Physical Preparation – What’s it all about? Our program sets out to achieve player Robustness through teaching a variety of skills and exercises designed to strengthen and ready the players body… essentially getting them ready to participate in everything life has to throw at them
Led by the Head of Physical Preparation, the players are continually assessed and given guidance as to how to use their body, ultimately leading to more time on the pitch and less time off it.
With a focus on:
Flexibility.
Balance and Co-ordination work.
Posture.
Correct techniques for Game Speed movement and strengthening of their body.
Programs are guided by testing and player observation to help each player concentrate on their own personal weaknesses and strengths in an effort to improve them as an athlete an and be more robust.
The physical development of children is a growing industry, professionals worldwide have noticed this, and are providing specialty training in sports for children across all age groups.
This has the potential to be very positive or very negative depending on the coach, the child and the rate of development that is expected.
Kids aren’t adults. Coaches sometimes forget children are not mini-adults, utilise drills and exercises too advanced for their current physical ability, often resulting in poor exercise technique or learning the incorrect way to use their bodies, leading to possible injury.
This often leads to a negative view of physical preparation and your child dropping out. On the positive side coaches who take into account each individual’s rate of development, age, and ability, often get the best results, and the child instead develops a positive view of healthy activity, and often performance improves as a result of this.
At the academy we care about every player, and it is important to us that we provide the highest level of care for your child, and develop them at a rate that builds their robustness and targets them enjoying their football.
Instead of fitness training, we use the term Physical Preparation. We use this term as we focus on more than a child’s wants, requiring a program that addresses all aspects of healthy performance across many different aspects.
Technique, technique technique… During training it is important to us that technique is the guiding principle, if technique for an exercise cannot be shown or maintained the drill is adjusted or stopped depending on the goal for that session.
At each level, your child will need to competently perform the required exercises with good technique and understanding, before we will advance them to the next stage. This allows for each child to develop at their own pace with our guidance. What it means for us at the academy, is each child’s program is essentially individualised and monitored constantly so they can continually improve and set new goals based around their learning speeds.
Zero Tolerance for Non-Contact Injury. As you know, there are aspects of the game where injuries cannot be avoided, such as the tackle ball situation in which the player being tackled cannot control what the opposition does. However, we believe there are aspects which can be avoided and this is in the area of non-contact injuries.
Within football the most common are ankle, hamstring and groin injuries. We have set the hefty goal of Zero Tolerance on no- contact injuries. Our focus is on your child’s foremost needs, staying injury free, and enjoying the game.
What if my child already has an injury when they enter our academy? It is the priority of our Physical Preparation coaches in conjunction with our Medical team to address this first and all aspects of their program will be adjusted to individualise the recovery.
What if an injury occurs during the season? Our medical team or the child’s regular medical advisor will be the first to take care of the program (in agreement with the parent(s), working with the physical preparation coaches to ensure complete healing takes place.
Certain criteria are used to determine when and to what extent the child can begin training again and before we reintroduce them back into a regular training schedule.
