Fitness Assessment and Youths

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

I'm about to work with some very elite youth male Soccer (Football for

those in Europe) players (ages 10-16) and I was just wondering if there

were any special considerations I should make owing to their age.

For their fitness assessment I have a range of field-based assessment items

planned includeing:

-Multi-Stage test

-10 and 40m sprint

-agility run

-horizontal jump

-flexibility

-push up assessment

-abdominal assessment

For their program I was looking at mainly body weights, bands and medicine

balls to work on their strength and power, limited 'plyometrics' and plenty

of stair and ladder work for their agility.

Any assistance here would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Darren Burgess

Sydney, Australia

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 31/12/2001 00:49:55 GMT Standard Time,

d.burgess@... writes:

> Hi All,

>

> I'm about to work with some very elite youth male Soccer (Football for

> those in Europe) players (ages 10-16) and I was just wondering if there

> were any special considerations I should make owing to their age.

>

> For their fitness assessment I have a range of field-based assessment items

> planned includeing:

> -Multi-Stage test

> -10 and 40m sprint

> -agility run

> -horizontal jump

> -flexibility

> -push up assessment

> -abdominal assessment

>

> For their program I was looking at mainly body weights, bands and medicine

> balls to work on their strength and power, limited 'plyometrics' and plenty

> of stair and ladder work for their agility.

>

I would also include sport specific tests, for example, in the tests you

mention none of those include the ball - dribbling, kicking, throwing,

maneouvring etc. You may be able to get to level 16 in the mulitstage

fitness test, but if you can't dribble with the ball or can't kick it you

ain't gonna play football!

Ken Vick wrote the following on the subject of sport specific testing, it may

help.

SportSpecific testing becomes invalid during any extended length of time

ifthe test is practiced. If the coaches I deal with want a certain test to go

well, It's as simple as writing the training protocol to correlate with

thetest. IF you take the NFL 20 yard pro agility test. It becomes invalid

ifthe practices it many times in between testing dates. It becomes a

learnedskill and not a testing tool. This goes from VO2 max testing to

standinglong jump.

Sport Specific Training comes from the complete evaluation of the sport

andthen writing the protocol on with the intention of making your athlete

orteams weakest points the strong points. Then reevaluate the team or athlete

and write other program, with the plans of making the weak points thestrong

point. Followed by another evaluation.

POSSIBLE BENEFITS:

Motivation for inseason and offseason physical training

Identify individual strengths and weaknesses

Create more specific training programs

Educate athlete

Educate coaching staff

SPORT SPECIFC? Here is a major starting problem. What does this

mean? There are so many sports where there are many questions about

what is truly & quot;specific & quot; to the sport that can be tested. Theonly

truly specific thing is playing the sport. In many sports, there is

little data about what is really important and how it should be

measured.

However, many sports have tests that have become & quot;standard & quot;.Often

its tradition or what the coaches were asked to do when they played.

Are they neccesarily valuable tests? Not always.

Look at several examples in pro sports. The NFL combine is so far

from being about football its at time ridiculous, but many coaches

may think it is & quot;sport specific & quot; becuase thats what the pros do.

Training for football performance and combine performance are two

very different things.

In the NHL the importance of VO2 max tests at the start of the season

is dogma. Players spend inordinate ammounts of time on stationary

bikes training for the test. Some teams and coaches really place a

high value on this test for selecting players.

I recently saw a professional soccer player being told he was getting

sports specific tests that would help them design a training

program. The test was valued at ~$1000 The coach doing the test

knew little about soccer and threw together a few tests at the last

minute. Wingate, 40 yd dash, t-test, vertical jump on force

platform, & bench press.

What did this likely accomplish? I doubt it provided much useful

information to the player or really helped in a better design of a

training program. It usually been my experience that most players

don't like tests. They often don't see the relation to perform on

the field. You better convince them its important and relevant,

otherwise you wont get accurate values. A test like this one

probably helps reinforce the idea that testing is a waste of time.

APPLICATION: Even if applicable tests are done, tests that may show

where a player currently stands and/or help illustrate some strengths

and weaknesses, they are useless if nothing is done with them. If

the coaches use that info to help design better training and

conditioning programs, thats beneficial. I've seen too many cases of

pro teams spending time and money putting their athletes through

tests and then doing absolutely nothing with the data. Not even

giving the players feedback.

Hope any of this helps

Carruthers

Wakefield

UK

[Guest guest]

Hi Dareen,

concerning your assessment I would change some things.

