8-weeks soccer pre-season plan - Part 1

Introduction

Since the soccer is the most important secondary thing in Europe and pretty popular in Serbia (it is beyond me why, because we suck), and since I started working for the first time as physical preparation coach in soccer I decided to write down this 8-weeks pre-season template.

I have also summed my work experience and preparation philosophy from 2007 in the 200 pages long manual entitled Physical Preparation for Soccer, so I suggest checking that one first if you haven’t already. The truth is that I have ‘evolved’ from writing that manual and the reason for writing this template is to actually see where did I evolved in my philosophy. The periodization info from the manual is confusing and during that time I was in the pro-interval camp (bitching on aerobic training).  There were also some questions that bothered me during that time period that I hope I have solved and provided some answers (or at least more questions), mostly by following more pragmatic, contextual/ecological and complementary philosophy and ditching dogma and either/or thinking.

Another thing that the readers should check before reading this template is my analysis of sport games structure (soccer is included) available here along with the short rant about endurance development in this one (make sure you read excellent series on endurance development by Lyle McDonald).

Why 8-weeks? It is usual in Serbian competition calendar that there is a transition period between two halves of the season, and usually the 2^nd preparatory period before the next half of the season is around 8 weeks long. Because I am using Western terminology I am calling this preparatory period a pre-season since the soccer club is organizing preparations and training camps with the whole team.

            It is important to mention that this 8-weeks pre-season plan is pulled from the bigger picture of annual plan and that’s why it is lacking certain context. So to plan it, I will assume couple of things:

1.      First game of the rest of the season is happening in 9^th week and the team should be in certain peak (sport form) during that time. Why, you may ask. Because starting the rest of the season with a good performance and a win is really a good thing for building up the confidence of the team (especially depending on the previous half of the season performance). Sport form (peaking) will fluctuate during the rest of the season based on competition calendar (opposing teams and importance of the match), peaking index (for more info see Usage of subjective indicators in monitoring and programming of training) and the results, but it is important to start and finish strong. Everybody is waiting for the performance on the first game. Let’s give them something to think about.

2.      It is important to have at least 3-4 full time friendly games (90mins) in the weeks preceding the first game, so it is important to plan them accordingly and progress to full game over certain period of time

3.      I am assuming the lower level of the athletes in the strength training (as it is normal with soccer players), no injuries, and a little bit of de-training in the transition period

                                            

4.      I am also assuming availability of all the equipment, fields and facilities necessary to run this template. Of course in most of the cases that is not going to be the case and the template need to be tweaked.

5.      I am assuming a lot of other things that I can’t remember at the moment, so please note that this is ONLY a template, pulled out of the bigger context of annual plan and it is questionable if it fits your specific situation, need and goals. I will not go into annual planning in this blog entry especially not into the in-season planning and how to progress from pre-season plan to in-season plan. Maybe next time. 

Training components

Since the preparation system involves (1) training, (2) recovery and (3) competition, training components represent subgroups of training and include:

1.      Technical preparation

2.      Tactical preparation and decision making

3.      Physical preparation

4.      Psychological preparation and mental toughness

5.      Athlete character and communicational skills

6.      Strategy and game plan

7.      Theoretical preparation

Each training component has even more subtypes and I will get into physical preparation component deeper a little bit later. Please note that recovery procedures could also be listed, along with nutrition and supplementation which can be subgroup of theoretical preparation.

Goal setting

Before setting goals for each training component we need to go through three-level analysis system that I have been mentioning in recent articles:

Although we are using only the first two levels, the third level is also important. Third level of analysis (Training load analysis) should give us some insight into the previous work done by athletes, so we can have certain starting point in terms of types of training they are accustomed doing and the level of stress they tolerated which may indicate working capacity of the players, along with injuries tendencies and types. This could be helpful in designing of the training program.

 

I am not going into the game analysis and the game demands in this article. A lot of research papers could be found online that goes into the analysis of the game and provide concise numbers and needs for all training components. In the picture below you can find demands for each position from FIFA manual and this is only a glimpse and very simplistic, so use it only as a starting point and as an example.

Second level involves evaluation of the players’ characteristics based on the game (and position) demands (thus the test needs to be specific in a certain way) so we have their strengths and weaknesses for each training component, for an individual, sub-group or whole team in general.  We can evaluate this from watching the players in a game (game is the best test, especially for assessing technical and tactical skills), or by devising testing battery (especially for physical preparedness).  I will expand on physical preparedness testing battery a little later.

Training component	Strengths	Weaknesses
Technical preparation
Tactical preparation and decision making
Physical preparation
Psychological preparation and mental toughness
Athlete character and communicational skills
Strategy and game plan
Theoretical preparation

So, now we have game demands and we have evaluation of the athletes in terms of their strength and weaknesses. In other words we now have what is needed and what do we have.

