A Pro's stamina!

Hey guys,
Today I'll dive straight into it and start by saying that playing football can be tiring,  at any level, football never looses it's intensity, so one of the main attributes that professional athletes posses is stamina, the stamina needed to play an intense game of minimum 90 minutes in which, through sprinting, jogging, walking etc players on average can cover around 11km of  distance.

Keep in mind these values are really an average distance for ALL  players, including goalkeepers who as well can cover around 5 km a game, for midfielders the value goes up to 13 km, David Beckham for example covered 16.1 km in the match England VS Greece to eventually take England to the World Cup.

Nike trials, Stockholm Yo-yo test (beep/bleep test)

I think the point is quite clear by now, that the professional players have... like mad stamina. Hence my topic for today is going to be stamina. Personally I don't think you should just do VO2Max training and never touch a football, that's why I always incorporate the football in the training, I feel like it makes the training more football orientated and I sort of kill two birds with one stone - Stamina + Dribbling.

I remember last year on Christmas I went on a holiday in a certain country which ended up being covered with snow, so I was forced to stay indoors most of the time and had little training to keep my condition, so after 3 weeks of holiday food, lazy life and relaxation I found myself, no not fat, but out of shape. I had 3 weeks until my trials and I needed to act quick so I went out and did the most hardcore training I could think of and to my surprise its still quite hard even when I'm in top condition.

Soo prepare for Paint Skills!

Drill to improve stamina

So if the picture is not clear enough, you need to start from the cone on the bottom right hand side and sprint full speed to the next cone (40m away), next pick the ball and dribble it slowly to the bottom right hand side cone and again sprint up and down. And that's one set done. For a start try doing 5 sets and increase with time & experience of course. 

As well as this drill you can try the beep test which is a standard way of measuring your VO2Max for the Nike Academy. What I also like doing is an untimed variation of the beep test with a ball in my feet where the rest time between each sprint is 10 seconds. 

Hopefully you try the drill out, and maybe get one step closer to that pro contract or Nike academy contract. I will soon be back with a new post, till then work hard and play harder!  

''Become indispensable. Be the player who is prepared to do the dirty work and keep your team ticking over in difficult games''

The Chance...

Hey guys, it's been a while since the last post, I hope you've all tried out the drills I wrote about, if you haven't, maybe it's time to start practising, because a lot of trials for the new season have already started.

One of them is Nike The Chance.
Surely most of you have heard about it, Nike The Chance is basically a big trial for the best unsigned players in the world be given a chance to play for the Nike Academy.

The Nike Academy is basically a full time academy, sponsored by the Premier League and is equivalent to a reserve team or u21 team.

Nike Academy training at St Georges National Football Centre.

At the end of the post I will leave links to Nike Academy's facebook page and wikipedia page, where you can read more about the project and team.

Back the point,

since the Academy is a full time elite performance development club, the players they would expect to enter it will have to be at a very good, probably professional level, so sadly if you don't work hard enough for the trials up until the dates, not after. 

Secondly it's a performance academy, meaning if you don't perform on the expected level you will be released, therefore you need to be mentally prepared for the competition you're gonna face. 

Lastly, the academy is a development  club, this means that the aim is to develop players into professionals as soon as possible, so you need to be prepared for intense training sessions and have the mentality to always impress and lead the team. 

Petar Golubovic, the latest big finding by the Academy signed for AS Roma earlier this week.

So there are a few aspects I'd like to look at the next week. 

The main two are mentality and performance. I will speak about what scouts would like to see and how to achieve it, in the process helping me improve, for now it's up to you guys to take the chance and sign up for this year's trials on the facebook page. 

The trials are strictly for unsigned over 16 players, so if you are young or have a professional contract it might be a better idea to wait a while or continue with your contract.As far as I know the academy has been holding trials regularly each year, so for this who might want to improve more before you start, there will probably be future trials.

I will be updating tomorrow on the first points, good luck guys and girls.

Here are the links: 

Nike Academy Facebook 

Nike Academy Wiki

Meanwhile you might want to practice your  5-a-side, at The GAME by Ronaldo. 

“In case you never get a second chance: don't be afraid!" "And what if you do get a second chance?" "You take it!” 

― C. JoyBell C.

Tips for warm-up

Tips for warm-up: Hey guys, I've been reading around and I found some good information about a new more efficient warm-up, you can read the whole thing on the official website which is - http://f-marc.com/11plus/home/ , on the website you can find the videos on how to perform the warm-up drills along with information and statistics, if you look at the statistics you will see that the injury prevention is significantly higher when footballers have performed the 11+ warm-up routine.

With a total reduction of 34% of injuries when the program is performed regularly it is safe to assume that it does work well for players.
One specific thing I noticed about it is that it has levels at which you should perform the warm-up if you want it to be efficient, and it is really important to get the right TECHNIQUE on how to perform the warm-up drills.

Here is a little poster to give you an idea of the exercises :
As I already said do not move on to the next level if you have not mastered the technique on how to do it. Part 1 of the warm-up is made up of slow running exercises which are combined with dynamic stretches to soften your joints and warm up the muscles.
Part 2 is where you need to do it according to your level, it is overall working on activating specific muscle groups important for the optimum performance in the game.
Part 3 is another quick set of running exercises combined with cutting and planting movements.

As I said you can find the videos on the website if you don't know how to perform some of the drills. I'm going to keep it short, I will mention more about the warm-up routine and how it has worked for me in general compared to the generic warm-up. In the next article I will discuss some drills for improving ball control.

Reach your potential football performance using this app

Hey, guys and girls.

I want to share this app that I've been using recently and I am currently very impressed by. Its called SportsPsych Performance Coach the app is essentially an interactive journal, which gives you a correlation feedback on your performance, you can use it to get in ''the zone''  before playing matches/ training. It comes with a few articles on sports psychology, which i recommend you to look at.

The screenshot above is the home screen of the app for Android, to record your results you simply go to Journal Entry  and fill out the rest. The variables measured are SATISFACTION , INTENSITY ,FOCUS. Later an evaluation is given on after a reasonable amount of entries have been made. For people with better maths skills there is also a fancy graph to look at along with Standart Deviation and Median to look at, but you don't need it.

Another plus for the app is it gives you tips on how to improve and after taking a basic test it gives you in order the psychological variables that affect your game on the image above these are Motivation followed by Intensity Training, Mindfulness and lastly Imagery Practice. At the end of each entry you can also give a motivational quote to keep you going chosen from the database the app has.

The app is currently free on the Android Market with a rating of 4.7 and is given feedback by mainly athletes as you can see on the official Android Market website - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.excelatlife.sportpsych&hl=en. 

Unfortunately the app is not on the App Store, but there is a substitute for it https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/iperformance-sport-performance/id539107092?mt=8 for the price of £0.69, I still have no information for the marketplace, but I will keep you updated. 

DEVELOPERS OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://www.excelatlife.com

Good luck! 

''Knowledge is true opinion.''

 -Plato

Greetings

Nice to meet you all,
 I'm Nick and I play football in London, for a certain Conference National side's youth team, I am currently 18 and I aim to help myself and you dear readers, make it in football using this blog. 
I plan to discuss different trials, opportunities, past experiences and future experiences in the hope of helping people reach their potential when it comes to playing football. Also the way I train, nutrition and lifestyle.
 WARNING! I am not a scout or a coach, I am just a player, sharing their thoughts and advising other players with the choices they might want to make etc.

I'm going to keep the introduction short if there is any questions please email me at:                      

nicklikes2kick@yahoo.com

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

-Frederick Douglass