1. I would add a vertical jump like the jump and reach test, because

especially goalkeepers, forwards and defenders need to jump high

2. I would not make a 40m-test but a 30m-test, because most sprints in soccer

are between 5 and 30m and most scientific researches take a 10 and a 30m-test.

3. I would add a speed test with ball over 10m (the player has to touch the

ball at least 3 times to the finish, while the last touch is a shot in a small

goal)

4. I would add a speed test with ball over 10 m around 4 cones after 2,4,6

and 8 m.

I hope, I could have helped you a bit and I hope that you get more interesting

answers of the list members because I´m interested in this topic, too.

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ickert.simon@...

Simon Ickert

Müllheim, Germany

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d.burgess@... schrieb:

> Hi All,

>

> I'm about to work with some very elite youth male Soccer (Football for

> those in Europe) players (ages 10-16) and I was just wondering if there

> were any special considerations I should make owing to their age.

>

> For their fitness assessment I have a range of field-based assessment items

> planned includeing:

> -Multi-Stage test

> -10 and 40m sprint

> -agility run

> -horizontal jump

> -flexibility

> -push up assessment

> -abdominal assessment

>

> For their program I was looking at mainly body weights, bands and medicine

> balls to work on their strength and power, limited 'plyometrics' and plenty

> of stair and ladder work for their agility.

>

> Any assistance here would be greatly appreciated

>

> Thanks

>

> Darren Burgess

> Sydney, Australia

>

>

> Modify or cancel your subscription here:

>

> mygroups

>

> Don't forget to sign all letters with full name and city of residence if you

> wish them to be published!

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Darren,

Depending on how detailed you want to go Bjorn Ekblom and Jens Bangsbo offer

some excellent football (sorry I am English) specific field tests, IMO they

would give you much more relevant info than the standard multi-stage fitness

test and straight sprint times.

Try the book 'Soccer' edited by Bjorn Ekblom on Blackwell Scientific - you

could build a very good test battery from that reference alone, and Bangsbo

has also written a specific text on the physiology of football,

but I don't have the reference to hand. If you have problems let me know I

could no doubt locate it if you need it.

Hope that's helpful, good luck.

[by the way, fellow Supertrainers, I was delighted to find out when I met

in London,

that he was once member of the English national football (soccer) team. Mel

Siff]

Stebbing

London UK

-----Original Message-----

From: d.burgess@... <d.burgess@...>

>Hi All,

>

>I'm about to work with some very elite youth male Soccer (Football for

>those in Europe) players (ages 10-16) and I was just wondering if there

>were any special considerations I should make owing to their age.

>

>For their fitness assessment I have a range of field-based assessment items

>planned includeing:

>-Multi-Stage test

>-10 and 40m sprint

>-agility run

>-horizontal jump

>-flexibility

>-push up assessment

>-abdominal assessment

>

>For their program I was looking at mainly body weights, bands and medicine

>balls to work on their strength and power, limited 'plyometrics' and plenty

>of stair and ladder work for their agility.

>

>Any assistance here would be greatly appreciated

>

>

>Thanks

>

>Darren Burgess

[Guest guest]

Carruthers wrote:

I would also include sport specific tests, for example, in the tests you

mention none of those include the ball - dribbling, kicking, throwing,

maneouvring etc. You may be able to get to level 16 in the mulitstage

fitness test, but if you can't dribble with the ball or can't kick it you

ain't gonna play football!

, if you (and the others)strongly believe that the above are fundament

to the development of your players, that's fine. However, may I suggest that

activities with the ball should not be included.I personally would suggest

that they are a waste of time. I would hope that the soccer coach would be

able to tell you more about the player's ability from watching them during

training and competitive matches than any battery of tests however specific

to the sport. If you are concerned about the player's technical ability and

decision making may I suggest filming, I have found it most effective as a

learning tool.

This is only my opinion and I would be interested to hear comments from

others,

happy new year,

Melbourne, Australia

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[Guest guest]

>

> I would also include sport specific tests, for example, in the

tests you

> mention none of those include the ball - dribbling, kicking,

throwing,

> maneouvring etc. You may be able to get to level 16 in the

mulitstage

> fitness test, but if you can't dribble with the ball or can't kick

it you

> ain't gonna play football!

