Your idea of doing something else was nice. I was thinking to do on the stationary bikes in the gym, but now with the lockdown it will be impossible. So LISS 2 times per week - progression is to add 5 mins per workout or week.
Agility and Speed - I believe I should add 2 workouts per week as well.
Sprints - short sprints. Initially gradually increasing the volume, later increasing the distance
Agility - I really have no plan for this one. I think to dedicate a segment of the workout on jumps.
I will start with pogo jumps and single leg pogo jumps. I will try your lateral jumps, oblique jumps and turning jumps. I need more research here. You have recommended Jason Feariheller and Lee Taft. I will take a look and find a way to train and progress.
EDT training - twice per week and since there is a lock down I am limited to body weight
upper body session - push ups with chin ups outside
lower body session - squats with glute bridges ???
I am not sure about hamstring body weight exercices
I will start with 10 mins sessions to try it out. There are 2 major problems - I can do maximum 5 chins//pull ups and the hamstring exerice
SSG games - I have 3 more competitive games. So I will count these as a reactive agility and speed training.
The non competitive SSG games - I will try to organize or take part at at least 1 per weeks. Basically if I have an non competitive SSG game I will drop a LISS workout to reduce the load on the calfs.
The basic plan is:
LISS
EDT upper body + sprints for speed
recovery - walking with a heavy back pack + yoga and some massage
LISS
EDT lower body + isometric work + plyometrics for agility
rest
This makes it 2 workouts for the gas tank, 2 workouts for speed + agility and 2 workouts for strength
Week 1, I will drop both speed and agility workouts due to 2x competitive SSG games. I will an extra workout doing both sprints and some pogo jumps if only I feel well.
Week 2, I will drop the agility work due to 1 competitive SSG game.
Week 3 and 4 the workouts will be as originally planned - 2xLISS, EDT upper body + sprints for speed, EDT lower body + isometric work + plyometrics for agility
Looking forward to your critique and advice.
I am open for suggestions, but I need to further my knowledge in this field.
I am keeping it simple for now, then when I have done more research I can update.