Why Performance Testing And Speed Analysis Are A Must For Sports Training And Strength And Conditioning
Soccer is a sport full of complexities on and off the field. Training should be specific to soccer, improving technical and tactical skills to help improve your performance. Things like ball control, position-based requirements, and the ability to develop the field come from practice and technical and tactical development. However, research now shows that the importance of having a solid foundation in speed, agility, and strength is just as important as the technical and tactical skills the player uses within the game.
This makes sense if you step away from the field and look at the big picture.
The foundation of any team sport is dynamic, integrated movement: changes of direction, speed increases, deceleration, explosive jumps and lateral movements … the list goes on. So it would make sense that in order to develop a player’s ability to execute these movements faster with more precision, one would want to condition the machine, also known as the human body, that powers the movements.
That’s why a strength and conditioning program should be developed around the tests and analyzes that are done first.
The basis for program design should be based on what the specific athlete, unit or team needs to develop in terms of performance. Speed analysis and performance tests should measure acceleration, top or top speed, and agility of athletes.
Knowledge of the physiological and biomechanical factors that determine performance in each of the 3 speed tests will allow the design of specific training programs to address the player’s weaknesses, improve the speed capacity of the players in relation to their position on the field. gameplay and ultimately improve match performance.
A study conducted at Manchester Metropolitan University subjected athletes to three tests that assessed their acceleration, top speed, and agility (Little & Williams, 2005). They then divided the athletes and put them through separate training programs. One group specifically focused on speed while the other group specifically focused on agility. When the athletes were retested, it was found that only speed training had minimal or minimal effect on agility and vice versa. The rationale is that different types of training focus on conditioning different leg muscles, developing different body masses and specific types of muscle fibers (Little & Williams, 2005). The conclusion of this study was that for a soccer player to become a more well-rounded athlete on the field, they need to train Type I, Type IIA, and Type IIB muscle fibers.
There has been a lot of reservation and controversy surrounding strength and conditioning training for younger athletes. However, a study by the National Strength and Conditioning Association has shown otherwise with a “… properly designed and supervised resistance training program (Faigenbaum Kraemer, Blimkie, Jeffries, Micheli, Nitka & Rowland, 2009 ) “. Having the proper strength and conditioning program helps improve the athlete’s performance on the field. It allows you to condition and build the correct body mass, leg strength, and muscle fiber tissue specific to the strengths and weaknesses of each athlete. Appropriate and supervised strength and endurance programs have also been shown to “… increase the resistance of young athletes to sports-related injuries (Faigenbaum, et al., 2009)”.
By testing and conducting video analysis on athletes, it enables strength coaches to design specific programs for the benefit of skills on the field. This training, in combination with the technical and tactical training that athletes receive during practice, will help make a soccer player stronger, faster and more accurate.
References:
Faigenbaum, A., Kraemer, W., Blimkie, C., Jeffries, I., Micheli, L., Nitka, M. and Rowland, T. (2009). Specificity of acceleration, maximum speed and agility in professional soccer players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 23 (5), 60-79. Retrieved 2015 from http://www.fcboulder.com
Little, T. and Williams, A. (2005). Specificity of acceleration, maximum speed and agility in professional soccer players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 19 (1), 76-78. Retrieved 2015 from http://www.e-space.mmu.ac.uk