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How to build the Best Fitness for Football
updated on April 24th, 2024
8 mins read
The word fitness is a very broad term that is being used in many different ways across many different industries and disciplines. Fitness is also the generic term for many sub-terms such as endurance, strength, agility, and many more.
But for most footballers and the start of this article, this simple definition tells you everything you need to know:
Fitness = the ability to meet the physical demands of the game
Why is fitness important?
Therefore, better fitness means a greater capacity to meet the physical demands of the game. Or better said, the fitter you are the better you’re able to perform on the pitch.
That’s also the reason why coaches & scouts are increasingly looking not only for players who are not only great footballers but also great athletes!
It also helps reduce the risk of an injury! Many injuries occur when a player and his muscles fatigue, the concentration goes down and he/she is more likely to put his/her body into postures and positions that are more prone to cause an injury.
So as you can see, being fit only benefits you. But how can you know if you’re fit enough?
Get your personalised Training Plan
Creating a training plan to improve your fitness is not only difficult, it also takes a long time and expertise.
Get in contact with us by filling the form below and we'll help you create your personalised training plan!
Understand the key areas of fitness
To get some numbers and stats in here let’s take a look at some stats of an average male midfielder in the Premier League.
Match Demands in PRO Football:
Total Distance: 10-13km
High-Speed Running (> 19.8 km/h): 800m - 1.2km
Accelerations: 60-90
Decelerations: 60-90
Sprints (> 25.2 km/h): 200-300m
So if we now start breaking down these performance areas we can define the following 5 key physical attributes of fitness that are mostly in demand here:
1) Aerobic Capacity
= maximum amount of oxygen your body can use once during an intense exercise
2) Speed Endurance
= tolerance to be able to produce speed throughout the entire 90 minutes of the game
3) Agility
= ability to rapidly change body direction, accelerate, or decelerate
4) Muscular Strength
= the maximum force your muscles can generate
5) Speed
= the maximum speed you can achieve when sprinting
And these are exactly the kind of attributes you need to train to improve your fitness or better said, to improve your ability to meet the demands of the game.
Get your personalised Training Plan
Creating a training plan to improve your fitness is not only difficult, it also takes a long time and expertise.
Get in contact with us by filling the form below and we'll help you create your personalised training plan!
Principles of Training
Now that you know what areas you need to work on to improve your fitness, let’s speak about how you can create a training plan that allows you to do that.
Why a training plan?
Because improving these things doesn’t just happen overnight. And it also doesn’t happen by doing the same drill over and over.
To effectively improve the physical attributes that make up your fitness you need to understand and use some principles that make up your training plan:
Frequency (= How often do you train?)
Intensity (= How difficult?)
Type (= Which method of training?)
Time (= How long?)
So by defining these metrics, we set the outer boundaries of the training plan.
The 2nd level of principles follows the acronym “SPORT” and stands for Specificity, Progression, Overload, Reversibility, and Tedium.
Specificity
= Choose drills that allow you to train your physical attributes that are relevant to your sport.
Progression
= Everything is planned and periodised and becomes increasingly harder week by week. It’s very important here that you choose your first 4 factors according to your current fitness level and make sure the transitions from one week to the next week are manageable.
Overload
= Another important principle when doing this planning is to ensure that the training is consistently challenging throughout the majority of the training plan.
Reversibility
= Once you reduce your training again (e.g. because you’re now in season), make sure you still keep up some level of training of these areas to avoid losing all the progress you’ve made during your training plan.
Tedium
= Ensure a variety of training drills. Otherwise, the plan could become very boring for you and you might lose motivation after 2 or 3 weeks.
Get your personalised Training Plan
Creating a training plan to improve your fitness is not only difficult, it also takes a long time and expertise.
Get in contact with us by filling the form below and we'll help you create your personalised training plan!
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Create your own Training Plan
Now that you know
- why you should improve your fitness
- what areas you need to work on in order to do so
- and what principles to keep in mind when creating a training plan
it’s finally time to go ahead and do so.
And as you can imagine, this is no one-size-fits all process but depends on the individual situation of a player.
So if you feel like you need assistance in creating the perfect training plan for your individual situation then get in contact with us by filling out the form below and we’ll help you create the perfect training plan with you to take your fitness to the next level!
Get your personalised Training Plan
Creating a training plan to improve your fitness is not only difficult, it also takes a long time and expertise.
Get in contact with us by filling the form below and we'll help you create your personalised training plan!
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