Sport Science for Soccer: The Basics
You say you want to get stronger, faster, and hurt less…? These are familiar requests for our fitness coaching partners at Performance Unlimited. In this first part of a Sport Science for Soccer series, John Lytton introduces the four key components to achieving your goals. We hope you enjoy this guest blog. Read more of his blogs.
Back in the day, winter and summer off-seasons were my favorite times to be an athletic development coach. Training was pure. Finally, we could work on developing some of the strength, speed, and conditioning that athletes needed and wanted to improve. We had the time to do just that. We stepped away from their sport and we trained. Without the ball. Just worked on being a better mover.
It worked, and still does.
But, in the last 5 years or so we’ve created a sports scheduling monster. There’s now one big, ongoing cycle of competition and chronic organized sport. I’m not even talking about early specialization. I’m more concerned with chronic and monotonous training in one facet of skills. This approach directly contrasts to physical improvement and relates to increases in injury.
The Foundation for Good Athletic Movement
Training doesn’t need to involve several different sports as we used to do. I’m talking about being even more intentional with your short-term and long-term needs by ensuring that you are moving every part of your body in all of its designed manners — often.
Kids at play consistently roll, crawl, flip, throw and catch balls, climb, hang from things and manipulate heavy objects. It’s all in a fun day at the jungle gym. This is also the foundation of a good movement program for athletes at any age.
“You do not get fitter, faster, stronger by playing the game. You must train those qualities.”
As many Fall athletes are in their offseason, and the year-round ones are getting at least a break, this is a great time to think about yearly training cycles. How can you achieve your goals for strength, speed, and conditioning while avoiding injury?
By learning to be your own sports scientist. This Sport Science for Soccer series discusses four complex scientific principles in a way a high school athlete can understand. We’re going to cover:
The SAIDs Principle (Specific Adaptations to Impose Demands) - your body adapts to how you train and you need to train for the exact results that you want.
General Adaptation Syndrome - in order to get results from training, you must plan recovery.
Minimum Dose Response - Sometimes less is more. Testing will tell you how little you can train and still get results.
Work to Stay Hungry - periodic recovery has a mental effect that can be a multiplier during the competitive season.
In the next blogs in this series, we’ll talk about what each of these mean for your training plan.
Ultimately, I want to help you recognize success is achieved through smart work. Not more work. That sounds promising right? Read on next week for more information!
