Multidirectional Speed in Youth Soccer Players: Programming Considerations and Practical Applications

Abstract

Multidirectional speed (MDS) can be defined as ‟the competency and capacity to accelerate, decelerate, change direction, and maintain speed in multiple directions and movements, within the context of sport-specific scenarios.” The components of MDS are linear speed, change of direction speed, curvilinear speed, contextual speed, and agility. A MDS development framework is provided for the practitioner who considers the complexities of the growing athlete within a progressive sequence of skill learning and adaptation. Practical examples for each MDS component are provided and discussed within weekly microcycle examples that represent different stages of development for the youth athlete.

Multidirectional Speed in Youth Soccer Players: Theoretical Underpinnings

“…The aims of this review are to propose a definition for the term multidirectional speed, underlining how the key components of MDS relate to performance and injury risk, through an exploration of its theoretical underpinnings. Although practitioners are interested in training strategies to enhance MDS (129), it is imperative to understand the mechanical and technical underpinning of MDS to effectively design physical preparation and MDS sessions for the athletes. This review first begins with a discussion on the performance and injury risk considerations for the growing athlete.…”

Attacking Agility Actions: Match Play Contextual Applications With Coaching and Technique Guidelines

“…Therefore, practitioners are encouraged to follow the provided coaching and technique guidelines to develop their athletes’ attacking agility technique to best mediate the performance-injury risk conflict (Tables 1–3). This can be simply integrated into warm-ups, or most likely beneficially incorporated into technical–tactical drills, working in combination with the skills coaches to increase sport specificity, increase athlete/coach “buy-in” and adherence, and mitigate injury risk (28,31,34,77).…”

“…However, it cannot be disputed that there are key fundamental technique characteristics and biomechanical movement principles (Tables 1-3), which are optimal and necessary to facilitate rapid, controllable, and effective attacking agility actions that should be adhered to when coaching agility movements (Table 3). Readers are encouraged to read the referred articles for further information on the programing and training methods for agility enhancement (31, 75,77,81).…”

“…Accordingly, practitioners should design representative learning environments that facilitate effective transfer of physical capacity gains to on-field agility performances. For example, for practitioners who are limited with time for S&C and isolated agility training, one possible solution is to integrate agility drills into technique/tactical training sessions, or working collaboratively with the skills coach to help design sports-specific attacking agility drills and scenarios to promote agility, sports technique, and tactical development (77,103). One such example is advising and designing small-sided games and attacking versus defending scenarios to provide the representative environments and constraints for agility development (77,103).…”

Predictive Value of Repeated Jump Testing on Nomination Status in Professional and under 19 Soccer Players

“…Youth players that have been selected for professional clubs tend to have higher body mass index (BMI) values, and are taller and faster than matched ones [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. In general, professional players have higher maximum oxygen consumption, faster sprint times which are executed at higher intensities, greater repeated sprint ability, larger strength back squat values, higher jumping abilities, and lower body fat percentage compared to non-professional players [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ].…”