3 Phases Of Football Warm-Up

3 Phases Of Football Warm-Up

font size + –

Warming-up as a set of physical exercises should be conducted in an orderly and progressive manner. To organize exercises, we divide warm-up in phases, which have the same goals: activation, joint mobility, stretches and specific exercises.

Activation.- Consists on "waking up" the body, we raise breathing rate, increase muscle temperature and viscosity, increase beats per minute, vasodilation, we redistribute cardiac output, etc.

Articular Mobility.- perform abduction and adduction, flexion - extension, and/or rotation of the joints. Thus we lubricate cartilage and prepare ligament insertions.

Muscle stretching.- Once muscles have increased temperature, becoming more viscous and receiving more oxygenated blood, we can proceed to stretch the myofibrils and muscle fascia, preparing the muscles to lengthen and give maximum possible elasticity.

Recommended exercises at every warming-up stage applied to football:

Activation: Soft sprint, light jog, cycling at light rhythm. We can also perform physical - recreational activities of mild intensity such as games.

Joint Mobility: We mobilize the neck performing flexo - extensions, rotation and abduction - abduction. Then we move shoulders in rotation, flexion - extension and abduction - adduction. We continue with the elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

Stretching: Upper body: arms (biceps, triceps), shoulder girdle (shoulder) and trunk (upper back, abdominal, psoas - iliac and lumbar). Lower body: legs (twins, soleus, hamstring - tibia, quadriceps), pelvic girdle (abductors, adductors).

Football-applied warm up.

Suppose we're training a group of 12 children of an amateur team of 11 years old. This would be an example of warm-up.

Joint activation and mobility. Perception and decision-making level 1. 10 - 15 minutes.

Exercise 1 (Figure 1): Passing the ball between the doors.- In a rectangle of 40 x 40 we place 6 doors (made with cones). Three doors of a color (red) and the others of a different one (blue). Each door of a 1 meter wide. In the center we put a square of 3 x 3. Players in groups of 3 with a ball per group. Each group must wear a different color jersey (green group, blue group, etc ...).

Whoever has the ball should head to the center square, where he will conduct the pass to one of his companions. After the ball he will leave the center square. The one receiving the ball must with one contact pass the ball through one of the doors from inside the square out.

Then he must go to the center square to pass the ball to one of his team mates. He should choose the best location (free space, near a door of a different color, lower density of players around, etc ...). Players who do not have the ball will scroll across the square looking for the free zone, the door of a different color, etc ... and they will perform the displacement by mobilizing the joints. Once players understand the dynamics of the game, we can ask the players without the ball to pay attention to intercept a pass from the other groups. Only interception when the ball is near them, no tickets or labels. This variant will increase the difficulty of the mechanisms of perception and decision making.

We finish with stretching. First, all players follow a routine with static activities to stretch the muscles during 5 minutes. After that, each player has 3 more minutes to make active exercises to stretch the muscles they know need more attention.