Fitness & Diet
Fitter teams win more games – it’s as simple as that. Of course, we know that most clubs will not have a fitness trainer or a well-equipped gym. But there is a lot you can do yourself. The articles in this section look at how you can help your players to get fit, stay fit, avoid injury and recover more quickly. How many times have you seen a close game decided in the last 10 minutes because one team is fit and the other is running out of energy?
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Nutrition and diet to fuel your players
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Nutrition and diet is an area we can all improve on and as coaches we are in a strong position to influence players to become healthier.
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Three truths to improve your fitness training
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Here are three truths that are worth remembering when trying to maintain fitness or recover from injury.
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Get fitter players with no extra effort
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How? Simply by getting them to sleep more. A good night of sleep is vital to a football player's physical and mental preparation for a game.
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Warm-Up for 30-minutes before you kick-off
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Time spent before kick-off is well rewarded when the players run out onto the pitch. It has happened to me where, due to poor directions or traffic, or just plain bad timing, my teams have staggered onto the pitch just before the whistle blows. And boy does it tell.
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How Chasing Footballs Helps Player Concentration
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The best sessions are when you can get your players to use their skill, technique, fitness and most of all their concentration from the word go. Keep them moving and learning with this great exercise, says David Clarke.
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A great warm-up for young players
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One minute to get a ball and dribble back - then steal from the others.
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A warm-up for your goalkeepers handling skills
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This is a simple warm up for your goalkeeper, to get him alert and ready for the match ahead.
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Make sure your players are flexible
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Using a combination of jumps is a great way to help young muscles get warmed up before a match.
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Warm up with a triangle test
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Whether your team is about to start training or preparing for a match, you can quickly set this up while you are putting up the nets or sorting out the team. It's a good one for away matches because you only need cones and balls.
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Set up a V pattern for short sprint stamina drills
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Keeping your triangle of cones from the warm up above, you can use it to do a series of short sprints to prepare your players for a match. It gets the blood circulating in their legs and prepares them for the short sprints used regularly in game situations.
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Warm up your players with a wall pass and shooting test
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A great warm up for training sessions.
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The man in the middle- a warm-up circle
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One way of getting your players into the right frame of mind for a match is to use good warm-ups. If you are all in a big circle you can talk to them and remind them about their responsibilties towards the team, the opposition and the officials.
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Keep fit during the seasonal excesses
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With the temptations that come with the Christmas season I thought all coaches - and I include myself in that - should be doing some crunching fitness exercises.
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Using a warm up to get your players focused - attackers versus defenders
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This is a great warm-up you can employ during a session to get your players' minds back in focus. After the two games above they will need a bit of fun to get them back into coaching mode. This warm-up is a skills game with a competitive angle but one that is fun to play.