Starting over: pre-season
Tips to start the new season in the best possible way.
Hello everyone!
After several months, I’m back.
I had a very hectic end of the year at work and, luckily, I was able to use the holidays to rest. A new year has started and here we are again.
The first days of pre-season are always special. There is a lot of variety in how each player comes back: some ran and trained during the break, while others did absolutely nothing.
Beyond that, there is something that is almost certain: none of them picked up a hockey stick for several weeks.
Faced with this scenario… how do we start?
The first days should be taken as a period of adaptation: physical, technical and also social.
This doesn’t mean that we can’t demand effort, but if we are not aware of the context, we run the risk of causing injuries.
Personally, in the first days I would go for exercises that are as game-like as possible, where the players touch the ball a lot.
Rondos, possession games, matches or situations where the team in possession has numerical superiority, with lots of passes and playing in two or three touches.
The key, when it comes to measuring the physical impact, lies in the space chosen, and here perhaps the hardest part appears.
On the one hand, we want to have enough space. Space gives time to decide and, when players are not yet sharp, that is essential.
On the other hand, from a physical standpoint, we want to avoid players performing sprints. If the space is too big, they can reach high speeds and the exercise becomes much more demanding.
So, the challenge is to find an exercise size that gives them the time they need to make decisions, but is not so big that it turns into a physically draining drill.
As we said before, the players haven’t been playing hockey, so pushing them within the dynamics of the game can be risky.
The physical load, instead, can come through linear training sessions carried out by the fitness coach off the pitch, in a controlled environment.
Personally, I would avoid analytical drills. I see many coaches resort to them as a way to regain technical feel, but I think that, at the beginning, it’s better to let them play relaxed, without putting so much emphasis on detail. As the days go by, they will loosen up.
I think it is essential to stress that the first days of pre-season are not the time to rush processes. The coach must understand the context and create the conditions for the team to feel comfortable again.
That’s all for today. I hope it’s useful and I hope it doesn’t take so long until the next one.
Happy New Year to everyone!
Javi