Understanding the need for Strength and Conditioning in youth football.
This is the first in a series of articles about Strength and Conditioning.
The third match of Group E of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification for India Men’s National Football Team vs Bangladesh is a week away and it gives us a good window of time to talk about the fitness issues faced by the Indian teams. A lot has already been said about the fitness aspects of the team, especially with the performances dropping in the last quarter where we’ve conceded a lot of goals. Although, the Blue Tigers showed exceptional resilience, discipline, and remarkable improvement in fitness levels in their last match against the Asian Champions Qatar, there still needs to be a lot of emphasis laid on the importance of fitness level required in football.
Misconceptions plague the importance of fitness, tracking player data, and strength and conditioning in improving the players physical and mental performance on field. There has been a lot of development and interest in the youth football and grassroots level football recently. A lot of coaches are being hired by local academies, non-profits, CSR foundations, and clubs. This new wave of coaches have a good to moderate level of grasping the basic technical aspects of the game. When it comes to development of youth players, a lot of coaches still lack knowledge about the role of nutrition, supplements, physiology, biology, psychology, and conditioning.
Strength and Conditioning is picking up momentum lately, especially with governing bodies like WIFA and AIFF coming together with institutions like Skillanation to conduct sport specific courses, workshops, and certificate courses.
One of the signs of a good coach is the ability to see into the future, anticipate the changes in the game (technically, tactically, politically, and emotionally), and adapt themselves to be prepared for it. Even equip themselves with the right knowledge and tools required to be able to impart and grow players they coach. The problem lies in awareness, because without awareness, there cannot be any progress.
The problem lies in awareness, because without awareness, there cannot be any progress.
Let’s take a look at why or even how strength and conditioning can play an important role in your teams performance, regardless of whether you coach at an elite level or youth level.
Before diving deep, let us not forget that at youth level technical ability is of utmost importance and by no means am I asking every coach to sacrifice their technical skill components at the expense of S&C. We need to make sure that we add and incorporate S&C as a part or a component to our existing coaching sessions to ensure we are covering as many bases as possible.
Football is a contact sport that is both physically and mentally demanding and the movements in this sport are never a straightforward run. In fact, a lot of curved runs, jumping, accelerating, braking, skipping, backpedaling, lateral shuffling, and turning movements occur in football and they all need high levels of speed, agility, power, and endurance. Let’s not forget that in addition to all this the player must also be able to stay mentally sharp, anticipate movements of the ball and opponents, communicate, and even be able to manipulate and maneuver the ball at their feet.
“…by no means am I asking every coach to sacrifice their technical skill components at the expense of S&C.”
The basic foundation of any S&C program is doing a needs analysis. A needs analysis gives the coach insight about what areas do the team need to improve on, what areas of a player’s performance can the player have control over, and this becomes the north star of every S&C program.
Needs analysis is the north star of every strength and conditioning program.
So, let’s do a needs analysis of why we need S&C first. The reasons for every coach can vary. Some may find that their team plays with high energy and intensity for the first 5–20 minutes and then towards the last 5 minutes the players are out of breath. Some may find that their players all lack the physical strength and are easily tackled by opponents. Every case is different and the coach will need to observe and make notes on what exactly is it that the team is lacking. Here’s a quick table to give you an idea of what scenario you are seeing and what seems to be the problem.
In the next article we will explore the needs analysis in detail and also talk about how the heart rate is that one central measurement that lies at the foundation of Strength and Conditioning.
Hope this article has served its intended purpose of giving coaches a quick overview and basic understanding on why and where they would need S&C.