Taking context/environment into account (we can do SWOT analysis of the context) we have all three constraints for goal setting. Context could also include time limits, opponents we are facing and the important periods for peaking.

Goals should be set for each training component for a certain time frame (in this case for the pre-season and the rest of the season) utilizing SMART principle.

Mission statement:
GENERAL GOALS
Outcome goals
Performance goals
TRAINING COMPONENT	FACTORS (Sub-Types)	GOALS
Technical preparation
Tactical preparation and decision making
Physical preparation
Psychological preparation and mental toughness
Athlete character and communicational skills
Strategy and game plan
Theoretical preparation

The question that arises and that is usually given to me by soccer coaches is whether one should organize training based on the game (and position) demands, in that case fitting the players to the games demands and playing system, or organize training based on the athletes’ evaluation (his strengths~weaknesses) in that case fitting the training and the playing system to the athletes? If the life gives us lemons, should we make the lemonade? This can be depicted with the concept of the asymmetry of the constraints influence on the goal setting:

Answering this question with either/or logic will put you in a certain philosophical camp, but using both/and logic the answer is rather obvious. It is both. The question is when and in what degree. Let me expand.

From the standpoint of team building and playing system building, one should try to hide individual and team weaknesses and bring up individual and team strengths, but in a way that emphasize opponent’s weaknesses and suppress his strengths. This is a process that demands some time and this is why we can start working on weaknesses early on, and later on working on strengths. This can fluctuate during the longer time period (preparatory period) or shorter time period, like one week in the competition period. In the latter case, one can work on weaknesses displayed in the previous match during the first part of the week, and during the later part work on strengths for the next match.

From a physical preparation standpoint, do we individualize training based on the individual characteristics or based on the position played? Do we give and/or group players based on their characteristics (for example vVO₂max for intervals) or position they play (forwards do certain type of conditioning and middle fielders another)?

You guessed well: it is both. Why should we pick a certain ‘philosophy’ and stick to it? We can change how we organize the training during some training blocks and that is what I am going to do. We can base training load on individual characteristics during some time period and base training load on position played during another time period.

The philosophy that I will follow during this 8-weeks pre-season plan is that during the first part we are going to base (individualize) our training on individual characteristics and provide ample time for the players to fix them and develop. Later, as the playing system is developed, it is going to be demanded from the players to be accustomed playing certain position. In senior selection development of the players is of secondary importance compared to winning games. Sad but true. If they can’t play certain position, maybe someone else can.

It is questionable whether should one follow this philosophy with developmental athletes. In the senior selection clubs buy players to play certain positions and they better be ready and already developed to play it. But with younger developmental athletes one should spend more time on working on individual characteristics and developing players rather than developing playing systems. This is usually not the case. This situation can also be depicted with the asymmetry of the goal settings toward contextual constraints.

This asymmetry of goal settings is in the favor of the context constraints. When do you want results? With the kids we are all falling on the marshmallow test by looking for the results immediately and forgetting the long term development. Expert development is really a complex problem (I have talked about it in this blog entry) and it is questionable whether being successful as a youngster is a secure way to be successful as an adult, and whether the training should be specialized from an early age or more multilateral. How much time do you have with the team? In Serbia we are changing coaches every 6 months, thus the coaches don’t have time to emphasize long term development that includes developing soccer intelligence (decision making/tactical skills), creativity and explosiveness, but rather focus on things that yield short term success to maintain their job and money income, like glycolytic conditioning and set plays (pre-set tactical pattern), along with developing training system with what you already have rather than developing what you have.  This is exactly why I wanted for the team to be pretty fit for the first game. That could cost me a job. Now, you see how goals can be context dependent and how factors outside of soccer can constrain goals and soccer development (we can talk on the level of the country, even world). I am sure this is why Serbian soccer sucks, because even with all that talent, outside factors like management of the club and their business policy affects what happens on the field and soccer in general, without expanding this to country culture, economic situation, political situation and other.   Just to mention that Serbia doesn’t have sport laws on the level of the country.  Someone is rather lazy or making money out of it, and I think it is the latter. Ok, I am done with my ‘complex system theories’ rant.  For now.

Hopefully I did explain how the complex interplay between context, athlete evaluation and game (position) demands affects goal settings and thus planning process. Another thing I want to deal with before writing something more practical is the topic of following the fixed template or really working on strengths and weaknesses. What do I mean by this? One player lacks aerobic power, one lacks strength and third one lacks speed. In the period when we are working on players characteristics are we going to plan the training so we are addressing individual weaknesses or following certain pattern and let the weaknesses be addressed by good planning and individualized training load? To be honest, soccer is a team sport and the pre-season should follow the template, but the athletes should be allowed some individual training sessions to fix their own weaknesses (especially in the off-season). So, even if we have players with different weaknesses, they are going to follow the same template, but the workload is going to be individualized based on their own characteristic. For example, athlete that is lacking speed will still do aerobic power intervals (in the certain block), but the intensity is going to be based on his vVO₂max as it is going to be the same for an athlete lacking aerobic power.  This is why working with team sports it is important to make compromises between individual goals and team goals. Sorry, but the world is not perfect.

