Approaches and level of analysis of the physical demonstration of professional soccer players. Level 1

After the short intro, we go directly to the first level of the analysis of the physical demonstration of soccer players. This first level is logically associated with what we can consider the "traditional" approach, in which distance, speed and HR are the main variables to analyze.

Stay tunned!

Approaches and level of analysis of the physical demonstration of professional soccer players. Intro

After one and a half month without time for sharing with you more info related with the analysis of the physical demonstration of our players, it has arrive the moment to continue.
I want to thank all of you (friends and colleagues) that have contact with me in order "to ask" for more info!!! It has been an special motivation to find the moment to continue with this project.
I take this opportunity to comment you that if you are interested in any special aspect of the physical and conditional demonstration and readiness of soccer players, you just have to tell me, and I would try to offer some data to share and comment it all together.

In this new entry, I want to start with a general view of some of the different approaches used actually to study the conditional demonstration of soccer players, and also different "levels" of analysis, in order to have a general view of this question, and to better understand which are the limits of what we are doing day a day.

Stay tunned!

Starting with FC Sion (Switzerland).

I just want to let you know that we start today our work with FC Sion from Switzerland, and that will mean that from now on, I will try to post on the blog at least once a week (as you sure understand, my professional responsibility will keep more daily time ...).

In the other hand, we will have more data from a professional soccer team to work on.

We will start with a preseason stage of 5 days in Spain, in Futbol Salou facilities, and then we will continue with another stage in Italy to play some matches before the start of the second part of the competitive season.

Estay tuned!

Explosive specific force trough small sided games and few players?: part 6.

And we have arrived to this point, the end of 2012 and the start of the 2013 ...
Here you are the last video of this issue, in which I show you a simple analysis of the comparison of acceleration data demonstrated during simple and analytic maximum sprints (30 to 60m dash), measured with GPS system (Pro X2, GPSports, Australia), and some repetitions performed by the same player of a first maximum step with less than 3m, measured by a linear encoder (from Quasar Control, Madrid, Spain). In this comparison, you will see acceleration data from different systems, in order to better understand the mechanics of the sprint, from the first step (so the less expression similar to the maximum possibilities for sprinting in smaller spaces, to the longer ones (typical 60m or so).

And after this, logically the conclusion ... But ATTENTION!!! Remember the limits of all this information, specially important those related with the characteristics of the analysis: here we have analyzed JUST the acceleration phases but, what happens with DECELERATION phases?

This info will need much more time because software are not ready to deepen in deceleration data, and needs to be exported to Excel, so I have to develop and apply the algorithms, and believe me, for me, at this moment, is really a hard work and too much time spent.

Enjoy,

Explosive specific force trough small sided games and few players?: part 5.

Hope you have had a really nice and loving Christmas day.
Not planned like this, but as a gift of Santa, today it arrives the moment of visualize the acceleration data demonstrated by professional soccer players of a Spanish first division team. This data was recollected during a season (2007-2008) in all sessions where the same tasks where performed (in this case are small sided soccer games with 1 versus 1, 2 v 2, 3 v 3, and 4 v 4, all played with goalkeepers and standard goals.
The variable analyzed are basically two: the average of all the accelerations over 1 m/s/s demonstrated by each player participating in the task, and the average for all players of just the maximum acceleration demonstrated during the task (so just one maximum acceleration for each player for each task).
Also we include the average number of "maximal" accelerations per minute of play (during the task) per player. This is another important issue to understand: maximal absolute value of acceleration depends on the initial velocity ... we will deepen in it in the future. But at this moment you must know that we have applied this important aspect in the calculation of this variable.

Enjoy, and stay tuned!!!

Explosive specific force trough small sided games and few players?: part 4.

After the last post it's time to remember again one of the limits of this analysis, and it's an important limit (that we try to resolve in future posts ...): now we are paying attention just to acceleration phases during the specific tasks, but not yet to the deceleration phases!!!
So it will be very important to keep this in mind.
Directly related with this, is the relationship between acceleration and deceleration phases of any tasks with the "metabolic or energetic" load, and also with "mechanic" load. But this issue will be better developed in later posts.

In today video, we will add some insight about the relationship between triaxial acceleration demonstration and the GPS acceleration data of "maximum" sprints. This simple study was done some years ago, with data collected from training sessions of some professional spanish soccer players of a first division spanish "La Liga" club.
Following similar studies done with the relationship between horizontal force applied and speed demonstrated, this data corroborates previous one, but specifically obtained on the pitch and during specific training tasks, and directly related with acceleration of a sprint.

Enjoy, and merry Christmas!!!

Explosive specific force trough small sided games and few players?: part 3.

After seeing the relationship between the acceleration and deceleration phases of a near maximum sprint with hard change of direction (180º), and how it affects to the metabolic power (Di Prampero approach) and mechanic power (Bezodis approach), now is time to go one step forward.
In order to try to clarify this relationship between acceleration and deceleration phases of similar actions, I propose you this simple analysis in which we compare the impulse phase (acceleration) of a typical squat jump (just body weight, without extra load) with the braking phase (deceleration) of a traditional drop jump from 40 cm, as Verkhoshansky originally proposed it (fall down from a height and stop the movement as fast as possible, with no jump after). Both jumps has been performed by the same soccer player with maximum intensity (trying to jump as high as possible in an explosive movement, and to brake as fast as possible the falling down).
The intention is to try to show the typical characteristics of the relationship between maximal acceleration and maximal deceleration in a simple movement.

Enjoy, and stay tuned!!!