sorry, for “football” sport, i mean soccer and not american football!
in Europe, players have a short time of preparation with the first friendly match after 5-7 days after the start of that!
That’s not short, that’s like tomorrow! 
Of course, the preparation period in soccer is short, but perhaps this is an extra reason to focus on all those elements you have no time to during the season. Including acceleration/speed.
I don’t know your situation, but here no one is doing ‘sprint training’ (or speed training) in real meaning of the word - high intensity effort (95%+) and long rests (at least 1min/10meters between resp and 2-3x longer between sets).
So, I think it is under-rated here.
Do I agree it is hard to develop it in so much dense comp schedule? Yes, I do. Is it important to be developed. Yes, it is (from physical prep standpoint). Do you need to do sprint training to develop speed ONLY? No, you don’t. There are tons of more specific tasks that develop it, along with some technical/tactical element.
it’s important but difficult!
in Italy, 2 months ago we see (on a famous sport newspaper) a topic about preparation and the different beetween us and spanish.
Vabo, that article is a complete waste of paper. Do you think you can acquire “strength” by kicking the ball 40 times? I mean, usable strenght with some sort of carry-over to other football activities?
I happened to watch Barcelona a few days ago. Athletically, they are amazing. So, the statemente usually proposed is “Technique has a to go back having a primary importance”, well, if you run (fast) like Pedro, Messi and the good company is def better. Journalist and such tend to confuse muscular volume with athletic abilities.
The main problem is consistency, with a common problem being represented by the continuous changes of coaches and consequently of S&C coaches. More specific tasks to develop speed? To develop fitness yes, to develop speed, no.
of course no and i had the same opionions of yours abouts these articles (in a discussion with my brother).
but for me, when you play 2 times per week, 11 month in a year, it is almost impossible to train for speed, agility and RSA without a raise in injury probability!
of course, it is silly a discussion of strength training if we talk about leg ext for improving kicking power…
Are you suggesting 1 minute of rest between reps of 10 meter sprints?
Strength Coach Mike Boyle recently suggested resting about 18 seconds in between reps of 10’s. Isn’t that a little short?
I know that 1 min. per 10m is considered to be the standard but I usually start the training year with less than that and progress over the weeks to 1 min. per 10m and eventually beyond.
I’m guessing Duxx meant 1 min per 10m and not just 10m distance only. There is a BIG difference between resting 3 minutes after 30m and the 54 seconds Strength Coach Mike Boyle suggests let alone 6 mins over 60m versus 74 seconds.
What Pioneer suggests is common.
Sprint training is NEVER over-rated! Benitez is (but I am no “journalist”…).
I believe part of the problem (or most of the problem) is that there are very few trainers out there that actually have the knowledge (and experience) to implement a speed/sprint training program effectively.
Are you buried beneath 10 metres of snow up there in Serbia? Fabulous job of compiling and interpreting the research and more…you must be the most patient and busiest man in sports. Great job there Mladen…
The more I hear about Boyle, the more I’m convinced he knows little about training speed. Perfect example of what I stated earlier. Do your research before claiming to be an authority or expert. Otherwise you are just misinforming people. Often these types of people will claim that “Team sports athletes should not train like track athletes.” Having trained athletes at elite levels in both track and teams sports, I know this is bullshit and a cover for “I don’t know how to train sprinters, so I’ll tell everyone that sprint training is useless for non-track athletes.”
Pioneer is much closer to the mark. Early in a speed development phase, you would be running sub-maximal sprints over short distances with shorter intervals (i.e. easy walk back). This allows you to get more reps in and work on postural issues during the start and initial acceleration. However, even for this type of work, 18 seconds would be ridiculous. As you approach maximum effort (90-95% of best time and above), you will use 1 minute per 10 meters of travel as an absolute minimum. If working with elite athletes (i.e. 100m sprinters running 10.5 or better), these recovery durations would be moved well beyond that duration. 30 meter sprints (standing, falling start) may require 4-5 minutes. Block starts even more. Other considerations may be temperature during the runs. If it’s really hot, you may take longer, as there is less concern of the athletes cooling down. In cooler environments, you may shorten recovery times (at the expense of lower intensities on the runs) to prevent the athlete from cooling down too much between reps.
Charlie was big on providing whatever recovery was necessary to keep the athletes running fast. 18 seconds will not do that - ever. If it takes 5 minutes between 30 meter runs, then you must take the full 5 minutes.
Naaaah, I am just unemployed currently (if we excuse couple of personal training clients), thus I have time to read, interpret and compile. Thank you kitkat for kind words.
Great advice NuberTwo. As always.
I was doing internship at MBSC in Woburn, MA this summer and speed work was more in line with RSA. To be honest, Boyle program is better than 90% of programs here in Serbia, but even with that I must notice that some of his solutions are chosen to be in line with the context and goals of MBSC and that is money making. During summer 400+ athletes passed through the gym in groups starting every 15mins. So to provide service to all those athletes certain compromises needed to me made. That includes speed work (short rest, very small volume, 4-6 sprints of 15m) and conditioning (is it money wiser to spend 30mins developing aerobic capacity or do 10min intervals?).
I remember being look weird when I did 20min hill sprints with the soccer players and giving them 2min rest between sprints.
The problem was that one discussed by Charlie of High-Low. Keep the high high and low low. Lower level athletes tend to meet at the medium: they slack at speed work not giving their best, and they race at tempo, thus everything gets the effect of medium intensity work, which is B.S.
Deeply agreed. Recovery is what is truly under-rated in soccer,and everywhere else.
Everybody seems to focus only on the stimulus,and the nature,modalities,and nuances of such,while completely ignoring what is happening as soon as the stimulus (bout of exercise,whole training session,or match/sport event for the purposes of this discussion) ceases.
Stimulus (single event) over response (continuous state) perspective is at the base of all misinformation out there.
Exactly. No long term plan and frequent changes of the coaches.
Maybe I used wrong term – not speed but Alactic Power/Capacity (maybe even speed a little bit). You can combine technique work with speed work at some time periods.
Here is the drill we used
Two athletes are lying on the ground and coach with the ball between them. Coach pushes the ball forward toward the small gates(20-30m in distance). Athletes start to run and after certain distance need to ‘shoulder tackle’ to fight for the ball which is moving in between them. Only one athlete is allowed to go through the gate. After that he may play 1v1 with the goal keeper. The drill lasts 4-6secs and it is very high intensity. Does is develop speed? Probably acceleration (not Vmax for sure ;)). Do we do only this and no ‘speed work’. No, we combine the two.
Extreme flexibility in planning is a must in pro-soccer,but that does not preclude per se quality of training. It may even enhance it.
Soccer (as all sports) implies by definition the concurrent expression of multiple combined abilities and traits,way too frequently compromised in its quality by addressing them in…combinations.
and not ,any have the balls to say what you just did.
a lot of the coaches deemed as !!! have merely become a brand name such as nike.
Yes, in my book 3x30m with 4-5 min breaks will always be better than 10x30m with 1 min breaks.
In the first example you get 3 repetitions that contribute to a positive speed adaptation, as indicated by Pakewi. In example 2 you get 1 good speed rep (assuming the athletes are not holding back on rep 1, knowing that 9 more are coming) plus a mish-mash of special endurance work with bad technique and greater risk of muscle strain.