Football Periodization: Review and Opinions - Complementary Training
Football Periodization: Review and Opinions

Football Periodization: Review and Opinions

I managed to finally finish Raymond Verheijen’s book Football Periodization, and I must admit that I wish I’ve read it earlier. I highly suggest it for everyone working in intermittent, running-based team sports. Even if I don’t agree with Raymond on all the points, I find it one of the best-written books on the topic of problems of planning in team sports.

I have written extensively on the same issues since 2010, and I believe it is the right time for me to sit down and put my current thoughts in a concise and usable format (again). I recently joined my old club FK RAD as S&C coach, helping them with the pre-season. Having the skin in the game again, made me realize that there are a lot of things that struggle me and I don’t have a clear checklist for dealing with them. So, I will most likely be trying to organize my thoughts in some type of manual (written mostly for me, since that type of work allows me to see weak links in my reasoning, besides defining my own standardized work which I could use to be more agile about).

Anyway, here are some of the blog posts I have written regarding planning approaches in intermittent, running based team sports:

The original manual 8 Weeks Soccer Pre-Season Plan was written at the end of 2010 and it needs a lot of updating and expanding, and that is something I plan doing soon.
Some of the ideas that got me thinking again were the following articles by Derek Hansen (Optimal Tempo Training Concepts for Performance and Recovery and Micro-Dosing with Speed and Tempo Sessions for Performance Gains and Injury Prevention) and Keir Wehnam-Flatt webcast on tempo training in rugby.

But before I proceed with writing this manual, I did a short review of the Raymond Verheijen’s book Football Periodization in the video below. I have also used Annual Planner for Google Sheets to enter Raymond’s periodization strategy and progressions.

football-periodization-review-and-opinions

Besides reviewing some of Raymond’s ideas, I have also presented some of my extensions and considerations, particularly:

  • Individualization through use of extra HIT conditioning
  • Combining Short and Long HIT conditioning
  • Use of GPS to top-up training load and complement under-load qualities
  • How to complement Raymond’s blocks with top-up sessions and HIT conditioning

Also, I have used the High Intensity Training Guide to enlist all the HIT drills.

mm
I am a physical preparation coach from Belgrade, Serbia, grew up in Pula, Croatia (which I consider my home town). I was involved in physical preparation of professional, amateur and recreational athletes of various ages in sports such as basketball, soccer, volleyball, martial arts and tennis. Read More »
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Welcome to Complementary Training Community! Forums Football Periodization: Review and Opinions

This topic contains 5 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by mm Mladen Jovanovic 5 years, 2 months ago.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • 29/01/2017 at 14:34 #19154

    Raymond could be the best guy on periodization, but i can’t agree with him when he says – in 21st century – that strength in soccer need to be developed by ssg and also there’s no reason to do extra work out of the pitch.

    mm
    29/01/2017 at 19:20 #19159

    Agree completely. Lets just not throw the baby with the bath water 🙂

    28/02/2017 at 01:54 #19289

    Ola a onde eu consigo baixar para analisar essa planilha de Raymond

    31/12/2018 at 01:53 #24500

    Hello Mladen,
    thank you for your opinion and critics on Verheijens Football Periodisation. I have got a question regarding your Long HIITs when supplementing Raymonds periodisation. When would you incorporate these Drills during the training week? For example during the first 4vs4 block how would These Sessions of Long HIIT 4×4 Mins Look like if normally the 4vs4 SSG are typically played in a 4×4 Fashion to increase VO2Max. Sticking to the 4vs4 period when would you implement the Short HIITs of e.g. 3x6x15s/15s COD Runs?

    Thank you for your answer!
    Regards
    Luca

    mm
    03/01/2019 at 14:47 #24514

    Hi Luca,

    I have expanded on that issue in the book HIIT Manual. You can find that chapter here: https://complementarytraining.net/hit-manual-example-hit-programs-part-2/

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