The batteries are recharged and my mind is overflowing with
ideas. I have spent the last two weeks pursuing the answers to life’s persistent
mysteries concerning athletic development. Just kidding. For me recharging the
batteries was not to take a vacation and sit on the beach contemplating my navel,
it was refocusing spending more time coaching. The Venice Volleyball team starts
district playoffs today as the number one seed. I can’t believe we are three
weeks for the end of volleyball season. Venice baseball training has gone well.
We have made some great progress. Age 14 to 18 year old boys are such an open book;
you can’t help but make them better. I started coaching a twice a week soccer speed
session with a group of U14 girls. It was as yogi Berra said déjà vu all over
again. When I went out to the field to set up it was as if I had never left, out
there were the same soccer trainers doing the same drills they did 15 years ago
when my daughter started playing soccer. They teach the drills disconnected from
the game. The drills would be effective if the game were played in a phone booth.
The kids are amazed by the speed sessions; they recognized right away that what we
are doing was game like and most importantly related to the game. It is not
that hard to do, watch the game you are preparing for and prepare for that
game. Drills are neat, but do they connect to the game? They are not an end
unto themselves; they must be a means to an end.
The absolute craziest thing I
saw was a conditioning session with another team in the same age group. At
least I assume it was “conditioning.” Here was this herd of pubescent girls all
in soccer boots and shin guards slogging laps around the perimeter of the
soccer complex. Every time they passed us the ground shook. Quality foot
contacts? Related to the game? Hardly! Did they get tired? Probably. I can’t believe with what we know about
conditioning this same crap continues to go on. They are actually setting these girls
up for injury. They are making them slow and taking away their explosiveness.
Somehow we must stop this!
Pat Donovan
glad to have you back Vern…I missed reading your thoughts daily…Hope all is well and you’re having a good fall.
PAT
Dr.MarkDay
Glad to have you back Vern. It seems for some coaches the light switch never clicks on but if you are never exposed to anything different why shouldn’t you think the world is round instead of flat?
craig Duncan
Hi Vern great you are back your daily comments were missed. Its amazing how many soccer coaches like their players to run long and sometimes they are so stuck in their ways its hard to move them. Maybe the answer is to educate the players about correct conditioning techniques and this may influence the coach.
Mark Henschel
It’s great to have your posts back on, Vern! Having played & coached soccer at high levels over 27 years, I have witnessed a nearly non-existent change in “fitness” by the coaches. Even at the college level, the 12-minute run is a coaches stand-by still (as much as we have tried to change conventional thinking on this in our area). As American soccer fans, we sit and wonder why we can’t catch the Europeans & South Americans on the world stage. I can tell you – the Europeans have been doing fucntional training (as Vern describes) for 20 years and the South American kids are left to form their own games for unstructured learning (again, as Vern describes) and we are still sending many of our athletes on a 12-minute run… The answer is quite simple to me-train a soccer player to play soccer, not run cross country.
Fitness Blog
I think that doing is the only way to learn Soccer. Drills are important for footwork, and deftness of touch, but they need to be able to read the game as well.