It's the 3rd week of Jan which means your team training will be back in the swing of things with only 11 or so weeks until round 1 - that's 22 team sessions!
As a coach you'll no doubt have that core of senior blokes who showed up back in November and hasn't missed a session. They're right where you want them to be and ready for the final slog to peak in April.
But what about the blokes who didn't show up last year and are now trickling through for training now?
I've played enough football to know these blokes. There your 2nd tier players more then likely. They're the players who could cement a senior spot pretty much every week if they committed for the full 9 months. They'll be your bottom 6 - 8 senior players but also you're top 5 reserves players.
In a sense they can make or break your team's fortunes.
We've all heard the term "you're only good as your bottom 6" which is very true the higher the grade you play but not always true in lower grades but if you have 18 - 20 'senior trained" players then you'll start well, hopefully have less injuries, be able to off set injuries your players do actually get from greater depth and have a pretty successful season.
Getting back to our "January Flyers" - here's what you should do with them.
Do not train them entirely with the main group.
Hold up a minute, I said entirely.
Separate their fitness work is what I really mean.
The top group has more then likely done all the aerobic base work already. They've lowered their resting heart rates and thus their ability to recover quickly between bouts of intense efforts. They are now ready for some lactic type work, where if you've read this blog before, will know shouldn't really be trained until about 4 weeks pre-practice games.
The second group will need to go back to the first groups November training plan, you can't just have them skip the base training and expect them to make any fitness strides. It won't happen and they'll get injured - I guarantee that!
So a training session might look like this with 2 groups:
1 - Warm up for both groups focusing on the new players to the track but use shorter and slower running sets or the warm up becomes they're actual training session and the actual training session wrecks there entire week on and off the field.
2 - Speed work for both groups but where the first group might be doing acceleration and max velocity work, group 2 will only do the acceleration work with longer rest between sets but both groups will work speed for the same total amount of time. Alternatively the 2nd group can start on skill work while waiting for the first group finishes up sprint work.
3 - Skills drills performed by both groups but group 1 doing all short to medium skill drills and not the long drills. Nothing kills a skill drill like players that can;t keep up but you can pull them out now, unlike in-season, as you have more time to train and more energy resources to train with.
4 - Group 2 finishes with aerobic capacity work which should start at 15 - 20mins at 65% intensity or at a 3 - 4 out of 10 rate of perceived exertion. It's probably a slow jog for these blokes and if they can't keep a conversation while doing it then they're going to fast. or trying to go too fast. Aerobic capacity work is long but it's easy - make sure it's easy!
Have the group 2 players extra aerobic capacity work out in their own time buy slowly increasing the time to 60mins while maintaining the 3 - 4/10 rpe. They should complete at least 10 sessions of aerobic capacity work before doing any lactic work that isn't in a skill drill.
It might all look like this:
Week 1 - 3 aerobic capacity sessions x 15, 20 and 25mins = 60mins total doing 2 sessions at team training and 1 on their own.
Week 2 - 3 aerobic capacity sessions x 30, 35, 40mins - 80mins total doing 2 sessions at team training and 1 on their own.
Week 3 - 3 aerobic capacity sessions x 45, 50, 55mins = 170mins total doing 2 sessions at team training and 1 on their own.
Week 4 - 1 aerobic capacity sessions x 60mins = 210mins at team training.
For speed training, which is also vital at the start of training for any player in any sport, the 4 weeks will look like this:
Week 1 - 2 speed sessions at team training
Week 2 - 3 speed sessions doing 2 at team training and 1 on their own.
Week 3 - 3 speed sessions doing 2 at team training and 1 on their own.
Week 4 - 3 speed sessions doing 2 at team training and 1 on their own.
Stay away from any max velocity work that isn't performed in a skill drill until this 4 week block is completed.
Important - Let the players know what you plan for them. Let them know why they'll be doing this and how it will benefit them. This is not a punishment by any means, it';s about getting the most out of them in the time you have. Let them know they're still in contention for senior selection come round 1 but that you don't expect them to be at full fitness by then so they will still be a bit of work to complete to get to "senior fitness' during the early rounds of the season.
This all sounds like a lot of work so if you want the load taken off your hands then I'm available for some fitness coach consultancy if you don't have a strength and conditioning coach at your club so let me know if you need help.
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