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I'm often asked by players and parents about the best way in winter months to make sure that players maintain their fitness. With weather conditions in Seattle making outdoor training difficult, people often become panicked about losing the fitness levels they worked so hard to build up during the summer and fall months. Is this a realistic concern? How worried should someone be about this potential “de-conditioning?" Here's an approach youth, high school, or college players may want to take to make sure they are maintain (or improve) their fitness during the winter.
First, it remains important for a player to not become unfit by spending hours during the holidays sitting on the coach watching TV, surfing the internet, or playing every imaginable video game. However, there is something to be said for allowing players to take a break from the mental and physical grind that our youth soccer system has created with high school, ODP, and club tournaments/league play. I believe our young youth players should not be “12 months a year” soccer players. We've developed a system where kids can play on multiple teams over the course of the year. At the same time, we're concerned with the increasing level of ACL injuries, sprains, strains, and pulls.
Recently, I recommended to a couple of our younger Sounders players that they take some time off from going out and kicking the ball at the conclusion of our MLS season. My suggestion for what they should be doing? Play some basketball. Why? Over time, athletes “groove” the motor patterns they perform most frequently. The way muscles move and function is strongly influenced by these grooved motor patterns.
Often times, athletes who grow up playing only one sport will have too few motor patterns. This can eventually lead to overuse injuries or imbalances around certain joints causing traumatic injuries like ACL tears. As a result, it’s important that young kids participating in sports are encouraged to move in new ways and to try new sports.
So, even while a player may want to specialize in soccer, and not play another sport, this time of the year is great for experimenting with different activities. This experimenting may actually lead to someone learning to move and think in different ways which could actually help them move in better, more efficient ways on the soccer field.
For example, the constant kicking that takes place in soccer can lead to athletes who are termed “quad dominant." This means that physically, these players have over-developed and prefer to use their quad muscles at times over certain gluteus or groin muscles. This quadriceps dominance can lead to increased risk of knee injury due to the imbalance, as well as leading to an actual tilting of the pelvis because young soccer players can have such strong quads and hip flexors in comparison to the other muscles of the hips and legs.
For this reason, sports such as basketball or tennis are great to play this time of year. You'll move in many of the same ways, but stress your muscle systems slightly differently - preventing some of those grooved patterns. This whole idea is one of the arguments against early (younger than U10) specialization that can take place in youth soccer. Clearly, a player needs to spend hours and hours perfecting technique, but they should be balanced out by performing other sports as well.
My next blog will cover what other activities an adolescent or teenage player can do in the “off-season” to try to improve his or her physical abilities (speed, power, aerobic fitness) in order to be better prepared to perform in the spring season.
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