Week organization in In-Season - Example

Other Sports Soccer
1

Here is the organization of the following week for the soccer team I work with:

  • Head coach and some experience athletes explained me that the biggest fatigue after a game is 2 days later - thus second day after a match is free.

  • Day before a match we still want to work on tactics and technique but we dont want to ‘stress the legs’, thus we play 10on10 on 1/2 of the court (a.k.a. ‘game of reflexes and quickness’)

  • In this week every training component is present: general work capacity/recovery (tempo medball), speed work, strength work, plyos&medballs, tactical work and technique work

  • Tempo is strength endurance circuits and medball without too much running. Prolonged dynamic warmup is ok too. The goal is recovery with blood flushing and avoidance of ball. Maintenance of core strength and strenght endurance, also dynamic flexibility.

Example:
Prolonged gentle warmup and dynamic warmup
100+100+100
Bodyweigth circuits & medball
100+200+100
Bodyweigth circuits & medball
100+100+100
Bodyweigth circuits & medball

Stretching
Sauna (if aviable)
Massage

(the + in tempo is longer than ordinary)

  • Reserves are those players who didn’t played full half-time and those regular bench guys. Some of this bench guys who will play in next match will have a day off or something (2nd day after the match). Bench guys match is not so important, only for maintaining shape

  • 4on4 game is there to maintain/futher improve maximal aerobic capacity but in specific way. It should be far away from game

  • 7on7 with tactical task is also aimed at improving aerobic power/capacity, but is less stressfull and implemented into tactical training

2

Looks very good. What all are you doing for their speed work?

3

Basic stuff:
Hills
Ins&Outs (15-20m segments)
Build-ups
10s,20s,30s,40s (maybe later up to 60m for speed reserve)
Contrast sprints (hills then flat — we don’t have sleds yet and I don’t like rubber/bungii cords)
Maybe some lateral stuff: double cross over, lateral stoping and re-acceleration (Lee Taft)

We do ‘chase runs’ a lot because as our PT guys said ‘Soccer guys are creatures most simmilar to men’ and they don’t give 100% when they run ‘alone’. This week we did chases where one athlete dribbles the ball and the other gotta get him and touch him on back, but he starts behind him (longer the speed distance the longer the distance between them).

We implement various start position for every sprint - lying, push-up, back turned (hip turn), side bridge, side start, plyo-step, skip, jump and start, lateral jump and start, broad jump and lateral start. This way we deal with ‘initialization movements’ in game-like agility movement patterns.
Some starts and chases can be started in mirror-like drill (one partner reacts to another etc.)
‘Special’ Speed work can be utlizied with a ball where two players chase and finish with shooting a ball served by 3rd player or coach etc, etc…

4

Sounds good- what are the speed work recoveries?

5

1mine per 10m on average between reps. (10m - 1min, 20m - 2min, 30m - 3 min, 40m-4min, Ins&Out-5min etc.).
We use longer rest between sets - on average 3-5mins, but this depends on distance offcourse.
Total volume is from 100-300m.

BTW, our head menager was wondering why I use such a long rests, cause ‘they don’t rest that long in a game’ :rolleyes:

When there was little lower air temp we slighty reduced rest periods and decreased total volume

6

Looks nice duxx. I will try to get the stats stuff to you soon. Sorry for the delay, I am busy as heck with my thesis right now… :slight_smile:

7

What type of plyos do you have your players do? thanks

8

Now we are going to open a huge ‘can of warms’ :rolleyes: :smiley:
I use Michael Boyle’s progression (this inlcudes sigle leg stuff) over 5 cones (we don’t have hurdles, not jump pit etc) plus some split squat jumps and step-up jumps, bounds now and then… We do a lot of medball throws with landing in squat (medball video) and with accelerating for 5-10m.

Stage one (2wks)

  • Squat jump and stick (5 cones)
  • Lateral squat jump and stick
  • SL forward jump and stick
  • SL lateral jump and stick
  • SPlit squat jump and stick (no pre-stretch)
  • Step-up jump & land
  • Lateral bounds
  • Zig-zag bounds
  • Etc
    Volume is very low (we don’t do this together, I just mentioned some stuff).

