Videotaping the games

One of the best ways to study and analyze a game is to tape it. The advantage you have is you can watch it as many times you need to, and study the minute movements of the players on the field. You can pause the game, fast forward it to the interesting part, and rewind it again to repeat a particular section of the game. The facilities help to understand the game plan, and how players implement it during the game. A study done for a full season involving the Everton FC soccer club of England revealed many facts, which were not disclosed to the general masses. For example, a particular player was shortlisted, and his every move studied in details. The results indicated that the player ran for 8,800 meters on an average per game. Moreover, the actual running involved walking, jogging, cruising, sprinting, and backing. So it was not just simply running as initially thought of. Approximately two thirds of the distance was covered while running slowly, or casually jogging in the field, and the actual sprinting was done for only about eight hundred meters.

Conditioning activities

It is important to be physically fit in order to be a good player. The concept of “being fit” tends to change from trainer to trainer. From the physician’s point of view, “being fit” is actually how fast you recover from a physically stressed condition. While doing the workouts, the metabolism undergoes drastic changes – the blood starts flowing at a faster rate, the heart starts pumping furiously, lungs start expanding and collapsing to take in more air and oxygen, and the body starts generating extra energy to compensate for the physical stress incurred. The “recovery” is the stage when the metabolism subsides down to its normal status, with the heart rate functioning within acceptable limits, and the lungs working normally.