Performance Enhancement and Injury Resilience for Teenage Girls

Summer 2019 - Soccer Specific Preseason Training

Details

• 6 weeks, twice per week, Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:15-7:15pm
• 12 dates – July 9, 11, 16, 18, 23, 25, 30, August 1, 6, 8, 13, 15
• Cost-$120/player, 8-30 players
• 7th 8th, 9th Grade Girls

Overview

Roughly 50 million children ages 6-18 participate in organized sports in the United States each year, with that number dropping approximately 9% per year in recent years. According to the Sport and Fitness Industry Association, listed as one of the several reasons for decline in sport participation is fear of injury. Multiple factors, such as earlier sport-specialization, over-training, dehydration, muscle imbalances and inadequate nutrition all can contribute to youth and adolescent athlete overuse and non-contact injuries. Female athletes have added challenges as they approach and move through puberty as their bodies have different nutritional needs,  body composition changes in ways different than their male counterparts and hormonal fluctuations can directly affect training and performance.

Although not all injuries are avoidable, proper training can increase injury resilience by developing all the components of physical fitness such as strength, muscle endurance, dynamic stabilization, coordination, plyometrics, speed/agility and fatigue resistance. Fitness, rehabilitation and coaching professionals need to design programs that encompass all aspects of fitness for each athlete, year-round, regardless of her sport. In the off-season,  focus can be more general. In the preseason, they start to model programs based on sport-specific activities that train the energy systems necessary for the upcoming competitive season. Soccer-specific preseason training should consist of activities that challenge all three energy systems that are used in the body, which then allows the body to move quickly with bursts of speed, repeatedly, for 90 minutes. Preadolescent and adolescent female athletes also need to gain strength and stability in their hips and core, deceleration strength, shock absorption and the ability to withstand force in different planes of movement in order to avoid injuries related to the changing physique.

This program will encompass all of the above, in a safe and supportive environment where female athletes can spend their time building each other up, rather than competing with one another. The goal of this program is to keep every athlete out of the training room and on the field and competing at her highest level. We want each athlete approaching her fall season with confidence knowing she is stronger and quicker than she was last year and that she took the initiative to join a program that will make her a step faster than her competition.