Setting up a
training program
We are going to suggest some guidelines to coaches when planning a training
program. It is important to understand that these are just guidelines that
should be flexible and adaptive to the reality of the coach and team. There is
no perfect program model, and we all know that you can not guarantee the quality
of training sessions simply by writing plans. But we cannot ignore the fact that
having a written program gives us a better overview of training sessions.
1. Diagnostic – The first step when organizing a program is to identify the
characteristics of the group you are going to work with: level of skills,
physical qualities, tactical knowledge, level of involvement of the team
(leisure, school, club, rep, junior, elite). Player profiles will be always
useful: address, phone numbers, parents name and occupation, date of birth,
medical background, Futsal experience. It is important to put together all the
general information such as venues, number of sessions, gear, and competitions
to be played. If necessary, this topic can be split up into sub-items.
2. Main goals – Once you complete the diagnostics for your team, then you should
be able to establish your goals for the season. Your goals could include
competition goals such as the position you intend to finish in a tournament, or
reaching a certain ranking within the sport. They could include technical goals
like being able to perform the basic skills or to apply specific systems. It is
important to have realistic goals and not to under or over estimate the limits
of the team.
3. Calendar – Sometimes it is hard to organize a calendar because of player
availability, venue availability and change of dates of competition. But it is
important to have a reference for you, players and parents about dates, times
and hours of training.
4. Evaluation – Coaches should be able to evaluate the whole program in its
different phases: the plan itself, training sessions, competitions. We can use
various evaluation instruments like statistical control of training and games,
film training and games, personal observations of the coach, parent’s evaluation
and player’s self evaluation.
Planning a session
The habit of planning in advance gives consistency to the practical session and
facilitates the assessment and graduation of the yearly program. In the appendix
you will find a Training Session Plan sheet extracted from the Coach’s Record
Kit (Australian Coaching Council, 1998). The main topic for planning a session
are:
Session aims – to identify your session aims, you are going to consider your
main goals for the season ad the stage your team has so gar advanced.
Training outline – you are going to plan activities to achieve the session aims.
On the outline you are going to describe each activity from the warm up to the
cool down.
Training session model
The model below is just a suggestion that could be adapted to training
conditions and group characteristics:
Briefing – welcome players and explain the session and its objective.
Warm up – activities to prepare players for the session. It should include
dynamic activities and stretching e.g. motivational games (contests, challenges,
tags, two balls game, numbers game, line catcher), laps, individual stretching,
callisthenics exercises, etc.
Specific activities – activities related to the session aims: mini games,
skills, drills, tactical movements, conditioning.
Full game – the game itself. As mentioned before, these are some interesting
situations that can be practiced during the full game: 1 or 2 touches, 4 against
3, court player as keeper, just left or right foot, losing the game, winning the
game, coaches time out, freezing game.
Cool down – activities to cool down, e.g. walking, stretching, breathing
exercises, massage, checking the pulse.
Evaluation – brief evaluation of the session with the players.