Football: Maintaining Fitness All Year Long

Simon Thadani, football conditioning coach for Ipswich Town FC, said, "There is no substitute for hard physical work, at the right time and place. All the sports science, nutritional information and gadgets will never replace the passion, desire and the will to win that hard physical work can give you."

Football, one of the most unique and demanding sports, requires immense strength and skill. Demanding fitness, the game puts is players through the best physical fitness techniques. Football has seen the strongest players in history as well as in the present. The strongest players, deemed fit for the game, take their teams to soaring heights.

The great boxer Muhammad Ali said about importance of getting the right training, "The fight is won and lost far away from witnesses, it's won behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the roads, long before I dance under those lights." Training and playing go hand-in-hand. Specific football sessions cover conditioning aspects like strength, speed and power.

Here, are a few drills involved in training for football players, stated in the Sports Performance Bulletin.

a) High-intensity aerobic/ anaerobic without ball

This drill used in football training is not of a high intensity. It is performed on a 300 m oval track with cones placed in a straight line at intervals of 4m, 8m, 12m, 16m and 20m within it, depending on the number of players involved in training.

b) High-intensity aerobic/ anaerobic workout with ball

This drill involves a pitch with two goals, two goalkeepers and two teams of five players each. It requires 20 balls that are spread around the pitch. This drill emphasises on continuous play.

c) Speed endurance without ball

This involves jogging and sprinting between 4 sets, involving 5 metres of jogging and sprinting for 30, 35, 40 and 45 metres for the 4 sets, respectively.

d) Over-speed drill

This drill involves slingshot and using bungees. It helps improves stride rate, stride frequency and reflexes.

Most teams use a lot of innovative techniques in training to help improve strength and physical fitness. The slideshow presents a few physically fit football players.

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