There are coaches in many different sports who believe that athletes should specialize in their sport very early – training only in their sport, almost every day, from a very young age – sometimes as young as 9 or 10 years old. Other coaches prefer late specialization, where an athlete trains in multiple sports throughout elementary and even [...]
Over the past 10 months, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly everyone in the world, from children to the elderly, public sector employees to private business owners, and of course, front-line health care workers and medical staff. Sports have endured large-scale shut-downs, cancellations, postponements of athletic training and competition, at both the amateur and professional levels, and everything in between. Of course, over the Summer and [...]
The conventional approach of reducing physical activity levels in youth athletes may seem intuitive, but it ignores one of the root causes of injury in youth sports … unpreparedness for the physical demands of the sport itself. INJURIES ON THE RISE Injuries are on the rise in youth sports. A 2009 study published in the American College [...]
For more on this topic check out our FREE webinar - Prescribe & Monitor Training Load Without Expensive, Time Consuming & Hard to Use Technology. Periodization is fast becoming a popular buzz word among soccer coaches and fitness coaches. Last summer, the city of Toronto became captivated by the Toronto Raptors’ first-ever NBA [...]
Female soccer players are – and have always been – at a high risk of sustaining injuries, especially during their teenage years. Numerous causal factors for this high injury risk have been described and documented in scientific literature, among them the anatomical changes that occur in females’ bodies post-puberty, such as a widening of the [...]
Hi Everyone, Happy New Year! In this edition of the Soccer Fitness Gols Video Blog, I discuss soccer injuries, what soccer players should do if and when they are injured, and we provide specific suggestions to keep players integrated into training and match play when they cannot fully participate. Hope you like it and as [...]
It’s hard to believe, but I originally wrote a very similar article to the one you are about to read, exactly 2 years ago (in early November, 2015). Much to my disappointment, since that time nothing has changed in the Ontario and Canadian inter-university soccer competitive schedules. The original article, which was published here on [...]
Hi Everyone, In this edition of the Soccer Fitness Gols Video Blog, I discuss the congested schedule of the regular season and play-offs in Ontario and Canadian university soccer, and the inherent problems associated with making adult players consistently play more than 1 competitive, 90+ minute match per week. I hope you like it and [...]
One of the best things about attending the 5th World Conference on Science and Soccer was the opportunity to share and discuss my research with other academics, sports scientists and fitness coaches. In this series of short articles, I will summarise and discuss each of the three different research projects that our team from Soccer [...]
In our latest Gols Video Blog, learn how to properly stretch the often tight and sometimes injured muscles of the lower leg, the gastrocnemeus and soleus. Hope you like it and as always, please feel free to share your thoughts! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpMdlcDZgUo