Power and Endurance

Tailor your movements and dynamic stretches for the session and focus on muscles that will be under pressure in game situations. This is not a static warm-up so get moving to raise your heart rate.

Use your recovery time between drills efficiently. Focus on great technique and don't let it slip when the body begins to tire.

Make the games intense and push yourself to your maximum effort with plenty of sprints. Focus on giving your team mates options and be clinical in your decision-making.

At this stage of the season and with games every weekend, how many days a week should I work-out and what kind of strength exercises should I be targeting to ensure that I can maintain my performances right throughout the season?

The key to training in season is not how long your session is but the intensity or how hard the session is. Assuming your training is football based then Tuesday should be an intensive training session and could well target fitness components such as high intensity aerobic/anaerobic work or a combination of both. As the intensity of these sessions is high but short in duration it is possible to work on aspects of strength development in the same day as well, alternatively if you are tired your strength work could be undertaken on a Wednesday. Your strength work is important and should be based around developing core stability and core strength, leg strength (Squats, both double and single leg and Dead-lifts are effective) and upper body strength (push ups, pull ups).

Ultimately, your goal is to work hard in the early part of the week and reduce the intensity of your training as you near match day so you can maximise your performance for the game.

Jon Dalzell- Improving Your Power and Endurance

Running quickly, accelerating hard, stopping quickly and changing direction rapidly are all vital movements for successful high level soccer performance, the completion of these movements however require the player to produce large amounts of force from their muscles to do so. It is possible to increase the force production of your muscles as well as how quickly your muscles produce the force by strength training. The result will be a soccer player who can sprint faster, jump higher and improve their general agility, the message is therefore clear weight training will not slow me down but will in fact speed me up. The question is what type of strength training do I need to do in order to increase my speed and jumping ability? For a start exercise selection is important so whole body movements such as back squats and dead-lifts are going to be important, the number of repetitions will be between 1 - 5, the sets between 3-6 and the load between 85-100% of your best effort lift for one repetition of your chosen strength exercise such as the back squat. Of course when lifting heavier weights they will typically be lifted slowly, however, if your intent is to lift explosively then your muscles will engage their more powerful fast twitch fibres earlier in a given movement which will result in more powerful muscular contractions, the end result will be quicker movements during a game of soccer.

Jon Dalzell- Improving Your Power and Endurance

The notion that you’re only as good as your last training session is scientifically proven. Whilst rest and recuperation are essential after a long hard season, it is important to keep yourself ticking over and not lose everything you’ve worked hard for over the previous nine months. One way to do this, while not taking too much of your time is with sprint training. Sprints will not only keep up your speed and sharpness, they will also go some way to maintaining your aerobic fitness, and therefore the transition into pre-season will be slightly more pleasant.

Jon Dalzell- Improving Your Power and Endurance