Maintaining Fitness Throughout the Season

     One challenge that many coaches probably experience each season is how to keep their players fit for the whole season.  We often tend to emphasize pre-season conditioning so the players are “in shape” for that all-important first match.  Other coaches prefer to build fitness in the early season so the players “peak” later in the season when championships are on the line.

     So what can we do to get our players fit and keep them at an optimal level throughout the season?  This is a tough question with many variables that come into play.  Age of the players is certainly a factor as is the length of the season.  Gender, climate, and level of competition are also factors that need to be taken into account.

     A great rule of thumb that seems to be good advice is to break up the fitness training program into cycles throughout the season.  Below is just a sample that can be adapted for any age or timeline:

     Preseason – build up strength, endurance and core fitness with increased intensity over a three week period.  For instance during the first week train the athletes at 70% maximal intensity, second week 85%, and third week 100% intensity.  During the fourth week, ease off on the intensity to approximately 75% to preserve some energy for the first match.

     Season – Following a similar formula as pre-season, go with a four week rotation of intensity.  Instead of moving up to 100% intensity though back off a bit and follow a 70, 80, 90% intensity for fitness training in your cycle.   You may want to adjust this schedule in a manner that accommodates tournaments or your most important matches so that you team is in prime condition for these events. 

     An important thing to consider is that as athletes get over-fatigued they are more injury prone.  If your team is experiencing more injuries than usual you might need to allow some time for them to recover so ease off on the intensity for a bit.  Keep in mind that any group of athletes is going to have varied levels of tolerance.  Some athletes are iron-horses that seem to be able to always push hard.  Others need a little more attention.  I guess how you deal with that depends on your philosophy as a coach.  I’ve seen athletes seriously injured because their coaches pushed them too hard or they have that do or die mindset that we coaches love, until they tear an ACL or something.  Others begin to have significant drops in performance during matches because they left it all on the training pitch.  I feel that a personal connection to each athlete on your team will help you to be attentive to each athletes needs.  An athlete should never be afraid to tell his or her coach that they feel awful or have nagging injuries.  I’ve seen a lot of athletic careers end prematurely due to the athlete not having faith that his or her coach would understand followed by either a serious injury or a loss of love for the game.

     There are many variations to the training cycles I’ve listed above.  The most important thing is to pay close attention to how your players are handling it all.  Another trick to see how you are doing as a coach is to go back to past season records and see when your teams play their best and when they don’t.  Could fatigue be a factor in the parts of the season when they lose games or give up more goals?  However we coaches do it, we need to make sure we are taking the best care possible of our athletes.