Sports Medicine for Coaches and Athletes

Soccer

Adil E. Shamoo, William H. Baugher, Robert M. Germeroth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781134967773
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Medicina dello sport

This book is a practical guide and concise sports medicine reference, written exclusively for the sport of soccer. Based on Adil Shamoo's notes from years of coaching, teaching, and lecturing on the subject, this succinct handbook approaches soccer from a unique scientific perspective. The experiences of Dr. Shamoo and coauthors William Baugher, a sports medicine orthopedist, and Robert Germeroth, a physical therapist, combine to make the latest sports medicine research relevant and accessible to those who participate in the sport. Coaches, referees, players, parents, and athletic trainers from grade school through college will find the authors' knowledgeable discussion of soccer injuries to be an invaluable resource for prevention and treatment. Sports retailers, pediatricians and professionals in the field of sports medicine will also appreciate the book's comprehensive coverage of the physical, mental, and nutritional aspects of playing the game of soccer, the world's most popular sport.

Chapter
One
Criteria for Optimal Performace

Soccer is a major sport for young athletes in the United States, and is also rapidly becoming a major sport for males and females of all ages. Because young athletes go through puberty at different times, there is a great deal of variation among these athletes in terms of size and maturity. These differences pose a challenge to the athletes and to their coaches. The primary characteristics of a young athlete are; motivation; physical fitness (i.e., muscle strength, power, endurance, flexibility, proper body composition, and cardiorespiratory endurance); discipline; coachability; skills; ability to be a part of a team; ability to think under stress; and good spatial orientation. Soccer practice sessions should seek to achieve physical conditioning, repetitive training, a proper intensity of training, flexibility, and the awareness that the achievement of proper endurance for the soccer athlete requires at least 4-6 months of training. Also, the coach should be aware that extreme and severe high intensity and high frequency training causes damage to muscle tissues and is counterproductive to the goals of the athlete.

We will restrict this section to discussing training as it relates to soccer. Several of the statements in this section will be expanded upon in subsequent chapters.

Soccer has become a major youth sport in the United States. It is estimated that over 15 million youngsters play soccer at various levels. Soccer is not thought of as a contact sport; however, body contact does occur as part of the normal flow of play. Although injuries due to soccer are relatively low compared to other sports, for those above 18 years old the injury rate is about 6-8%. Most injuries for those below 12 years of age occur in the lower extremities due to blows to these regions or due to overuse and improper training. Most injuries in soccer occur at the ankle, foot, knee, and skin. Less frequent injuries occur in the abdomen, head, and neck. Goalies tend to have more injuries. Female soccer players tend to have higher rates of injuries than males.

Benefits of Playing Soccer

The benefits of playing soccer for youngsters and adults are similar to those of other sports that require repeated physical exercise. In general, sports improve the quality of life because of the benefits to one's health. More specifically, playing soccer increases muscle strength, endurance, and flexibility. Moreover, soccer enhances cardiovascular endurance, contributes to the prevention of illnesses, enhances self-esteem, improves stress management and it is true recreation and fun. To some, playing soccer may become a lifelong form of exercise and enjoyment.

Physiological and Chronological Age

All middle school teachers can tell you that adolescent teenagers are difficult to handle and that they vary a great deal in size, height, and their level of maturity. This is because teenagers, in addition to possessing the normal genetic inheritance of size from their parents, are also in a very fast growth period (puberty), especially during the growth spurt. On the average, the growth spurt occurs around 12 years of age for girls and 14 years of age for boys. Because of these changes, young athletes are experiencing a tumultuous period which affects them both physiologically and hormonally. Therefore, young athletes of the same age group who play soccer are very different in terms of size, shape, height, and skill level. Because of these differences, it is very difficult to mold the players of this age group into a cohesive team.

Selection of Players

There are basically two types of young soccer teams: neighborhood teams and travel teams (select teams). In addition, high schools have varsity and junior varsity soccer teams. Some middle schools also have soccer teams.

