Soccer 360 Magazine

INVISIBLE TRAINING

Is it possible to mould the physically perfect footballer? We’re talking about the kind of athlete that’s able to get up and down the pitch for 90 minutes for 60 matches a season, whilst, needless to say, never missing a game through injury. The more you run, the fitter you are. This was the mantra of the rather rudimentary fitness regimes back in the day when Real Madrid’s La Quinta del Buitre and FC Barcelona star Diego Maradona battled it out for LaLiga glory. There really wasn’t anything to it. Those days aren’t all that long ago, but in terms of fitness training it’s as if we’re harking back to a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth, with the game having advanced light years since then. Today your average training ground could easily be mistaken for a science lab, brimming with state-of-the-art technology the product of proven research and painstaking experimentation. It’s all about optimising player performance and leaving absolutely no stone unturned. GPS technology, big data, neuropriming, nutrition, vibration systems, isoinertial technology, sleep studies, hydrotherapy, zero-gravity equipment and psychology are just a handful of the fields that are now very much part and parcel of the modern game. These concepts and systems are central to the working life of your modern-day fitness coach, who is tasked with educating themselves to become an expert in a whole range of different disciplines related to a player’s general well-being.

“The job title of ‘fitness coach’ is just one of the many hats we wear", says Granada CF fitness coach, Victor Lafuente. “At the end of the day, we’re responsible for optimising player performance. People seem to think that our job is just to make the players run further, jump higher and keep going for longer. But there’s far more to it than that: sleep, ergogenic aids, the various interpersonal relationships with the player, etc. Our role isn’t limited to just planning strength exercises."

In the modern game, it’s absolutely essential that fitness coaches adapt

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