>

> , if you (and the others)strongly believe that the above are

fundament

> to the development of your players, that's fine. However, may I

suggest that

> activities with the ball should not be included.I personally would

suggest

> that they are a waste of time. I would hope that the soccer coach

would be

> able to tell you more about the player's ability from watching them

during

> training and competitive matches than any battery of tests however

specific

> to the sport. If you are concerned about the player's technical

ability and

> decision making may I suggest filming, I have found it most

effective as a

> learning tool.

>

> This is only my opinion and I would be interested to hear comments

from

> others,

>

> happy new year,

>

> Melbourne, Australia

>

I never said that these tests were fundamental to the development of

ones players. I said that one may wish to include tests with the

ball in order to make the tests more specific. I don't know if you

read the section by Ken Vick which was posted by me in the email I

sent.

I personally agree with the view of Ken:

1. Sport Specific Training comes from the complete evaluation of the

sport and then writing the protocol on with the intention of making

your athlete orteams weakest points the strong points.

2. The only truly specific thing is playing the sport. In many

sports, there is little data about what is really important and how

it should be measured.

3. APPLICATION: Even if applicable tests are done, tests that may

show where a player currently stands and/or help illustrate some

strengths and weaknesses, they are useless if nothing is done with

them. If the coaches use that info to help design better training and

conditioning programs, thats beneficial. I've seen too many cases of

pro teams spending time and money putting their athletes through

tests and then doing absolutely nothing with the data. Not even

giving the players feedback.

Tests provide(Baechle and Earle, 2000; Gore, 2000; MacDougall et al,

1997, Ken Vick):

Motivation for inseason and offseason physical training

Identify individual strengths and weaknesses

Create more specific training programs

Educate athlete

Educate coaching staff

All the above are vital in the athlete's success.

E.G. I don't know if you've ever used a training diary when you

train, but I have felt generally that this gives one extra

motivation, feedback of the training, greater concentration in the

training, greater enjoyment etc.

The difficulty in football is that you cannot clearly convey how well

a training intervention is working just be watching the game or

filming it, to a certain extent. Tests can provide this to a greater

extent than the aforementioned.

What I was trying to say was if only tests without the ball were

used, the athlete or athletes may 'catch on to this' (start thinking

that the ball isn't important) which could lead to a deterioration of

the 'ball play.'

I believe that tests are useful if one correctly administers them,

the athletes believes in them, uses them appropriately, understands

thier contribution to the success of the intervention / athlete.

That's my opinion,

More experienced coaches and scientists may wish to ellaborate /

discuss.

Cheers,

Carruthers

Wakefield

UK

[Guest guest]

Carruthers wrote:

<I never said that these tests were fundamental to the development of

ones players. I said that one may wish to include tests with the

ball in order to make the tests more specific………>

** I would like to say , I’m sorry if I have misinterpreted

what you were saying but when I still don’t see how including a ball will

improve the specificity of the testing? Would you care to give an example, I

would be extremely interested.

:

<E.G. I don't know if you've ever used a training diary when you

train, but I have felt generally that this gives one extra

motivation, feedback of the training, greater concentration in the

training, greater enjoyment etc.>

** For me motivation to train is not a problem (I train so I can eat more!),

the soccer program that I’m involved with does monitor and record all

training and competitive matches.

:

<The difficulty in football is that you cannot clearly convey how well

a training intervention is working just be watching the game or

filming it, to a certain extent. Tests can provide this to a greater

extent than the aforementioned.>

**Personally this point you make is fantastic! Watching film alone was not my

intention to provide an alternative to testing. It is an aid for the coach

and the player for them to help them work together. As would be testing,

providing it is valid (which includes good reliability) and monitoring of

players. Overemphasis I believe is placed on testing alone, constructive

communication between the player and members of the coaching staff is

critical in providing an evaluation of training and development of the

individual. Why is there a drive for objectivity, putting numbers and scores

together in order to evaluate an individual, what's wrong with including

subjective observations (from the coach) would that not provide a greater

insight?

:

<What I was trying to say was if only tests without the ball were

used, the athlete or athletes may 'catch on to this' (start thinking

that the ball isn't important) which could lead to a deterioration of the 'ball

play.'>

** I don't think that this comment is appropriate; especially when children

are involved, skills and good decision-making are always paramount. I would

suggest that the rational for testing, procedures and results, would be

discussed fully with all concerned and this would not lead to

misunderstandings as suggested above.

I hope you don’t see this as a personal attack, ; I just wish I had a

greater ability to communicate in writing my feelings with you regarding

this subject.

Regards

,

Melbourne, Australia.