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Influence of various preseason training in elite youth soccer players

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Central European Journal of Medicine

Abstract

Aim

Endurance capacity of each individual soccer player can notably influence a team’s success. The opinion about the necessity of generic endurance specific training in soccer, especially in adolescent athletes, still varies widely.

Methods

We examined n = 38 elite premier league youth soccer players from three different age groups and with a different amount of endurance specific training. Two identical graded incremental exercise tests were performed before and after a 5 weeks training intervention. Besides soccer specific training, the different groups absolved either 25–30% (U16 and U19) or < 5% (U17) of generic endurance specific training as well as soccer specific endurance training. After the training intervention the alterations of blood lactate concentration (La-), the individual anaerobic threshold (LT) as well as the 4 mmol/-1 threshold were determined.

Results

Running velocity of the U16 and U19 players at individual anaerobic threshold and at the 4 mmol/-1 threshold increased significantly. In contrast, no changes of the LT or 4 mmol/-1 threshold could be detected for the U17 players.

Conclusions

The individual endurance capacity of young elite soccer players can be improved significantly, even over a short preseason period, by performing an adequate amount of generic endurance specific training.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Clinic and Policlinic, Department of Sports Medicine, Eberhard Karls University, Hoppe Seyler Strasse 6, 72076, Tuebingen, Germany

    Raymond Best, Andreas Niess & Heiko Striegel

  2. Department of Sports Science, Sports Medicine Section, Johannes Gutenberg University, Albert-Schweitzer-Str. 22, 55128, Mainz, Germany

    Perikles Simon

Authors
  1. Raymond Best
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  2. Perikles Simon
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  3. Andreas Niess
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  4. Heiko Striegel
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Correspondence to Raymond Best.

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Best, R., Simon, P., Niess, A. et al. Influence of various preseason training in elite youth soccer players. cent.eur.j.med 8, 803–809 (2013). https://doi.org/10.2478/s11536-013-0236-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/s11536-013-0236-8

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