Stage two (2wks)

  • Same stuff but small hop/jump between succesive jumps
  • Included reactivity in step up and split squat jumps

Stage three

  • Same stuff but continuous jumps…

We continue on stage three over the season. (wk volume is drastically reduced from 3 session to one)

9

Love the quote from you PT, I agree 100 %. You could almost expand the claim and add the fact that soccer players just want to play soccer and that 95 % of all soccer players won’t do any practice on their own if they know that there’s no way for you to verify that they really have done them.

You seem to be very influenced by Bangsbo in you choice of exercise Duxx. Personally I enjoyed the statistics and facts in the book way more than the exercises. I believe that I have pointed this out to you earlier on a different forum, but I will bring it up here again. Be careful as (according to me) many of the exercises in the book very easily get boring for the players. Make sure you tell them the objective of the exercises otherwise they get irritated on the restrictions you put on them and the game.

When you play 4x4, how big an area are you using? I had a coach two years back that made the area so small that you hardly ever got any speed in you running. We developed great speed with the ball but the aerobic system hardly got any work. Do you check their pulse or use any other parameter to measure their effort? If you get the area right I believe you can do a very big part of your aerobic conditioning (in season) through these types of games.

How’s you article “Energy system development for soccer” going? I would love to read it.

10

thats awesome duxx… but could you maybe do an offseason setup aswell?

11

Have you/they seen any difference in their recovery with the tempo the day after a game? Were they doing something similar in the past anyway? Or is it early days yet to conclude?

12

Thanks duxx what are your number of contacts within a session?

13

Shouldn’t you finish that thesis by now? I remember you saying the same stuff before a year :slight_smile:

Bangsbo was one of the first books on soccer I have read. I love his classification, but I don’t use it that much anymore. Also, we haven’t done any of the Bangsbo’s exercises this prep period. I am trying to create my own classification by talking to my sport director (who was actually the coach of Mohr - a researcher now). I am currently exploring the classification FIFA uses and I have just read the book by Migel Anhel Portugal. I try to organize the stuff I have now collected.

Area is 40mx40m. This is organized by head coach. If the area is small, the technical&tactical requirements (skill, perception, ball involvement) are increased (due greater ‘density’ of players), but at the same time metabolical load is decreased. Anyway, all this depends on the goal of the drill and the instructions of the coach. If we want to emphasise tactics, we use a lot of breaks and explanation etc, etc. You can use ordinary technical games in pairs as conditioning if that is a goal. What I have learned in this short period is that we CAN’T SPLIT the tactics, technique and conditioning. We can emphasise one of them, but we can’t isolate them. (Talking about small sided games, not tempo etc). Instructions, rules, number of players, number of touches, tasks, etc, etc, all determine the ‘ratio’ of tactics/technique/conditioning and thus direct the goal of one drill
We don’t measure pulse, cause we don’t have pulses with memory. I see the players and talk to them. I use simple questions ‘Is this harder than tempo workout’, ‘Is this harder than playing the game’. I guess HR would be nice thing to have though.
The goal of (this) 4on4 is to conditionin the players trough the games which involve tactical situations.

I won’t write it. Need more experience to do it. I am writing one another article regarding strength training. You will love it :slight_smile: The name is ‘What I have learned from ‘Practical Programming’ book’. It’s about implementing principles from the book into my system.

Why not trying for yourself and let us see it and provide you with some recomendations. It is not that hard, thrust me :slight_smile: The schedule depends of number of soccer practices and the degree of overlapping between it and conditioning sessions. Also, you must know the weaknesses and strengths of them as a team and of them as individuals.

Too early to conclude anything.

14

The ‘typical’ session would be

  1. Squat jumps over cones 2x5 (10)
  2. Lateral squat jumps over cones 1x5 (each leg) (10)
  3. Single leg jumps over hurdles 1x3 (each leg) (6)
  4. Lateral single leg jumps over hurdle 1x3 (each leg x 2 sides) (12)
  5. Split squat jumps 2x5 (each side) (20)
    Total volume = 58 NOC
15

It is moving along. I should be done in a few weeks. I had some experimental issues that i needed to collect more data on, so i haven’t been lazy :slight_smile:

16

duxx,

do you think in an extended off season its best to do phases ie
max strength phase
some tempo

add speed work and still do max strength
some tempo

speed work, strength, and then introduce speed endurance and more ext tempo.

or to just to speed/weights and ext tempo all the time to roughly the same extents?

