If you are a weekend warrior who turns up at the soccer field for a casual recreational game, you may not be aware of the concept of periodization that governs college and professional soccer training. Periodization works to have athletes ready to play at the peak of their first competitive game. It addresses the players' need for rest and recovery between draining matches during the season. Players such as Abby Wambach and the U.S. women's team follow periodization training schedules to peak for the quadrennial Women's World Cup and Olympics and annual pro league championships.
Expert Insight
Trainers in soccer and other sports use periodization to divide training, a year-round activity, into smaller phases that are easier to manage, notes leading periodization scholar Tudor A. Bompa of York University in Toronto. While it remains little known to non-athletes, its origins date back centuries, perhaps to the ancient Olympic games. As with the modern Olympics, athletes in ancient Greece conducted an early phase of training, participated in informal contests, appeared in the Olympics and rested after. Today, these phases can be termed preparatory, competitive and transition phases.
Time Frame
Periodization for a soccer player, as with any athlete, divides the year into phases of training, designed to have you face progressive challenges, avoid overtraining and peak at the right time, writes University of North Carolina conditioning coach Greg Gatz in "Complete Conditioning for Soccer." Your overall training period is called a macrocycle and lasts one year for a typical soccer player; for Olympic sports, the cycle is four years. Macrocycles break into mesocycles of four to six weeks and microcycles of a single training week.
Specialization
Training an elite soccer player begins when the player switches from playing soccer as one of a smorgasbord of athletic activities to deciding to focus only on high-level soccer. In his text "Periodization," Bompa writes that training for a good soccer player needs to start between ages 10 and 12, followed by specialization at ages 14 to 16. The age when a soccer player peaks is 22 to 26, he notes. To stay in optimal shape, a soccer player should train for 500 to 600 hours per year. The coach needs to find a balance between skills and tactics training and fitness work, with small-team games with five players or fewer serving as one avenue towards combining the two.
Application
To design your own periodization plan, begin by listing the dates of your major soccer games, Gatz recommends. Fill in school vacations and exam periods as mandatory rest and recovery periods. Work backwards from these breaks to list preparation, precompetition and competition periods of at least four weeks each. Develop your training goals. Testing your speed, agility and endurance can provide a measurable baseline before the preparation phase. Assign a training theme, such as acceleration, strength or agility, to each phase. List the specific exercises you plan to do for each phase in daily workout plans and "change exercises ever so often to eliminate staleness," Gatz advises.
Member Comments