To summarize part one:

1.      It is important to have a big picture or annual plan before going to plan certain smaller periods.

2.      Coach should have the results of the (1) game analysis (game and position demands), (2) player evaluation (his strengths and weaknesses based on the demand of his position), and (3) context analysis since this is constraining goal setting and planning process

3.      Depending on the level of the play constraints can have asymmetrical effect on the goal settings and training in general. Remember developing teams and senior teams (pro athletes) and their goal settings and planning differences.

4.      Goals should be set for each training component and it’s subtype, and done for an individual player, sub-team (defenders, forwards, middle) and team in general

5.      There is a certain compromise between individual and team goals and their emphasis might be different at different phases of the long term development and the annual plan

6.      Training should be based both on game (position) demands and athlete’s needs, and this fluctuates over the players career and the annual plan

7.      Since soccer is team sport, training plan should follow the general template, yet the workload should be adapted to athlete’s characteristics (when we are doing training based on them) or position played (when we are doing training based on that). 

Stay tuned for part two….

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Kubios HRV analysis

I wanted to repost the link to Kubios, Finish University website posted by Canadian coach Derek Hansen at Charlie Francis' forum. User guide is also available here and I guess it provides some good info on HRV.

I plan getting a Suunto or Polar watch myself and play with it a little. Although I am wondering is there any need to do it. How much info do we actually need to track immediate training effects? Can we get into paralysis by analysis with too much of data? We need to simplify the things, and not brag with how much info we collect. Can 'less is more' be applied to monitoring of training? Aaron Schwenzfeier recently wrote about similar issue on his blog.

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Robert Sapolsky - Complementarity between genes and environment

I just finished episode 16 - Behavior Genetics and Prenatal Environment. It is eye opening and if you want to spend 30min on learning something really freakin' interesting watch it. It goes into the importance of pre-natal environment and how some traits are inherited without genes (like obesity, metabolic  syndrome, anxiety, etc), inheritance numbers (like, human height is 95% inherited) and what do they actually mean, the interaction or should I say complementarity between genes and environment (which especially important if we talk about sport 'talent' and experts development, nature versus nurture, etc). If you also manage, read these two articles, and you are soon going to realize that we need more 'complex dynamic' models of expert development, since it is not the genes and it is not the environment solely, but their complex and complementary interaction.

1. Phillips E, Davids K, Renshaw I, Portus M. Expert performance in sport and the dynamics of talent development. Sports Med. 2010 Apr 1;40(4):271-83. Abstract
2. Davids K, Baker J. Genes, environment and sport performance: why the nature-nurture dualism is no longer relevant. Sports Med. 2007;37(11):961-80. Abstract.

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Robert Sapolsky - Biology and Human Behavior

The EXTREMELY good series of lectures by Robert Sapolsky that I am watching over couple of months (starting, stopping and going around). The subject of the lectures is very interdisciplinary and it goes into nature~nurture debate regarding behavior, brain, stress, aggression, etc; which is really hot topic theses days especially if we talk about talent and expert development along with decision making (rational~irational; see Blink). I will repost a review from The Great Courses website, because I am too lazy to write my own (and I am still watching):

When are we responsible for our own actions, and when are we in the grip of biological forces beyond our control? This intriguing question is the scientific province of behavioral biology, a field that explores interactions among the brain, mind, body, and environment that have a surprising influence on how we behave—from the people we fall in love with, to the intensity of our spiritual lives, to the degree of our aggressive impulses. In short, it is the study of how our brains make us the individuals that we are.

Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition, is an interdisciplinary approach to this fascinating subject. In 24 lectures, you will investigate how the human brain is sculpted by evolution, constrained or freed by genes, shaped by early experience, modulated by hormones, and otherwise influenced to produce a wide range of behaviors, some of them abnormal. You will see that little can be explained by thinking about any one of these factors alone because some combination of influences is almost always at work.

Intense, Dynamic, and Entertaining

This course is a newly recorded and much-expanded update of Professor Robert Sapolsky's original Teaching Company course introduced in 1998, which was lauded as "extremely stimulating" by The American Biology Teacher.

A prominent neurobiologist, zoologist, and MacArthur "genius" grant recipient, Professor Sapolsky is a spellbinding lecturer who is also very entertaining. In a feature story in The New York Times, he was compared to a cross between renowned primatologist Jane Goodall and a borscht belt comedian. An article in the alumni magazine at Stanford University, where he teaches, called him "a man who exudes adrenaline and has a reservoir of intensity deep enough to spin the turbines at Hoover Dam."

