My son wants to use the treadmill. he is nearly 11. He will be moving to 11 a side footie soon, what type of training would be best? I have thought about it and came up with this routine.
Jog at 5mph, sprint at 8mph for 15 seconds, jog at 5mph, sprint for 15 seconds, repeat.

But not sure how much will be enough, i dont want him to stress his young body too much.

So what do you think?

Hi,

Welcome to RF.

I find it difficult to reply to this one. I'm not sure that at 11 years old the treadmill is particularly appropriate. The gym I use do not allow anyone under 14 to use the equipment. But aside from that I'm not sure that the equipment is designed for youngsters.

And above anything else, if he is training for football, then surely the field will provide all the training he needs.

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It's about getting out there and doing the distance, time doesn't matter apart from making it.

Hi

I dont think a treadmill provides even 50% of the benefit that you would get from the same time training outside. You can t recreate the immediate dynamic movements required for effective football running training on a treadmill.

If you consider the kind of movements and automatic shifts in speed that will be required in a game...ie...walking or jogging to a full on sprint in a split second, this is the kind of explosive power and speed he needs to work on.

besides interval training which an decent footie team will provide at training, exercises that will help are things like jump squats. These will help strengthen and increase the explosive power of the major leg muscles. See the link below

http://www.shapefit.com/quadriceps-e...mp-squats.html

In my humble opinion they should be done as follows.

* start in a fully erect position as shown with arms crossed in front.

* slowly lower down until the crease of the hip is inline with the joint of the knee. At this point the bum should be sticking out, chest should be inflated and shoulderblades high....an ideal position to accelerate upward with maximum force. take about 3 second to lower. nice and slow.

* from the bottom, keep the chin up and drive through the heels, not the toes as hard as you can which should see you jump. hands can be removed from the crossed position to balance.

SJ

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Acta Non Verba

sprinting full speed on a treadmil is borderline dangerous at the best of times as for changing the speed every 15 seconds...

wtf ??!!

no offense but this thread is mental...

designing a treadmil training session for a 10 year old - TO TRAIN FOR FOOTBALL...

wtf ??!!

jump squats ?!!

wtf ??!!

don't seriously... just don't...

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I'm with Revenged with this, I run a kids football side (under 12's) and everything we do is outside. Why not concentrate on short sprints with sharp twists between cones for example - something more suited to the game.

I've always found that at this sort of age group, it skills and ball control that give you an edge not speed (not yet anyway)

Hey,

Thanks for the advice.

its not always nice outside, perhaps he will just stick doing jogging and leave the sprints. he just wants to get fitter.

Concentrate on getting better, the more he plays teh fitter he will become. Don't let him focus so much on fitness that he forgets the main objective to play and have fun.

I dont think there is any training program you can do on a treadmill that is worth doing for football training.

Jump squats are a fantastic exercise for creating dynamic speed and strength in the quadriceps, Hamstrings and glutes. This is something very worth doing as part of the bigger picture in my opinion. Normal barbell squats would also be good but as the team are very young, bodyweight is suffice and safer.

Granty makes some good points i think with the shorts sprints and ball control etc being the main priority. Overall fitness will come will young guys since they will probably be playing footie every night after school now with the lighter nights

SJ

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Acta Non Verba

I think things must have changed a lot since I was 11. I used to play a game of football one afternoon a week and do some track and field in summer. Apart from that all I did was ride my BMX every night after school with friends. I was a perfectly fit and healthy 11 year old. Why the hell do these kids feel the need to use gym equipment? I think our culture is making people of all ages feel they have to use expensive and technologically sophisticated equipment to be fit and competitive. I find it quite sad.

You're not the only one. There is far to much emphasis given to gadgets and gizmo's to make life easier. So much so that even exercise needs to be made easier for today's society.

This seems hypocritical. After all, if exercise requires effort, why on earth should we seek a gadget to make it easier!

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It's about getting out there and doing the distance, time doesn't matter apart from making it.