How to Plan Pre-Season Loading in Football

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The off-season comes and goes in a flash. Time spent recharging the batteries are over and it’s ready to get back to work.

It’s that time again – pre-season. Arguably, the most important time for a fitness coach in football.

Pre-season is crucial to lay the foundations upon which a successful season can be built upon.

Research from the UEFA injury study group, led by Jan Ekstrand, reported that greater number of pre-season training sessions completed was associated with less injury load during the competitive season

On average, teams will complete around 30 training sessions during the 6-8 week pre-season block.

Whilst in theory this should be a straightforward process, i.e. gradually build chronic load and then taper down, there are a number of practical challenges that are thrown into the mix when it comes to pre-season planning.

Let’s explore some of the key considerations when it comes to pre-season loading planning.

The ‘Ideal’ Loading Pattern

Whilst there are many studies now available in the literature around quantification of pre-season loading, to my knowledge there is no study that shows the ‘perfect’ loading pattern that equals minimal injury risk and optimal performance.

However, there are certain principles from the literature and textbooks that make sense when planning pre-season loads:

- Start with an extensive endurance week which is relatively high in volume but limits intensity.

- Have a deload week around week 3 of the pre-season block to avoid non-functional overreaching.

- Increase intensity gradually over the pre-season block.

- Taper the load in the last 2 weeks leading into the start of the competitive season.

With these principles in mind, the below figure shows an ideal loading pattern if we had 100% control of the training process:

KISS – Keep it Simple, Stupid!

Monitoring player load during pre-season is crucial to keep an eye on progression and how individual players are tolerating the loads.

With over 300 metrics available to practitioners through GPS and other monitoring systems, it can be easy to overcomplicate things.

The same goes for looking at acute and chronic measures of load progression.

Tracking metrics that have been shown to link to injury risk and/or performance is the key here.

Examples include: total distance, duration (minutes), high speed running distance (>5.5 m/s), meters per minute, heart rate zones (%HRmax) and RPE.

Accelerations and decelerations are obviously important too but be vary of these metrics due to poor reliability/validity of many GPS systems to accurately quantify these movements.

Practical Challenges

As the famous Mike Tyson quotes goes: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth!”.

Pre-season can feel like this at times. It’s useful to have a planned loading structure across the various microcycles.

But sometimes things can go out the window and you have to be flexible with your planning and subsequent load adjustment.

Below is an example dataset from a Premier League fullback who completed a full 6-week pre-season without injury.

As you can see, the loading pattern goes against what you would normally plan in terms of week 1 being the highest load of the pre-season.

For this player, he undertook a well-structured off-season programme so was able to tolerate the high loads in week 1.

Following this, the team went on a training camp and commercial tour in Asia. This reduced the load due to limited opportunity to train and effects of jet lag/travel fatigue. However, internal load (RPE) was still high during this week.

This also had a knock-on effect in week 3 as they players were still recovering somewhat from the long-haul trip, which resulted in a deload week being implemented.

In week 4, the load was again increased before tapering off in week 5 and 6.

In this example, you can see the practical challenges faced (i.e. long-haul commercial trip) that can disrupt the planning for pre-season.

Take Home Messages

Pre-season is a crucial time to chronically load players in order to cope with the demands of the in-season phase.

Practitioners face a number of practical challenges and the difficult balancing act of adaptation vs. injury risk.

Therefore, I would suggest following the below guidelines when planning loading in pre-season:

·         Start with an extensive endurance week which is relatively high in volume but limits intensity.

·         Have a deload week around week 3 of the pre-season block to avoid non-functional overreaching.

·         Increase intensity gradually over the pre-season block.

·         Taper the load in the last 2 weeks leading into the start of the competitive season.

·         Be flexible with planning – sometimes the best laid plans can go out the window!

If you want further advice around how to load monitoring and periodisation in football, check out my football fitness mentorship community here.

That’s all for this week. See you next time!