What does an accompanying endurance program for amateur footballers look like?

The last ten minutes have begun and the game is tied. Suddenly, your opponent wins the ball in midfield and starts a counterattack. You're determined to win and start sprinting - but you can't keep up. After more than 80 minutes, you have simply run out of steam and the opposing team scores the winning goal. What may only be a minor annoyance for some district league footballers, which is forgotten after the first sip of beer in the dressing room anyway, can cause sleepless nights for ambitious amateur footballers. And shows why such players should also work on their individual stamina.

If we move in the realistic world of amateur soccer, you usually train two to three times a week, plus a game at the weekend. We assume the scenario of an ambitious district league footballer who trains twice a week and has the goal of developing his sporting skills.

At this level, a lot of running work is already done in the team setting during pre-season preparation, but the general amateur footballer tends to neglect fitness work, especially during the summer and winter break. Experience shows that an individual running program before the start of preparation, similar to what the professional clubs do, makes absolute sense!

District league soccer players

During the football-free period, you should pay more attention to basic runs or long intervals. Longer endurance runs (30-45 minutes) at a pace at which you can still maintain yourself (“running without puffing”) are great for this. On the other hand, your aerobic fitness can also be improved through longer intervals. Pay attention to the break ratio of double load to single break (2:1). You run at a brisk pace during the exertion phases and can walk or jog at a relaxed pace during the break. Common protocols are 8min:4min, 4min:2min, 2min:1min or 30sec:15sec. The time for a run should be around 30-40 minutes. You can find suitable runs in the flexsport app in the category Runs and Drills.

During the season, you should make sure that you do your extra sessions either directly after the game and at the beginning of the week, depending on how much playing time you had! In our example, let's take Tuesday and Friday as training days and Sunday as match day. On a more intensive training day like Tuesday, it's ideal to add a few top-ups in the form of runs. Our motto is: Make the hard days hard and the easy days easy. We have uploaded suitable drills and runs in the app. You can complete these on the course or on your favorite running track.

Resoursses

• Jovanovic, M. (2018). HIIT Manual. High Intensity Interval Training and Agile Periodization. Complementary Training, Belgrad.