Pre-season training is critical for building fitness, improving skills, and fostering team cohesion. Here are four essential drills for pre-season football training:
1. Endurance Running
- Purpose: Build cardiovascular endurance and improve overall fitness.
- Drill: Players run at varying intensities, mixing sprints, jogs, and longer distance runs. Interval training (e.g., 4 minutes hard running followed by 2 minutes of light jogging) is particularly effective.
Products to help
This is a great for varying intensities and interval training. The Football Flick Essentials Octa Speed Rings is a set of 12 versatile & highly visible large 8 sided speed rings. They can be set up in different ways to test and develop numerous speed and agility exercises in all ages. A truly adaptable piece of training equipment, these speed rings can be clipped together and used flat or positioned upright as hurdles.
The Football Flick Essentials Multi Hurdles is a set of 3 versatile & highly visible moulded hurdles. Their ingenious design means each hurdle can be adjusted to 3 different heights of 6″, 9″ & 12″ by simply lifting the bar. This allows players to practise fast steps, hops, speed & agility training.
2. Small-Sided Games
- Purpose: Improve tactical awareness, ball control, and fitness.
- Drill: Organise 5v5 or 7v7 matches on a smaller pitch. This forces players to make quick decisions and increases their touches on the ball, enhancing technical skills and game understanding.
Products to help
Football Flick Urban Pitch Pack
The Football Flick Urban Pitch Pack is a portable football pitch that comes with 2 pop up, lightweight football goals, a pitch marker to create your pitch, carry bag to fold everything away into and pegs to secure everything down. The foldable football goals are an ideal size for 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 matches.
This is perfect for small sided games is the Urban 4ft pop goals. These are great for small sided games in the garden or out in the park.
If you want to train like a pro in the pre season, the Pro Aluminum goals are the one for you. The Flick PRO Aluminium Folding Football Goal is a 5ft x 3ft freestanding football goal with a highly visible orange mesh net and includes PRO branding. The 50mm aluminium posts are foldable & can be set up in seconds. The goal can also be collapsed for easy transportation or storage.
3. Technical Skills Circuit
- Purpose: Enhance technical abilities such as dribbling, passing, shooting, and ball control.
- Drill: Set up multiple stations, each focusing on a different skill (e.g., dribbling through cones, passing accuracy, shooting on goal, one-touch passing). Players rotate through the stations with minimal rest.
Products to help
Football Flick Essentials Drills Set
This is the ideal football training equipment for kids and adults. The set contains football training cones, bibs, passing tunnel and agility ladder to improve footwork.
4. Strength and Conditioning
- Purpose: Improve strength, agility, and injury prevention.
- Drill: Incorporate exercises such as bodyweight workouts, resistance training, plyometrics, and agility drills (e.g., ladder drills, cone drills). Focus on core stability, leg strength, and overall body conditioning.
The Football Flick Essentials Hand Held Rebounder is a 60x60cm hand held rebounder with detachable handles. The rebounder helps improve skills in goalkeeper agility & reaction speeds as well as fast control training for outfield players by angling to create unpredictable returns.
It contains 3 foldable slalom poles, 3 bases & 3 fabric training buddy mannequins to help improve freekicks, shooting, agility and all round fitness.
Example Week Plan
Day 1:
- Warm-up
- Endurance Running (Interval Training)
- Small-Sided Games
Day 2:
- Warm-up
- Technical Skills Circuit
- Tactical Drills
Day 3:
- Warm-up
- Strength and Conditioning
- Small-Sided Games
Day 4:
- Rest or light recovery session (yoga, stretching)
Day 5:
- Warm-up
- Endurance Running (Long Distance)
- Tactical Drills
Day 6:
- Warm-up
- Technical Skills Circuit
- Small-Sided Games
Day 7:
- Rest or light recovery session
Tips for Coaches:
- Progressive Intensity: Gradually increase the intensity and volume of training to avoid injuries.
- Variety: Keep sessions varied to maintain player interest and address different aspects of fitness and skill.
- Feedback: Provide constructive feedback and encouragement to help players improve and stay motivated.
- Monitoring: Keep an eye on player fatigue and recovery to ensure optimal performance and reduce the risk of overtraining.
