I was reading an article about the women's US team with the following:
"The Americans have outscored opponents 7-0 in the second half. That sort of late domination only has one explanation: The Americans, from the top of the roster to the bottom, have simply been fitter than every team they have faced, and as everyone knows, there are no shortcuts when it comes to being fit."
This is true for a World Cup team and it's true for a home school team. The problem is that once the soccer season starts in the fall, there's not enough time for the coach to get them in shape. Time is very limited, so the coach relies on players working on their conditioning over the summer. A coach needs to focus on high end speed work once the season starts, but that's not effective if the player can't handle that level of work. The summer is about getting the strength and endurance needed to start effective speed and skill work in the fall. So here are some guidelines:
Motivation to do conditioning over the summer is hard to come by. I've found that out of a group of 25 guys, maybe 5 will put in solid work. Once summer hits, so do summer jobs, vacations, hanging out. Who has time to run with that? :-) But summers become a good character building time, challenging a player to take responsibility over a long time period.
Buddy system: getting guys to be accountable to each other is critical. There's a lot of web resources that can be used to track workouts and share with friends, like Map My Run or Run Keeper.
Coaches Can't do everything. I don't think I've been effective in summer conditioning because I just can't do everything. My summers get jammed too and I know the amount of work that's coming in the fall, so I got work I got to get done now. Hopefully you can do better than me by delegating and getting someone to help you organize the guys over the summer.
Anything is better than nothing. If a player can get out and bike or swim on some regular basis, that's better than nothing. It helps to keep some perspective.
More time is better, but be realistic. Obviously if a player can have a block of 2hrs per day to work out, that's awesome, but usually not realistic. Life happens. So we need some basic principles
Distance training vs. soccer training. Some guys train like their distance runners. I had one guy that was doing 3-5 miles a day. While that's impressive, it's the wrong kind of work out and actually hurts performance during the season. During the season we could keep him on the field all day, but he had no speed. Players shouldn't be doing more than 3 miles
Mix it up, keep it interesting. Face it, running can be boring. So mix it up, such as road biking, mountain biking, swimming, roller blading, etc. These kinds of activities keep things interesting, are a treat, and also work different groups of muscles. The key is to do it deliberately. Going for a bike ride should be putting in 30-45min, not just riding the bike down the street to a friends house.
Interval work: If you do nothing else, do this. This is the core of what players should be doing over the summer. You want to be a great player, do this. Can't emphasize this enough. A great workout is phone poles: put in 80% effort for 3 phone poles, then very slow jog for 3. Repeat this for 20-30 minutes. It's a killer but does two things, first it keeps the fast twitch muscles in shape for speed, and second, doing this for 20-30 minutes gets the right amount of cardio. We can get the same effect by running around a soccer field - work hard half way up the field, jog the rest of the way, work hard across the field, and repeat up the side. Recovery is KEY. Work HARD on the speed, super slow on the recovery. Can't emphasize that enough.
Strength training: if players can make 15-20 minutes a day as part of their wake up or evening routine, that's great. Keep it basic: pushups, crunches, squats, planks, super mans, etc. If weights can be added, that's a bonus. So do 10-30 push ups, 10-30 bicycle crunches, 10-20 squats, 10 pointers, repeat.
Some workout programs, such as the CXC cross country ski program or different training camps do agility training over the summer. I've found that this is only effective if they are repeated several times per week all summer. Great if the player has time, if not, focus on something else that will give more benefit.
Distance: players should throw in an easy 1-2 mile run once per week. The change from the phone poles is good. Don't train like a distance runner, but do get some easy distance in.
Soccer Ball: players need to get time on the ball. A lot can be said about what to do over the summer. There's a continuum of what a particular player has time for, on the light end, the player should be working their weak foot. This can be done by simply kicking a ball against a wall while alternating feet. This takes lots of time and the summer is the best time to work it. Once the season hits, the coach is going to focus elsewhere. And go play soccer! Small sided pick up scrimmages with friends is fun and teaches a lot.
Bottom line: Focus on how to make players accountable for their summer work, train for long interval work outs, get lots of basic strength training in.
