One of the most important jobs of a coach is to define the preseason program for his or her squad.
A preseason workout schedule which consists of football drills and exercises is essential for each player’s optimal adjustment and performance of their abilities during the season.
It normally lasts from August to September, thus it lasts between a month and a half to a month and a half and a half, depending on the team.
How are football preseason training exercises planned?
There is no specific method that all teams must follow throughout the preseason, but there are certain things that we believe are important to keep in mind while creating your training plan:
- Do gradual training rather than going from 0 to 100
- Allow for a period of observation and analysis in order to develop routines aimed at instilling good habits in the players
- Physical conditioning should be tailored to each player
- Work on their technical, athletic, tactical, and mental abilities
- Do not overburden the players in the early days
- Improve team cohesion
Coaches should construct exercise programs for each player and the team as a whole based on these criteria.
This minimizes overexposure to training sessions that focus only on the team as a whole rather than the level of each individual player, which could lead to various forms of injuries.
Simultaneously, because we have a very short amount of time, we must aim to condense and maximize the preparation without overburdening the players physically or emotionally.
As therefore, it is critical to strike a balance between solid training and fine-tuning for the start of the season, while also attempting to individualize as much as possible.
It is critical for football coaches to have an app that can store all team information in order to keep an extensive record of each player’s progress and physical condition.
But, before we go any further, we must address the controversy over preseason training with or without a ball. We leave this decision to the coaches since it is a very personal choice that must be made in relation to the skills they want to improve, but we believe in gradually incorporating the ball.
Now, we’ll go through some general football exercises that any coach can tailor to the needs of his players. Some body-strengthening and technical-tactical workouts are covered.
Keep an eye on this professional football endurance circuit.
1. Jogging to increase endurance
To improve endurance, jogging and running activation workouts are recommended. This will not only increase calorie burn, but will also raise your heart rate and progressively prepare your muscles.
We will warm up and boost the heart rate in timed intervals.
For instance, two blocks of 8 minutes each, with a 3-minute break of normal-pace walking in between.
In the first block, a slow jog of 1 minute will be performed, followed by a fast jog of 30 seconds. In the second, the duration will be increased for both types to 45 seconds.
This is how it would look:
BLOCK 1
Slow jogging (1 minute)
Quick jogging (30 seconds)
Slow Jogging.. (until reaching 8 minutes)
BREAK
Take a 3-minute walk.
BLOCK 2
Slow jogging (45 seconds)
Quick jogging (45 seconds)
Slow jogging (up to 8 minutes)
Furthermore, the difficulty can be enhanced by adding extra weight, which aids in better managing breathing, which is critical on the playing field.
Everything will be determined by the type of training sessions you wish to conduct.
2. Endurance race: motor skills
You will need markers, cones, silhouettes, posters, or floor hoops for this task.
The benefit of this drill is that it allows you to work on different aspects within the same area and one excercise at the same time. From endurance through running, coordination and motor skills with obstacles and driving the ball, if you wish to incorporate it into the workout.
The coaches and trainers will divide the field into portions and create a specific activity for each section, such as the following:
- Floor ladder to jump at different speeds.
- Jump from one floor hoop to the next from left to right.
- Ball driving through floor cones or with barriers and silhouettes
It can be adjusted to different distances, increasing the challenge, by working alternately and combining several of them.
3. keeping possession and advancing the ball while running
This exercise will be performed with the entire team at the same time, with the goal of retaining ball possession at all times without pausing while running.
It will also emphasize endurance and control.
Two teams will be positioned, each in their own area, and both will attempt to reach the opponent’s goal at the start, making short and long passes to various areas on the field until they reach the goal.
There will be no ball stealing in this game, but the difficulty can be enhanced by doing so, and with only one ball in play. As a result, you will also focus on the tactical aspect.
Don’t forget to check out our top exercises for football training circuits.
4. Core
Core workouts are vital for maintaining pelvic and lumbar health, avoiding accidents, and achieving optimal body stability.
These exercises can help you to strengthen and stabilize different areas of your body, particularly your lower body.
Several studies have indicated that training the core is beneficial for improving, among other things, shots, ball striking, and changes of direction while running.
A full and functional preseason football workout is achieved by combining isometric exercises with no movement with dynamic workouts with a broader range of motion.
Experts also advise combining this form of exercise with strength training to improve specific physical qualities.
this is a list of some of the most commonly suggested, and we encourage that the workout plan should be structured according to the level of the teams, progressively increasing the difficulty.
- Isometric planks: lateral, supine, prone, with and without rotation
- With fitball: lumbar extension, trunk and hip flexion, gluteus, hamstrings, plank in suspension or static, and moving arm funds.
- Miscellaneous: gluteal lift, isometric rotators, gluteal isometric, hip extension, combined arm, abdominal wheel.
- Suspension work with ropes.
5. Upper and lower body
In many cases, we mistakenly believe that it is important to boost only the lower body in our workouts, which is a big mistake.
Even if the legs are the primary body part employed throughout the game, football players must have total physical strength, for example, in duels with opponents, defenders, in the goal, and so on.
Physical complexion, performance, and final power are also improved.
Because of this, it is critical to incorporate upper body training sessions in the weekly schedule, with a concentration on pushing and pulling exercises.
Here are a few examples:
- Pull-ups.
- Push-ups.
- Pull-ups.
- Military press.
- Face pull.
- Lateral raises.
- Inverted rowing.
To keep the lower body in shape and achieve a proper balance, we should work on strengthening the gluteus, quadriceps, and hamstring muscles in preparation for match day.
- Squats
- Deadlifts
- Lunges
- Quadriceps extension
- Hamstring extension
- Plyometric jumps with a box
- Calf raises
- Squats
- Dorsiflexion
- Specific workouts include direction changes and landings
Keep in mind that we must be extra cautious with weight loads in any sort of exercise because we are more prone to injuring ourselves.
Therefore, the trainer must concretely define the exercises individually according to the level of each player and progressively increase the difficulty.