In neighborhood teams, everyone can register and play for their approximate age group. Usually, neighborhood teams span an age bracket of one or two years in order to have a sufficient number of players. In addition, there is either no selection process or a simple mechanism of scoring players based on simple skills and physical abilities. Because of the two year age bracket and different growth spurts among the young players, they tend to be very heterogeneous in terms of skill, speed, and sizes. Such a mix represents a greater risk for injuries as well as frustrations for the youngster, particularly if the coach is very demanding. The composition of the team presents a greater problem to the coach in terms of all of the training factors which will be discussed later.

The select teams usually span a one year age bracket. The level of skill is better than that of neighborhood teams. However, despite the one year bracket between the ages, the team still varies a great deal in sizes and skill levels. Usually, because of puberty such teams are dominated by tall, fast, and large players. These differences become insignificant as players pass puberty. One suggestion for young teams consisting of players below 14 years of age is to determine teams based not only on the players' age but also on their height and weight as is the case in football. However, because there is much less physical contact in soccer than in football, grouping by weight is not as critical in soccer.

Characteristics of A Soccer Player

All of the following player characteristics need not be present before the individual plays soccer. However, the individual should either show aptitude or at least a willingness to acquire these characteristics.

1. Motivation. The soccer player should be interested and motivated to play the game of soccer (i.e., kicking a ball, running, passing a ball etc). In other words, the player should get enjoyment out of performing these tasks, especially when these tasks are performed spontaneously and without pressure from adults.

2. Physical Fitness. The term physical fitness connotes different meanings for different activities. In the context of soccer, it is the ability to play soccer for 60-90 minutes without fatigue, exhaustion, or other symptoms that interfere with performance. The player should have the following physical fitness characteristics to play soccer: a) muscle strength and power; b) endurance; c) flexibility; d) proper body composition; e) cardiac respiratory endurance; f) coordination.

3. Discipline. The player should have the ability to practice and play the game in a repeated fashion several times a week.

4. Coachability. The player should have the ability to accept instructions and to try to comply with these instructions.

5. Skills or the ability to learn skills. The player should have the ability to conduct or learn individual soccer skills with the ball such as kicking, receiving, passing, shooting, control, etc.

6. Ability to play in a team sport. This describes the ability of the player to cooperate with other team members to achieve a difficult task. Also, the player should be able to sacrifice personal recognition for the sake of the team. The player also should be able to associate with others for prolonged periods of time and sometimes under stressful conditions. Finally, the player should have the ability to enjoy himself with others.

7. Ability to think under stress. Most people are not as logical under stressful conditions as they are normally. However, the well trained soccer player learns what to do under the various game conditions, and also learns to think quickly under stressful conditions.

8. Proper spatial orientation. The ability to think and visualize in three dimensions with respect to the soccer field is difficult for very young players. The player should be able to learn to adapt to the spatial orientation within the field and reposition himself/herself relevant to the ball, teammates, and opposing team members.

Steps to Playing Soccer

Figure 1.1 is a schematic diagram of the steps needed to be undertaken to prepare a soccer player for the season.

Practice Sessions

The purpose of this monograph is not to suggest specific exercises. There are other sources addressing various exercises/ drills which pertain to soccer practice session. However, we will give a general outline that all soccer practice sessions should include. In this manner, coaches can use their creativity to make soccer practices more enjoyable and more beneficial to the different needs of the varied groups.

The practice sessions should be designed to make the individual a better soccer player. The best practice for any sport is to play that sport repeatedly in order to develop those muscles, skills, endurance, etc., for that sport. It is common for those who play one sport and then suddenly play another sport to have muscle aches after the first few times of participation in the new sport. The muscle aches are usually due to the use of the same muscle in a different way arid frequently a different set of muscle fibers than those used before. This is known as "specificity of training." Thus, the more the soccer player plays soccer, the better he/ she will become in soccer. This is not to say

Figure 1.1. Steps to playing soccer.

that the game of soccer should not be broken down into small segments so that it can be taught and repeatedly reinforced,

