“Chaos” training in Soccer and small sided games. Developmental needs of young athletes.
There is a lot of confusion now in the fitness industry on how to manage kids. We now have this explosion of advice telling our young players to play games, games and more games. This mantra has evolved from Skill Acquisition dogma where random variable skills learning was seen to be more efficient than massed practice. So play games and create “chaos” and easy “peasy”. We are now told of all these amazing benefits from endurance to decision making. Then we have the research on reactive agility which is very ‘sexy” and again has underpinned advice that games, games and more games is the way to go. There is an up side to this of course because it may stop over zealous youth coaches from running kids into the ground instead of focussing on the game.
I will target this article on young athletes close to puberty and/or at or past puberty. Young kids do need to play a lot but even there they would have maximum variety in their development. Another story. But I have recently dealt with one 7 year old who simply was not enjoying sport. By working one on one with him and doing simple fitness. Co ordination and general strength and fitness activities he has improved so much that he now wants to participate and is quite good. Also another 10 year old last year had terrible balance and little co ordination or confidence and again after a year of work with basic activities he has started to improve to the point where he can cut it with other kids. If he had simply played more and more games he would have been left behind and simply given up. In theory it all sounds easy but sports scientists out there, it aint that simple.
The more games young tennis kids in OZ have played the worse out tennis has gone. We have a massive coaching structure in tennis of private coaches and yet very few kids can sprint, jump, change direction and co ordinate their feet. And then all of a sudden at 15 or 16 they have to get this together even though they can hit.
Soccer is going down the funnel way. Get heaps of kids doing soccer and playing small games and then pick and choose on his way through. Guess what. Sure the skilled kids will come through but the quicker, fitter more nimble ones will rise to the top (if they can play). Sounds good to me. Bit like the simplistic TAC AFL system. Choose kids at 15 and really that’s it. They get coached and the rest go back to “dumbsville”. That creates a pool of kids to push into the AFL system.
In soccer super leagues are evolving at under 13 and under 14 and pretty much starting the funnel. I am involved in heaps of these systems. If a player is not good enough then he or she doesn’t come though the system. And that “good enough” is relevant to how they play. And fitter, faster kids will always bubble through (who can play). So if we do very little specific running and change of direction work (added to S&C) with kids simply genetics will be the factor.
It is such a lazy theory and in fact someone recently said you can only get a 3% improvement with players in speed so why work on it. Are we starting to go crazy! That 3% is the difference between under 20 top sprinters and worlds’ best. So this percentage has been used to validate only playing small games with kids. I have seen young athletes dramatically improve speed at all ages. Due to strength, power, range, technique, feel. Whatever.
Sure we will have players come though and the “men in suits” will be happy. And we all know chaos training and random variable training is important. But just as players who cannot kick are at a distinct disadvantage in AFL so are kids who cannot run. And one has to train the basics also.
I am sure that if an under 14 soccer player who is on the fringe of a representative side goes off and does quality strength and conditioning and speed and power work and then goes back to trial he or she will go lots closer to selection. And what I am talking about is always improving the individual. Not a funnel system
Guess what. In tennis the realization has come about that OZ players can’t move, Cant sprint. Can’t change direction. Maybe some cannot anticipate. And so on. But neglect the basics of footwork and the needs of movements and good luck.
So let’s take a deep breath. On average the top 100 tennis players are quicker than the 400 to 500. Serie A players are quicker than Serie C players. AFL players accelerate more than local players.
And can you make a slow person beat Usain Bolt. Of course not. But you can make that person a lot faster and a lot sharper with movement.
On the other hand one good take home form all this emphasis on games is that it will stop “crazy” coaches running kids into the ground with fitness and endurance activities and spend more time learning and puffing.
All a bit confusing but we need to teach kids so many skills and provide them with as broad an arsenal of movements and training to equip them for the future and maximize their individual development.
loris bertolacci 