Welcome to The
Soccer Fitness Course!

Few players (and coaches) outside of the professional game fully appreciate the impact that proper conditioning can have on performance. The effect can be truly incredible. There is quite rightly a heavy emphasis on technique and skill development at every level of the game, but skill can only be applied within the limits of player's physical capacity.

We've all seen those players who lack good technique yet still prove to be deadly effective. Often their speed and power is enough to outshine opponents and team mates who posses significantly greater talent. There is no substitute for correct technique. But the greater a player's soccer-specific fitness, the higher the level they can apply what skill they do have.

In bite-size sections, this mini course covers the most important elements of fitness in the game of soccer. Starting today with endurance training, it progresses through strength, power and speed training as well as testing soccer fitness and proper nutrition.

Enjoy the course and if you have any questions please use the contact form and ask away!

---

Part 1 - Soccer Endurance Training

Elite soccer players posses excellent endurance. Typical values for VO2max (the technical term for an individual's aerobic power) range between 55 and 70ml/kg/min. To give these figures some context, young, inactive individuals will typical have a VO2max of 40-50ml/kg/min. How important is soccer endurance trainingr?

Studies have shown that the greater a player's aerobic capacity, the more ground they cover during a typical game. Additionally, improved endurance also increases the number of sprints completed in a game. In one study, by improving the VO2max of youth soccer players by 11% over an 8 week period, a 20% increase in total distance covered during competitive match play was seen, along with a 23% increase in involvement with the ball and a 100% increase in the number of sprints performed by each player!

Soccer endurance training falls into one of 2 categories:

• AEROBIC endurance conditioning
• ANAEROBIC endurance conditioning

---

Aerobic Endurance Training

Aerobic endurance training improves the body’s ability to deliver and use oxygen. It will allow players to sustain an overall higher rate of work during the ninety minutes. They will also recover more quickly after repeated sprints and high intensity periods of play.

Sample Aerobic Endurance Drill
This drill is based on fartlek training, which is more specific to soccer and less monotonous than running laps of a soccer pitch:

• Warm up with a steady jog for 10 minutes
• Run hard for 3 minutes, jog slowly for 1 minute
• Repeat 6-8 times
• Cool down at a steady pace for 10 minutes

---

ANaerobic Endurance Training

Anaerobic endurance training will help players to recover more quickly from successive bursts of high intensity exercise. It is not uncommon for a player to have to sprint 20-30yards in order to defend an attack only, to turn and sprint in the opposite direction when counter-attacking. Soccer can be classed as high-intensity, intermittent exercise.

Successive sprints or high intensity work bouts, with little rest in between, quickly leads to an accumulation of lactic acid. When the muscles and blood become acidic, their function is severely hampered. The player must slow down to recover and the last thing they want in this scenario is to receive the ball!

With anaerobic endurance training, the ability to tolerate lactic acid is increased. In other words, it takes longer for lactic acid to accumulate in the blood and muscles and when it does, it can be cleared more rapidly allowing recovery to be that much quicker.

Sample ANaerobic Endurance Drill

Set out 5 cones 10 meters/yard apart. Starting on cone 1, jog to cone 4 then immediately sprint to cone 5. Turn and jog to cone 3 and then sprint to cone 1. Turn and jog to cone 2 and sprint to cone 5. Finally, turn immediately and sprint to cone 1. Rest for 60 seconds and repeat 3-5 times. This is one set. Complete 2-3 sets.

---

Soccer Endurance Training For Junior Players

Players that have not yet reached, or who are in the early stages of puberty should only complete aerobic endurance training. Intense, anaerobic drills are too demanding on young players, who have a limited capacity to produce and tolerate lactic acid.

In very young players (i.e. 6 – 10) endurance “drills” should be avoided altogether. Instead the conditioning effect should come from endurance-based games that can easily be incorporated into a coaching session. For sample games and important guidelines for endurance training in this age group please see Total Soccer Fitness for Juniors.

---

Soccer Endurance Training For Youth Players

As young soccer players mature, they are naturally able to cope with more demanding training. Aerobic versus anaerobic conditioning should still be emphasized, however some more demanding interval training drills can be added into a players program.

Interval training simply refers to breaking a low intensity drill up into several shorter intervals. Because a rest period is allowed between each interval, the overall intensity can increase. When you think about it, this is a lot like the nature of a soccer game.

Total Soccer Fitness for Juniors features lots of drills for this age group and covers the exact guidelines for rest intervals, drill distances and training frequency.

---

Soccer Endurance Training For Mature Players

When players mature physically (usually between ages 16 – 21), their soccer endurance plan should be tailored to meet the precise demands of the game. Players should be completing much more interval training than steady-paced continuous training. They should also incorporate lots of anaerobic endurance drills to help them tolerate the build up of lactic acid.

At this level, endurance training should also be periodized. That simply means that over the course of a season there will be specific periods where aerobic endurance conditioning is emphasized, specific periods when anaerobic endurance conditioning is emphasized and periods of structured rest and recovery.

For high level soccer endurance drills and training plans, see Total Soccer Fitness (High Performance Version)

That’s it for day 1. Tomorrow look out for part 2, where we will look at strength training for soccer.

Best wishes,

Phil Davies.

Author, Total Soccer Fitness