Back to serious matters, maybe a few others on board can give experiences. It appears in the US, the consensus is the “specificity” issue. These goofy courses are set up to try to mimic one of the 1 million possible sequences involved in a match. Yes players have to jump over tackles at time, go up for headers, make aggressive checks etc, as Charlie had pointed out, save those skills for pre-season when team tactics and technical work becomes important. Let off-season work be more general. Improve fitness via tempo, speed, strength, lots of med ball throws etc and players will out perform others. I have seen it in dozens of cases for the past few years now.
A story from this past week from a local university “S&C.” I work with a player at this school, and she has been busting ass with me since April. She attended a “hard session” at school last week “to see if she has been doing any work this summer”(is the quote from the S&C). Supposedly the girls with s&C have been “busting their asses,” running 5 miles a day, lots of agility cone drills blah blah blah.
From reports of this training session, these girls saw nothing but my girl’s butt as she ran by them in everything they did and left the S&C speechless, and the players literally asked her what she has been doing.
Thanks for the detailed response ESTI. Re: your last paragraph, I wonder if the s & c guy was also asking what your girl had been doing as he’s the one who really needs to know what type of program helped her achieve that condition.