Today, we’ll show you five endurance circuits for both newcomers and professional players, as well as anybody looking to improve their fitness level.
Endurance and strength are two crucial characteristics that are commonly disregarded. Both must constantly be combined, as must other skills like mobility and flexibility, among others.
Resistance or endurance refers to our body’s physical ability to face and sustain an effort in a timely or prolonged way, as well as the condition of body recovery that follows.
As a result, it is important to work in a coordinated manner, performing strength and endurance circuits with the objective of having the body ready for both training and matches.
These are a few endurance exercises that everyone, not just athletes, can put into practice to improve several aspects of their physical and mental health.
Furthermore, because these workouts are so diverse, they may be done outside, at the gym, or with or without equipment.
What are the primary benefits associated with endurance circuits in football?
- Preparating the Body for optimal performance in matches.
- Improved recovery time following high-intensity activities.
- Resilience to abrupt shifts in tempo.
- Improvement of cardiorespiratory endurance.
- Decrease in body fat.
What is the best way to organize a football endurance circuit?
Duration: between 30 and 45 minutes.
Preparation time: this type of exercise is highly recommended, especially during the pre-season, to prepare the body for the load of the matches.
These circuits will also be implemented during pre-match and post-match training sessions to help with recovery throughout the season.
VMA (maximum aerobic speed): around 75% of steady pace.
The training consists of a combination of technical-tactical and aerobic activities performed with and without equipment.
Equipment: Cones, hurdles, ladders, and weights.
To carry out the exercises, however, it is recommended that you rely on a coaching software that allows you to organize and schedule your workouts and training sessions in advance.
In today’s article, we have broken down a series of exercises that we consider essential.
1. Circuit Training Routines for Strength Endurance
To get the players in tune on the field of play, we start with a series of exercises with 8 basic but extremely dynamic and practical stations.
Basic supplies will be required to carry them out, but if you do not have the ones indicated below, you can use similar ones.
- Fences.
- Loose weights with different weights.
- Medicine ball.
- Fitness ladder.
- Elastic bands with different hardnesses.
- Anckle weights.
This resistance circuit will target several body parts, but it will mostly target the lower body.
- Elastic bands are used to make forward-backward and lateral motions. This one requires the assistance of a partner to offer greater resistance.
- Squats using ankle weights and upper body weights for an added challenge.
- Weighted jumps using both or one leg.
- Jumping squats with a medicine ball.
- High-intensity jumps across the fitness ladder in short intervals.
You should combine these routines with other strength exercises.
2. Coordination and endurance circuits for football
For this coordination and endurance circuit, we will split the players into different regions of the field, separating them into three stations with unique workouts that will later be merged.
Each set of players will begin in one of the zones, and when the coach orders it, they will switch zones to begin the next station, resulting in a highly thorough exercise.
The duration of each exercise will be stipulated by the trainer, but it is usually between 45 seconds and one minute per station.
The equipment needed is balls, cones, fitness ladder, and a balance disc.
The 3 work stations are as follows:
- Station 1: Ball control exercises with both legs through the cones, alternating directions and rhythms.
- Station 2: Proprioception exercises, such as jumping squads, for improved balance.
- Station 3: Coordination and resistance exercises through the coordination ladder, changing speed and direction.
3. Conditioning with dribbling
We will work on the endurance, speed, and aerobic capacity of the athletes with the ball during these aerobic fitness drills.
You will simply need markers or cones to mark the positions and some balls.
Two straight rows of five cones are built, with a few meters between them. Another row of cones is set up on the opposite side of the field, with the same spacing between them.
They will be rows 1 and 2.
Starting with the first cone in row 1, the players move the ball to the first cone in row 2, then return to the second cone in row 1, move on to row 2, and so forth in a straight line.
- Depending on the coach’s directions, the path between rows can be either straight or zigzagging.
- Each round can be combined with ball conduction with a specific leg or without the ball.
- The recovery time after each round must be respected: around a minute and a half.
4. Individual Possession – Running with the Ball
This is one of the fundamental components of all coordination and aerobic physical training.
In this scenario, each player will have a ball, and they will all follow the trainer’s predicted route while on the field.
The time should not exceed one minute, just like the preceding circuit.
Cones or sticks will mark the field’s boundaries, and the following activities can be performed:
- Fast footwork and coordination games
- Changes of rhythm and direction
- Releasing and recovering the ball
- Passing between players.
5. Passing and Movement Drills
Finally, we conclude with a really intense endurance circuit that will require using half of the field.
The field will be divided into nine equal portions using floor tape, and three teams of six players will be created.
Each team member will be placed inside one of the boxes formed, leaving two players in each area, one from each team.
How will it work?
- Each team will have only one ball, which they must pass to each other while moving.
- There can never be more than two people in the same playing area at the same time.
- When an area becomes empty, a player must rush to fill it.
