With the world cup done and dusted the focus now shifts to domestic football and getting fit for the upcoming 2014/15 league season.
10 years ago, preseason fitness consisted of gruelling long distance runs, which studies have found can in fact have a negative impacts and lead to an increase in injuries. The modern preseason way however consist of short sharp drills aimed at reducing the chance of picking up an injury as well as ensuring the players are able to continue with training the next day and don’t suffer from burnout.
The big issue a club must overcome is that their players will return with varying levels of fitness. Tournaments such as the World Cup will mean that clubs with international players will have to adjust their programmes to cope with players having an extended summer break. Players who featured for Germany or Argentina for example, will be further behind their club teammates in terms of fitness.
For their 2014/15 preseason preparation, Borussia Dortmund has adopted a four-group preseason fitness programme depending what stage each player is at. Those competing at the world cup will for example have a very different training schedule to those who did not or to those who have recently joined the club.
Another example is Gareth Bale’s big £85.3 million move to Real Madrid last Summer, which was so drawn out that he did not get a proper preseason programme, and for that reason initially struggled in Spain. However, by the time he was up to the same level of fitness and match sharpness as his teammates who had a full preseason he started to show just why he is so highly rated in world football.
Injury prevention in football can be up to 1000 times greater than other occupations, as Premier League clubs in England spent well over £100m in wages alone to injured players during the 2013/14 season. When you consider the impact on the pitch of missing a player due to injury, it is easy to see why clubs place a huge emphasis on injury prevention.
Of course there is no chance you can guarantee you stay injury free regardless of how fit you are, however, clubs at the top level are doing all they can to reduce the chances of players succumbing to injury. An ever increasing backroom staff dedicated to injury prevention, extended warm-ups, thorough stretching sessions, post-match warm down, ice baths are just some of an array of methods used to try and reduce the likelihood of a player picking up a knock. New software is also being introduced to analyse risk factors to prevent injuries in the game.
Research conducted by the British Journal of Sports Medicine shows how premier league clubs focus their efforts on certain exercises types to help prevent non-contact injury. Nearly 50% of clubs had 2-5 injury prevention sessions a week during preseason. The most popular exercises were nordic, glute activation, core, hamstring eccentric, balance and eccentric exercises.
Staying on top of your fitness and knowing the limits of your body is crucial to injury prevention and can extend a career at any level of sport. Ryan Giggs continued playing at the highest level of club football through to the age of 40; something he attributes largely to his personal Yoga sessions which can help slow down the stiffness brought about by age.
Dr Kal Parmar of the Institute of Sport Exercise & Health said:
“The end of the season means the signing window for new players is open. New players coming into Clubs undergo signing medicals looking for injury problems or concerns; the stakes are high, often with millions of pounds at stake – the pressure on the Club Medical staff is huge to get it right and give accurate advice to the Clubs.
I’m often asked to perform medicals on Professional Footballers and to give injury management advice. ISEH offers a World Class environment where players can get accurately assessed – this may involve utilising the state of the art high definition MRI scanner, in-depth cardiac screening, cardio-pulmonary exercise testing and screening blood tests. I can then feedback to the Club’s Medical Teams having completed a full injury risk assessment of the player.”
Image Action Images / Tony O'Brien