12 Aug 2016 19:16:33
Ed001. I've read your comments regarding player fitness (red/ green zone bollocks) watching Olympics today, Helen Glover being interviewed said they get one day off every 6-7 weeks.
If you and olympians are right, why is the richest sport in the world persevering with faulty fitness drills, strategy.
Is Klopps hard training routines a step in the right direction do you think.
Cheers.

{Ed001's Note - funnily enough I was just discussing this over a coffee with the head of the academy of one of the UAE clubs earlier today. They don't use it here yet, but he thinks it has some uses for helping players avoid injury. I disagree completely and think most of the injuries they pick up are down to a lack of fitness, which is why they are tired.

They do not do enough work in preseason these days, they don't use things like the old Shankly favourite, the sweat box, because players are too pampered and don't want to do the hard work. Football has too many of the wrong people involved, people who come from football just want to use the ball. They are like those parents who suffered badly as children with poverty etc so spoil their own kids to compensate. They will listen to anything that says what they want to hear.

The truth is that they are training players wrong, for short sprints, rather than for an endurance event, which is what a game of football is. Footballers, on average, cover much more distance than any other team sport when it was measured last year. So you can't use the training from the likes of basketball as a basis, because they are not covering anything like the same distances. You have to look at cross country running etc, endurance and stamina is what is key. Just ask Leicester, who had the hardest training regime in the Prem. They also had the least injuries and the least rotation.}

1.) 12 Aug 2016
12 Aug 2016 22:06:28
Olympians train to "peak" once maybe twice a season. The comment around one day off in six weeks was referring to training in the build up to the one event.

Footy is totally different.

2.) 12 Aug 2016
12 Aug 2016 22:09:16
Except for Aussie Rules Ed, those guys are ridiculously fit.

3.) 12 Aug 2016
12 Aug 2016 23:27:39
That is nonsense Beddoe. Olympic athletes also compete in national competitions, world championships, Continental championships etc.

I've seen cyclists in the tour de France put footballers to shame. You think they can just miss a stage of the tour because of a pulled calf? No. They have to stay so ridiculously fit that they don't get injured. Chris Froome is a supreme athlete. His fitness levels would embarrass most if not all premier league players.

You can't just rock up to an Olympics and perform. If you are going to run 10k for example, you need to do it so regularly in training that when you get to the main event, not only do you know your capabilities and strategy, your body also finds it second nature.

Footballers live a celebrity life and their fitness pays for it. Swimming and rowing athletes usually train 3 times a day, far harder than footballers train and that is why they are the best in the world.

Andy Murray (as much as I hate him as a man) is fitter than any footballer. He doesn't play in one event. He plays in every tennis tournament he can, and is also never injured. Because he trains so hard. And tennis players cover an incredible amount of ground over periods that regularly exceed the length of football matches. And if they get through, their next round is usually less than 48 hours later! God forbid a footballer plays 2 games in that time frame though. They just aren't fit enough.

There are only a handful of footballers in the world who really push their bodies to the limit. And the best example is Ronaldo. There is a reason why he is so rarely injured, so incredibly fit and always at his physical peak. It is because his body is a temple and he trains as hard as an Olympian. He is living proof that dedication, blood, sweat and tears genuinely can put you on the same level as somebody like Messi who in terms of raw talent, should be miles better than Ronaldo.

The only excuse footballers can use is that the nature of their sport sometimes means that no amount of training can guarantee you stay injury free. There isn't a lot you can do when Pulis sends out Shawcross or McClean to deliberately injure someone. Impact injuries cannot always be avoided. But keeping your body at its peak condition can certainly help with riding impacts and avoiding even impact injuries. Muscle injuries are almost always down to poor conditioning and fitness levels though, and that is purely due to footballers thinking that grueling training regimes are beneath them.

4.) 12 Aug 2016
12 Aug 2016 23:29:54
Aussie rules players are some of the fittest sportsmen on the planet but you're comparing apples and oranges. AFL players on average run the same distances as footballers but are allowed up to 90 subs during the game. Its a different type of fitness.

5.) 13 Aug 2016
13 Aug 2016 00:14:42
Squash players are super fit too.

{Ed003's Note - like hundred metre sprinters or to the extreme race horses(sprint,flat) muscles can/will give... muscles will will go or pop anytime if your trained that way.}

6.) 13 Aug 2016
13 Aug 2016 01:34:42
Players today would probably sue their respective clubs if put through such training sessions. Player power rules football at this moment, that and money. Can also imagine the likes of Balotelli hiding behind the goalpost if put through such a training session.

7.) 13 Aug 2016
12 Aug 2016 20:23:29
Ed001 I think last season people were saying that the Leicester lads would be given days off. Do you think that could help at the tail end of a season if fatigue eventually does set in? Even with the tough sessions its only a few games left to go, and then it can start right up again by the following preseason.

{Ed001's Note - they got a few days off but so did every team when there was a gap in the schedule. The difference was they worked harder, particularly in preseason, to improve their fitness levels.}

8.) 13 Aug 2016
12 Aug 2016 21:32:42
Cheers Ed's you are the oricle, but how can teams keep getting the most important fundamental wrong with the budgets/ experts they have, is there some fitness guru/ snake oil salesman that they're all following the doctrine of, or player power.

{Ed001's Note - it is a bit of both, listening to snake oil salesman and player power. The ones that were involved remember hating running etc, so they try and avoid putting their charges through it. They forget how important basic fitness is. As Bruce Lee said, running is the king of exercise.}

9.) 13 Aug 2016
13 Aug 2016 07:27:21
Alls teams have to do is dole out bonuses for each training session.