In order to prepare the individual to play soccer, players and coaches should observe the following factors:

1. Physical conditioning. This involves the increased ability to sustain both aerobic and anaerobic exercises.

2. Frequency of training. This should be 2-3 times a week for youngsters and 3-4 times a week for adults.

3. Intensity of training. During a 60-90 minute exercise session there should be periods (1-3) lasting at least 15 minutes long (for optimal adaptation) wherein the player's oxygen consumption (in liters per minutes) should be at about 70% of VO_2max. However, the range of intensity of exercise can be from 40 to 70% (i.e., 55 to 80% increase in heart rate). The VO_2max is the maximal oxygen uptake by an individual due to an increase in workload (e.g., pedaling a bicycle with increased resistance to rotation of the wheel while measuring oxygen consumption). This translates into about an 80-90% increase in heart rate (i.e., about 140-150 beats/min). This is the best way to induce muscle and cardio-respiratory endurance. However, most soccer players, especially young players, can practice at suboptimal levels of intensity for adaptation. The suboptimal level of practice simply would lengthen the time needed to reach optimal adaptation.

4. Flexibility exercises. The full range of motion of muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments is important to maintain proper function for soccer and also to prevent injury to these sites. As a result of years of "personal observation" of soccer players of all ages (this observation may not be universal), it is apparent that even some elite players have inadequate flexibility. This is probably a reflection of limited emphasis on flexibility exercises by the coaches rather than the inherent poor flexibility of the soccer player. Because muscle temperature in extremities is slightly lower than core temperature, increased circulation of blood into the muscle during exercise helps the muscle to function optimally. In addition, flexibility exercises help prevent deleterious effects due to ischemia (i.e., inadequate blood flow). Therefore, it is important that the athlete warms up by individual skill exercises or jogging (not sprinting) one or two laps around the field before stretching. Stretching exercises without proper warm-up could cause pulled muscles and other injuries. Furthermore, stretching should be static (stretching gradually to full range) and not ballistic (quick extension of arms, legs and other parts of the body). Ballistic stretching could cause injury, especially under poor warm-up conditions. Static stretching should last 10-30 seconds and be repeated 3-5 times. Each stretching exercise should include a larger range of motion than the previous one. Stretching can also be achieved during the practice. In addition, after each rigorous practice session, there should be 10 minutes of low to moderate cool down exercises. Examples of cool down exercises in soccer are individual skill exercises, light jogging, and perhaps best of all, just walking or dribbling the ball lightly (for further details see Chapter 3).

5. Time to peak endurance. Quick and strenuous training for 2-3 weeks prior to a season (as is the case in some high schools after a sedentary summer) cannot achieve endurance and may be detrimental to the athlete. This is because adaptation of the cardiorespiratory system and muscle enzymes requires about six months of training to reach peak endurance capacity. However, psychological training could improve performance without additional muscular adaptation. Moreover, it takes 2-4 weeks without training (as may be the case during the summer for high schoolers) to lose most endurance parameters (see Chapter 6 on endurance for details).

Therefore, a well planned training period is an essential part of preparing players for the season. In an ideal situation, year round training is highly recommended.

Suggested Practice Session

Figure 1.2 represents an example of a single week long soccer practice session. All muscles used in soccer should be warmed and stretched. Main areas of concern are: upper leg (groin, hamstrings, quads), abdominals, back, ankles, and neck. The practice session should start with a warm-up (Wu) including quick paced individual soccer skills, dribbling, or jogging 1-2 laps around the field, followed by stretching exercises. After Wu the team should be broken into 2—4 groups, each practicing

Figure 1.2. Example of activities for a 90-rniriute practice session for young soccer players.

different individual skills. The number of water breaks should be increased from the suggested 2 breaks to 4; in addition, practice may be canceled if the weather is too hot and humid. Individual skill practice is followed by small group practices composed of any combination of 2V2, 3V3, 4V4, or other similar practices in a small field (i.e., 1/6th to 1/8th of a soccer field), in order to provide frequen...