How many hours a week does a professional soccer player train in the pre-season? There is a simple answer to this question. The answer is about 12.5 hours per week. The 12.5 hours are divided into different training blocks. Let’s have a look at what an elite soccer player’s pre-season week looks like.

Warm-Up

An average elite soccer player spends about 2.5 hours on a warm-up in a week. Warm-up includes jogging, low-intensity plyometrics (jumps). During the warm-up, the heart-rate is between 60-80 % of the maximum.

Stretching

An elite soccer player stretches about 1.5 hours a week. Especially the hamstrings are deemed important. For stretching and training the hamstring, see here.

Endurance Running

Endurance running is needed during soccer. An average soccer player runs around 8-12 km per game. Furthermore, endurance running increases one’s VO2MAX. Elie players spend around 1.5 hours of endurance training per week. This endurance running is in the 90-95 % of maximal heart rate. A higher VO2MAX is getting recognized as one of the most important segments of the total soccer player. As one research team found that;

VO2max performance is the most powerful discriminator between higher and lower-level soccer players.

Small-Sided Games

Small-sided games are great for overall soccer skills, conditioning, tactical and teamwork. Usually, the games consist of 3 vs. 3 or 4 vs. 4. Because there is no hiding during the small-sided, the heart rate is quite high, around 85-90% of maximal heart rate. As you can see in the graph below, 3 vs. 3, 4 vs. 4, and 5 vs. 5 get your heart rate at a higher pace than an official match.

how many hours a week does a professional soccer player train in the pre-season
From Here

Technical Training

Technical training in the pre-season is about 2 hours a week. The workload during these sessions is very low. It’s about 6-70% of their maximal heart rate. Exercises included in this segment could be weak foot training, defending tackles, freekick practice, or general control of the ball.

Match Play

The elite soccer players played about 1.5 hours a week (1 full match). During this match, the average heart rate at the match was 85-90% of the maximal heart rate.

Strength Training

Elite soccer players do about 1-2 hours of strength training. This could be sport-specific strength training or maximal strength training. For more information on strength training for soccer see here. One study wanted to look at the effects of strength training on elite soccer players, who had no experience with strength training. The strength session looked likes this

  • 10 minutes warm-up
  • 4 times 4 minutes running at 5.5 % inclination at 90-95% of the maximum heart rate.
  • In between the sprint, a 3 min jog at 50-60 % of the maximum heart rate.
  • 15-minute break
  • Half-squat, 4-repetition maximum (90-degree knee joint angle) with emphasis on maximal mobilization in the concentric phase.
  • 4 series with a 3-minute break in between sets.

How many hours a week does an elite soccer player train

The Results Of A Strength Session A Week

Elite soccer players performing only 1 strength session per week resulted in the following results that can be used on the pitch. After 8 weeks elite soccer players found;

  • counter-movement jump increases 3 cm (5.2 %)
  • 10-meter sprints improved by 0.06 seconds
  • squat strength increased by 51.7%

For more information see www.soccersync.com