17

Priorities in that long (how long) off-season would be

  1. Speed, Strength & Explosive Abilties
  2. Technique (dribbling, wall drills, juggling, shooting, playing with your pals if there are no organized team pracitces)
  3. Aerobic conditioning (tempo, medball & bodyweight circuits, maybe some sled work, etc)

Technique is a must and it must be practiced all year long. This doesn’t mean that the load have to be competitive. Just keep the ball on your legs, do some ‘school’ ball drills. Technique is lost very soon if not practiced, especially if you, in the meantime, loose or gain strength, speed etc. Gotta ‘adapt’ your skill to your new levels of abilities.

I learned a lot form our preparatory period, and I would change something for the next. Here are some ideas (note that we have team practiced during prep-period) for you to consider

Period #1 - Emphasis of work capacity and recovery.
Technique: juggling, ball handling
Speed: Build-ups (30m gradual build-up and 20m relaxation) - working on the technique and relaxation.
Strength: Bodyweigth circuits or barbell circuits/complexes, learning new lifts, etc
Elastic/Speed Strength: Landing mechanics
Work Capacity: Tempo, Medball, bodyweigth circuits, ab work, maybe some sled work (for conditioning)

Period #2 - Emphasis of strength development
Technique: dribbling, juggling, passing
Speed: Hills for up to 30m.
Strength: squat, DL, RDL, bench, press, chin-up, row, clean
Elastic/Speed Strength: Squat jumps, medball throws
Work Capacity: Tempo, Medball, bodyweigth circuits, ab work, maybe some sled work (for conditioning), single leg lifts

Period #3 - Emphasis of speed development
Technique: dribbling, passing, shooting
Speed: Flat runs up to 60m (major volume/reps from 10-30m). Sled run.
Strength: squat, DL, RDL, bench, press, chin-up, row, clean (emphasise olys)
Elastic/Speed Strength: Hurdle Jumps, medball throws
Work Capacity: Reduce it or keep it due stress of speed work. Use bodyweight circuits, medball

Periods can last from 2-3 weeks, depending on various factors.

I just put this on ‘paper’ for 5mins, don’t expect it to be ground-breaking…

18

no change of direction work? why are you doing max strength work since theres little max strength in soccer. can you post a sample week?

19

Read this stuff
http://www.michaelboyle.biz/forum/viewtopic.php?t=542
http://www.michaelboyle.biz/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=14254&highlight=agility
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=14297&highlight=agility

There is no direct change of direction work in my system - no zig-zag poligons, Ls, 8s, Ts and other stuff. Agility is a skill, a perceptive skill that should be developed in a game-like situations.
Many of the ‘agility stuff’ in a game is done with a ball (tackles, dribblings). Other non-ball involved ‘agility’ stuff, along with being a perceptive in nature (open skill - reaction/anticipation of the opponent) is actually the ability to do great acceleration from various position (‘first step quickness’ or ‘initialization movmements’): side, lying, backward, cross-step. Other stuff involves chop-step and cut-step.
Thus along with doing a bunch of accelerations from various positions (lying, sidebridge, back turned, tumbling…) a simple left-right shuffles/cross-step with emphasised cut-step is ok. Some form of zig-zagbound is ok too.

As with max strength… I ment strength work done with <6 reps per set.
‘theres little max strength in soccer’ - are you kidding me? Offcourse they are not going to squat in a game, but they need force to overcome inertia. Soccer guys are to weak from considering ‘ab work’ to be strength training…

20

i just dont see the point of doing true max effort work, i would keep the reps no lower then 5. i see some coaches start with 15, 12,10,8,6,5reps spending a couple weeks at each. i see many coaches only using circuit training as there main strength training method. with your three periods you have listed above what part of the season is it for (offseason, preseason etc)?