Fitness coaching in an elite football team - with special focus on individual-based approach

Maintaining the optimal fitness and health status of the elite player is crucial in sustaining high levels of performance throughout the season. This requires careful management and thorough attention to a number of key indicators that impact upon the players' individual training, recovery and injury prevention strategies. From a 'fitness' perspective, the focus of field-based training is to induce the appropriate stressors to ensure the energy systems of players adapt and are best equipped to withstand the competitive demands of the game. Thus, the comprehension of the specific metabolic and mechanical demands that a player experiences during the most intense phases of the game it's pivotal for maximizing the subsequent creation and delivery of individualized training programmes. The approach is therefore to trigger the specific physiological systems, understood to be limiting factors to performance, rather than perform holistic training whereby many mechanisms are taxed to lesser degrees within the same drill. Using specific methods to prepare elite players for match-play requires a higher complexity in the quantification of the workload. Consequently, knowledge of a wide variety of physical indexes is warranted for accurate workload analyses and detailed movement activity assessments during football practices. An in-depth information about the training parameters taxed with certain drills enables a better understanding of the physiological objectives to target in order to stimulate the physical components of match performance. In conclusion, many factors need to be considered when designing a training programme for the elite soccer player. During field based conditioning, it is paramount that training load is fully understood and is appropriate for the intended physiological and performance adaptations. The evaluation of current practice should encompass relevant experiences together with the rigor of applied research