What You Will Learn

The course opens with an introductory lecture and then proceeds to Modules I and II, which start at the level of how a single neuron works. You build upward to examine how millions of neurons in a particular region of the brain operate. The focus is on the regions of the brain most pertinent to emotion and behavior.

Modules III, IV, and V explore how the brain and behavior are regulated. First, you cover how the brain regulates hormones and how hormones influence brain function and behavior. Next you examine how both the brain and behavior evolved, covering contemporary thinking about how natural selection has sculpted and optimized behavior and how that optimization is mediated by brain function. Then you focus on a bridge between evolution and the brain, investigating what genes at the molecular level have to do with brain function and how those genes have evolved.

Module VI examines ethology, which is the study of the behavior of animals in their natural habitats. The focus in these lectures is on how hormones, evolution, genes, and behavior are extremely sensitive to environment.

Finally, Module VII explores how the various approaches—neurobiology, neuroendocrinology, evolution, genetics, and ethology—help explain an actual set of behaviors, with a particular focus on aggression. The final lecture summarizes what is known about the biology of human behavior and probes the societal implications of having such knowledge.

Insight into Yourself and Others

As you work through this thought-provoking and engaging material, you will learn much about your own behavior, not to mention that of others. One particularly intriguing region of the brain relating to behavior is the frontal cortex, which plays a central role in decision-making, gratification postponement, and other important functions. The frontal cortex is the part of the brain that "makes you do the harder thing," whether it is concentrating on an unwelcome task, keeping anger under control, or telling a white lie about a spouse's new haircut. Consider these cases:

• What happens when there is essentially no frontal cortex?: Railroad worker Phineas Gage suffered a massive frontal cortical lesion in a serious accident in the 1840s. Overnight, he changed from a sober, conscientious worker to a profane, aggressive, socially inappropriate man who could never regularly work again. The loss of his frontal cortex meant he lost his emotional regulation; he had no means to do the "harder thing."
• What happens when the frontal cortex is "offline"?: During rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the frontal cortex goes offline, which explains why dreams are often wild and unrepressed—why dreams are dreamlike. People don't dream about balancing a checkbook. They dream about dancing in musicals or floating in the air.
• What happens when the frontal cortex is immature?: One of the great myths is that the brain is completely wired up and matured at a very early stage. However, the frontal cortex is not fully functional until an individual is about a quarter-century old—a fact that explains a lot of fraternity behavior, notes Professor Sapolsky. With this in mind, it's worth asking if a 16-year-old violent criminal is not, by definition, organically impaired in frontal cortical function.

Myths that Die Hard

The myth of the fully wired, mature young brain is one of the often-heard pieces of misinformation that this course corrects. Other areas where Professor Sapolsky revises widely held beliefs include:

• "For the good of the species": The old notion of group selection has been proven wildly incorrect. This is the idea that animals behave "for the good of the species" and that behaviors are driven by ways to increase the likelihood of the species surviving and multiplying. Evolution is not about animals behaving for the good of the species but, rather, behaving to optimize the number of copies of their own genes to pass on to the next generation.
• The inevitability of social structures: Professor Sapolsky's own fieldwork in Africa has shown that an archetypal male-dominated, aggressive society of baboons can change radically to a tradition of low aggression within a single generation. "If these guys are freed from the central casting roles for them in the anthropology textbooks, we as a species have no excuse to say we have inevitable social structures," he says.

Cause for Concern and Hope

At the end of the course, Professor Sapolsky explores the implications of our emerging understanding of the origins of individual differences. How much do these insights threaten our own sense of self and individuality? Where do we draw the line between the essence of the person and the biological abnormalities? What counts as being ill? Who is biologically impaired, and who is just different? As more and more subtle abnormalities of neurobiology are understood, how much should we worry about the temptation to label people as "abnormal"? And what happens when we each have a few of these labels?

These and other questions should concern us all. But while Professor Sapolsky sees alarming trends, he also sees cause for hope. We needn't worry that we are on the verge of unmasking the secret behind everything we do, he says, since we can never explain everything; every answer opens up a dozen new questions. Furthermore, to explain something is not to destroy the capacity to be moved by it. "In the end," says Professor Sapolsky, "the purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it."

You can watch the whole lectures here. It is very long - 24 episodes of 30 mins each. After this I am planning to get my hands on How We Decide and Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. I am officially going mad. I need to "recover" (????) from all that training related shit.

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Tudor Bompa Institute YouTube Channel

Another nice find thanks to Rob Bennett. Haven't seen the videos, but I will for sure. Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TudorBompaInstitute

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