Today we are going to talk about physical preparation in football. Logically, in this sport it is important to be in optimal physical condition to prevent injuries (as we talked about in 👉this blog👈) and be able to perform at your best in each game. How do we prepare then?
Basic physical abilities depend fundamentally on energy processes and are the physical abilities necessary to carry out physical activities.
The basic physical qualities are:strength, endurance, speed, flexibility.
In this post we will talk about the first 2: strength and endurance. What are they, what are they for and how to enhance them?
Contents
The force
Strength is the physical quality that allows us to improve the rest of the qualities (speed, resistance, power...). This makes sense in that being stronger will allow us to be faster, since the greater the muscle strength, the more speed we can generate and the more resistant we become (the stronger a muscle is, the more resistant it will be to fatigue) or the more power we will be able to generate.
According to Tudor Pump In the sports training process, one should begin with strength exercises that accentuate the participation of the trunk muscles and not so much of the upper extremities. Here it is worth mentioning the importance of starting to work from the first year of childhood with exercises aimed at strengthening the middle zone.
The recommendation to start with strength work is with work with high and systematic loads, since there is no appropriate age to start with strength work when the work is not aimed at maximum strength. The beginning of strength work aimed at seeking an increase in muscle mass would be given by the peak of growth in height. Prior to this, strength training should be aimed at teaching exercise techniques.
Doing proprioceptive work on the lumbo-pelvic area, along with strengthening and making the central area of the body more flexible, will allow you to later develop strength work with greater safety. According to Ozolin N. G. (1915) "physical preparation is aimed at strengthening the organs and systems of the organism and raising its physiological possibilities that will guarantee the development of motor qualities." Therefore, exercises with free weights offer a greater training stimulus by accentuating the work of proprioception, the sense of balance, stability and coordination. In addition, Feigenbaum assures that to date there is no scientific evidence that strength exercises with children applied systematically can cause acute or chronic injuries. Neural capacities cannot develop if they are not stimulated, which is why coordination and balance work is of great importance at this stage.
Following the words of Cappa, we can point out that the time that the teacher dedicates to teaching the techniques is an investment, since the correct performance of the exercises allows, in the future, to work with high loads. Regarding the dosage and quality of exercises, the author proposes starting with 10 repetitions of low intensity exercises, 2 to 3 series, allowing good recovery between them and doing it with a weekly frequency of twice. Finally, he mentions the importance of combining the plyometric exercises with movement or diverse motor skills. Prior to plyometric work, it is important to strengthen the ligaments and tendons of the involved joints. In turn, multi-jump work is interesting, taking into account that the time of contact with the ground is decisive for the development of basic plyometric work.
The resistance
Regarding resistance, we must talk about the anaerobic system. Regarding this, we can mention that the activity of phosphofructokinase in children between 11-13 years old is between 30-50% lower than in adults. This means that there would be no need for children at this stage to perform specific training to increase anaerobic lactic power. Under this line, high-intensity interspersed work at childhood ages is useless. It is also important to highlight that the volumes used for resistance training must be appropriate to the child's conditions, since, as we always repeat, each player is different and the training must be adapted to the qualities of each player and their needs.
It will then be important to plan and propose activities where the volumes are not very large or of very high intensity, since this could cause glycogenic depletion. On the other hand, keep in mind that resistance is always linked to volitional, aerobic and anaerobic metabolic, functional and coordinative factors. When it comes to talking and focusing on the importance of aerobic resistance and its work during childhood, Weineck comments and emphasizes that both children and young people are prepared from a cardiopulmonary and metabolic point of view to train under aerobic loads, therefore, the choice of methods, such as the dosage of the intensity and duration of the loads, takes a high degree of importance, since they must be adapted to the physiological circumstances of the player's age. This blood flow, added to its great mitochondrial density, allows us to do intermittent aerobic work of high intensity or fractions, and of short duration, alternating them with small short breaks, so that the recovery capacity between efforts is efficient.
According to Cometti, training resistance in young soccer players is vital and the focus should be on fast fiber work where short and brief efforts prevail. A variant that can be used to work on resistance are small games, for which we work with situations of plays (matches) where the number of players and the space are reduced to increase the participation of the footballers, in this way the game will be more intense than in an 11 vs. 11.
As we mentioned, aerobic power training can increase performance in children, but keep in mind that the magnitude of this increase is probably lower than expected in adults. There is no confirmed age or critical maturation level to maximize adaptations to aerobic training in children and adolescents. The objective of working on resistance in pre-pubertal youth should be to improve recovery, since in this way we can create the bases of resistance and without causing increases in VO2. If we want to obtain better effects on children, working on resistance by doing intermittent high-intensity tasks and small games will help with this. However, early specialization is not recommended in children. So the combination of several methods will be the best way to develop resistance in this case.
We hope this post has been useful to you! Stay tuned for part two where we'll talk about speed and the importance of flexibility.
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Master in Grassroots Football Director and Youth Manager (UCAV)
