Football Rehab – part 2

To execute a Quality session Football Rehab – part 1  the player needs to be totally fresh both before and during the session. If entering a quality session with fatigue from a previous session, you can´t guarantee that the quality you wish to obtain, will be achieved. Freshness is needed because the player in question, will for the first time be working on his ability to execute a certain movement/action better. Learning something new costs a lot of energy, so freshness is crucial in this instance. To ensure freshness during the session, the player needs maximum recovery between movements/actions. As mentioned previously a player must gradually be introduced to a higher speed of movements/actions. If a player is able to work at 70%, his relative 100%, he thereafter needs to experience how he responds to 80%, then 90% and finally, 100%. The coach cannot gamble by throwing him straight in to the ‘lions’ and go from 70% to a 100% without the process previously stated.

A football player can’t only work on maximum rest between movements/actions throughout training and games. If this were the case, coaches would not be doing the player a favour. In football a player needs to be able to maintain many actions at the end of a game, with the same speed of actions. In football you want better actions, but you also want to be able to maintain as many football actions as possible at the end of a game. The rehab player in question must therefore be prepared for this in their rehab process towards returning to play. Here Quantity QL-QN sessions come in to play.

After making many actions during of the game, players accumulate fatigue. When in rehab this has to be trained, therefore fatigue is one of the main aspects of a Quantity session. By doing this in a rehab session it is executed in a controlled manner. It is also not a problem if a player enters a quantity session fatigued, since this is allowed in a quantity session. If you want to create fatigue in a session you reduce the rest between movements/actions. In other words you train with minimum rest between actions, the opposite of what you do in a quality session. In a quantity session the player learns how to maintain many actions.

Let’s say for example, that the rehab player in week X, has trained cutting at a 90º angle after passing a ball at 80% speed of action, in a Quality session. He did this with maximum rest between these movements/actions, because he was introduced to this for the first time. Cutting at a 90º angle is very demanding for the body. It would therefore not be smart to let him do this for the very first time when you also introduce a higher speed of actions. A player will be working at this particular angle in warm ups, when running as well as in the movement sessions. This must have taken place in the previous sessions, so that it will not come as a shock.

He must now be introduced to work with minimum rest in a Quantity session. If he can work at 80% he will definitely be able to work at 70%, his relative 100% at that moment in time. To understand this, if a player has been introduced to 80% in week X in a Quality session with maximum rest for the first time he cannot do his Quantity session, the day after, at the same percentage. This would be irresponsible and would go against a gradual increase in football fitness. By training at 70% you ensure that the rehab player can maintain the workload at that speed of movements/actions. Training with minimum rest between actions makes the player accumulate fatigue during the session. He is in the learning process of how to be able to maintain many actions. The quantity session could now be cutting at a 75º angle, after a passing action, with minimum rest between movements/actions at 70%.

In this article we have discussed the difference between a Quality and a Quantity session. The question remaining is; when and where in a week would these sessions fit into your cycle? This is what we will be discussing in the next part.

Thanks for sharing.