Are You Ready for Some Football?

With the summer approaching travel scoccer programs are holding tryouts for their clubs.  This includes SBCFC.  Athletes right now are currently playing for Acedemy, Travel Clubs, High School, Middle School and Rec. programs.  All of these programs are great in terms of what is currently available for the athlete and the appropriate skill level they are currently at. Now if athletes are trying out for programs that are of a higher more advanced level the requirements for skills and for their performance level are increased based upon the expectations of that program.  Each program sets a criteria of what it expects from the athlete and they are assessed on this at the tryout. 

I have a number of athletes currently who are in this stage of advancement along with a number of athletes who are coming in with the request that has been demanded of them and that is this.....   YOU NEED TO GET FASTER!  Wow now how many times have I heard this one.  There is only one major concern to this issue and that is that faster is usually not the underlieing issue.  Most athletes can get faster and its not by running harder and doing it over and over and being yelled at to try harder.  Its simply by changing the current way they are doing the movements involved in running and how they activate certain muscle groups that have not been taught or refined to be used in a systematic way.  Now injuries that have been around and not addressed properly will cause the athlete to develop comensations which will lead to overuse on single side body activations and joints will be overworked and the other side will be under developed. 

Our main goal is to make athletes have the capacity to run faster, cut harder, be quicker in and out of challenges, and not be fearful.  All this without a high potential for INJURY.  We do this by focusing on the basic movements and the ground up mentality of proper foot placement and body alignment.  The style of training that will be implemented this summer is called IMPACT.

 Integrated Movement Performance Accelerated Corrective Training

Speed and quickness is a developmental process and has to be taught and has to be addressed at practice and integrated into the team practice also.  As a unit a program has to work on this as to not allow poor movements to affect performance and have the athletes develop injuries all due to the desire of the coach and parents to see athletes faster at the expense of a potential injury.  Dont get caught up in comparing your athlete to a faster one, who has less control or a slower one who has more ball skills.  With proper training any athlete who has the desire to change can and will get better as long as the right information that is specefic to that athlete and that athletes needs is being told to them.  Then its totally up to the athletes to get the work done.

With all this above discussion on running mechanics and injury prevention teams are asking for faster athletes.  We at SBCFC have requirements for tryouts but we are putting an emphasis first on proper training and development to avoid poor movement mechanics from the younger ages.  Our focus is on the creativity of the soccer player and get rid of the pass first or kick first mentality we see everywhere.  We want healthy safe players to be comfortable with the ball and have the ability to dribble in any situation first, make sound decesions and pass second to a desired area when appropriate and have the ability to progress as quickly as they are capable of without being stressed by outside undue sources.  NO MORE screaming pass pass shoot shoot.  We are building athletes in this sport not just for this year but for the future sucess they have the potential for beyond High School.  For all the athletes out there in hopes of making the team you so desire GOOD LUCK stay healthy and work SMARTER not HARDER!

SBCFC High School Tryout Dates are as follows:

Wednesday May 16th and Thursday May 17th  from 5pm to 7pm.  These dates are the first available dates in co-operation with the IWSL.  For information contact:   hsgirls@carygrovesoccer.com