High School Football Perioidisation

Gary Rafferty

27/11/2015 at 04:45 #16853

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working in Australia and have the task of developing a training schedule for a high school football program who are in a contract to receive 16 hours per week of training from the coaching academy employed by the school.

The boys training are 12-13 years old and play every wednesday afternoon. Whilst this may seem fairly simple to plan my concern is that these players ALSO train with their clubs. The school has no relationships with the clubs and unfortunately the club coaches put their interest first ahead of the school coaching. Club training is twice/three times per week PLUS a game on a saturday.

As you can see this is a high load of football for a 12 year old. I’m putting it out there to see how you guys would approach this situation… I must point out that there is almost no wiggle room with regards to the amount of hours the players will be training due to contracts signed and club policies.

At the moment I am looking at the following to recommend to the academy coaches for the school full time training:

1) Incorporate movement skills session in place of training with the ball where possible i.e. fun games which would incorporate strength, agility, speed, deceleration, acceleration etc.. all without a ball. Also, without the use of a football. Rather, use evasion games, handball, gymnastic movements, mini olympic style events.

2) Shorten practical session length (focus on quality and intensity for shorter duration), use tactical/visual analysis to compensate for time to make up hours in between or before/after the practical.

3) Attempt to build relationship with club coaches (have tendency to do ALOT of running; and in most cases much of it without the ball)

4) technical/ball mastery sessions with low intensity being the main focus.

Would love to hear your opinions and suggestions!

Adrián Rubio Jiménez

04/12/2015 at 20:29 #16914

Hi Gary! Nice to colaborate with this topic. I´m currently in a similar context.
All the four points described are necesary and like it.

But the point of create reliationship and coordination with club coaches is primordial in my opinion (also very dificult)… if you don´t have the support or help of the manager or director of the Club.

I think there will be many children in different clubs… For this reason create meetings one a month or twice a month with the coaches will help to follow a line of work without creating physical problems or in the player development.

Also use information via email or another platform is a great help for beacuase coaches are not required to assist you in person in most cases.

It is difficult cohesion of the training programs but is easier seek consistency between the two parts School-Club.

I would like to continue reading about your experience with the academy and clubs.

Greetings from Spain.

Declan Gallagher

08/12/2015 at 00:19 #16925

Hi Gary,

I am in a similar situation also. I am a S+C to a U18 representative team coming from five different clubs annd S+C to a representative senior team ranging from fourteen clubs. The main issues are with the u18 team as they were being pulled in every direction and do not have the same skills to look after themselves.

In a high level/”talendted” athlete who plays on multiple teams, they are the one constant amongst everything. I think a often underutilised approach to player welfare is player assertiveness. I spend a lot of time talking to players about being able to say no to training and coaches and managing others expectations of them . This often derives from talking to athletes and prioritising. This is difficult for 12/13 year olds but worth a talk with their parents.

Some of the dialogue often goes like this:

” I am now on the XXXX team and I want to put myself in the best position possible to play well during training and games for them and that means prioritising training sessions” or something along those lines.

Our role as S+C is to prepare the athletes for imposed demands no matter how crap those demands are.

Monday:High Day- Club Training (probably high volume and high intensity, you cant win every battle)
Tuesday:Low Day- Academy Training.Tactical: formations, transitions in attack/defence, free play (tactical can be quite taxing so stick to time limit)
Wednesday: High Day GAME DAY , morning analysis session with academy
Thursday:Low Day- Club Training , Recovery/Regeneration from match. light skill work
Friday: Medium to Low Day, Academy Training : Stimulation session for game next day,limit number of decelerations as quite fatiguing on game day -1.
Saturday:High Day GAME DAY
Sunday:Off Day

Educating clubs on training intensities could a option and means you both get the player in better shape come training and games. Having one club training high day and one club training low day should be straightforward compromise but then again nothing is straightforward with coaches!

Just my thoughts. Please feel free to critique

Gary Rafferty

14/12/2015 at 08:22 #16967

Hi Adrian, thanks for your input. It’s quite difficult to build a relationship with the club coaches but it is something we are doing. However, we usually find they don’t take into consideration what the player has been doing before or after that session.

Declan,

Thanks for responding!I definitely agree that prioritising sessions is important. Parents unfortunately are a hinderance more than a help in most cases, with good intent. Player and parent education is a big focus of ours, we are trying to make them realise that sometimes more does not equal better. I recently had to refuse a parent additional training for their 8 year old as she wanted him to train every night of the week, I advised that she took him to a different activity on those nights or allow him to play outside and explore a little. She didn’t understand and actually quit to go to a different academy where he now train 6x/week. 1hour and a half per night – football only.

I like your layout. The biggest obstacle is certainly communicating with the clubs. We are trying to build those relationships.