10 S&C Lessons from Academy Football

1. S&C is not the sport; football is.

2. Keep consistent with performance testing. This includes both times of the year and the testing battery. This will help guide how your program is going and where it needs to improve on.

3. If you are working with youth footballers, linking your performance testing data with your maturation data is a great way to get the complete picture.

4. Be sure your warm-ups link up with your LTAD model, and it’s not just ‘a few laps’.

5. For injured players, be sure to plan their return to play with the physios and use the time to focus on any weak areas.

6. Academy football is about individual player development and not 3 points at the weekend

7. Be as helpful as possible for coaches during sessions, and this may mean taking times or scores. You are support staff, so support in any way that is beneficial for the players.

8. Conjugate minimum dose programming during the in-season will become your best friend.

9. Getting players to hinge correctly will be one of the more difficult gym movements to teach. Make sure you purchase enough wooden dowels, as they are a great coaching tool.

10. Some may disagree with this one, but the leg press is a great way to get load through older players’ legs if you are still coaching the squat pattern with them.

Hope this helps and be sure to reach out if you have any questions!

Michael Mullane MSc., ASCC, CSCS

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