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Return to sport post injury: Football conditioning games
Football conditioning games restore physical, technical, and cognitive capacities following injury. Understanding how and when to implement them is critical for clinicians working with this group. Sports scientist and performance expert Joshua Smith delves into the approach of effectively introducing conditioning games into return-to-sport
Soccer teams must regularly deal with 50 time-loss injuries per season, which averages out to two injuries per player in a squad of 25. This significantly impacts the team’s performance, as up to 14% of the squad is unavailable due to injury. These performance-related consequences also carry financial implications. For example, in the English Premier League, teams lose an average of £45 million due to time-loss injuries suffered over the course of a season. Considering this, clinicians and researchers continue to uncover strategies to mitigate injury risks, improve injury prevention, and refine return-to-sport protocols.
The return-to-play phase marks the final step in a player’s rehabilitation, with training load monitoring becoming incredibly important to minimise the re-injury risk while at the same time bringing the player to their pre-injury physical level. Part of the return-to-play process includes the gradual re-introduction to contact-based drills, which in the case of football are small-, medium-, and large-sided games (Table 1).
Practitioners refer to these terms collectively as football conditioning games.
What are football conditioning games?
Modern football demands continue to shift, and practitioners use small-, medium-, and large-sided games to develop players’ technical and tactical acumen and physical capacity. Football conditioning games are valid and representative of the real-world physical, technical, and tactical requirements of football match play and are the foundation of football training methodologies globally.
While the use of these games aligns itself with the principle of specificity, there are instances where the intensity of the games cannot be as precisely controlled as generic physical conditioning (Table 2).
Because of this, all practitioners need to note that several variables can be manipulated to regulate the physical and physiological demands associated with these games, which in turn will allow for a more precise training load planning and, ultimately, a reduction in re-injury risk that may be associated with exposing a returning player to the incorrect game format and variables that they are not prepared for. Practitioners must consider the player numbers, duration of games, pitch size, and rules utilised as they influence the intensity of football conditioning games.
- Player numbers
A different training response is elicited based on the game size. The lower the player numbers, the higher the intensity, whereas most of the physical indicators increase as the number of players increases, ie peak speed and acceleration. - Game duration
Repetition duration, repetition count, and the work-to-rest (W:R) ratio contribute to the induced stress during football conditioning games. Manipulating these three components, which suit specific training categories, elicits different training intensities and training responses (Table 3). - Pitch size
When the player number is kept constant, altering the pitch size can elicit different physiological responses (Figure 1). - Rules utilised
By manipulating the rules, practitioners will impact the physical stress imposed on the athletes. For example, restrictions on the number of ball contacts allowed per player at a time – one-touch, two-touch, and free-play. - Game format
Adjusting the game format creates different technical, tactical, and cognitive stressors for athletes; for example, using normal goals with goalkeepers, possession-based games, or small goals without goalkeepers. All these formats play a role in the return-to-sport pathway, and clinicians must consider the adjustments necessary to meet the player’s recovery stage and induce cognitive and physical stressors necessary to allow adaptation. Furthermore, coaches can use verbal encouragement/information, which may include tactical and technical cues and general encouragement to maintain a high work intensity.
Considering that these variables have been identified as impacting the intensity of football conditioning games, it’s important to unpack them into two specific categories: internal and external loading.
Internal and external loading
When planning their return-to-sports protocols, clinicians can use heart rate response (% of maximal heart rate) to design and target specific physiological capacities. For example, 3v3-4v4 FCGs develop VO2 max, while 5v5, 6v6, 8v8, and 9v9 develop lactate thresholds. Furthermore, 3v3 improves repeated sprint ability, and finally, 1v1 and 2v2 develop speed endurance production and speed endurance maintenance, respectively. They must apply specific pitch sizes, rules, and work-to-rest ratios for these conditioning games to achieve the required intensities associated with lactate threshold, VO2 max, and anaerobic training (Table 4).
When considering the external load (such as total distance run, high-speed distances, absolute maximum velocity, etc.), all these metrics increase with an increase in pitch size and player number utilized (10v10, > 7v7, > 5v5). Furthermore, total distance, very high and maximal speed distances increase when the game format includes goalkeepers (versus possession), while accelerations and decelerations increase in smaller-sided formats (5v5 > 7v7 > 10v10).
What and when?
When considering the influence of FCGs in return to play, clinicians must consider the individual athlete’s needs based on their level of play, goals, and injury. What is important to note is that when planning a player’s return to play, practitioners must understand the implications of involving a player in a 3v3 versus an 8v8 and how each format, with differing variables being used, will result in differing training stimuli, both internally and externally (Figure 2).
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Anecdotally, players are often reintroduced to training sessions based on sprinting and completing change of direction actions pain-free. However, these are done in isolation. Practitioners need to factor in the demands of each differing format and the impact this may have on a player. Linked to this, practitioners need to have open and clear lines of communication with the head coach, assistant coach, and conditioning staff, as the session plan (which games will be used) will impact the player.
It may very well be the case of a player completing a warm-up and technical-tactical work before coming out of the session because the football conditioning game at the end of training would result in the player being exposed to loading that is not appropriate.
What it means
The role of football conditioning games in football training is incredibly important, as they allow coaches to address technical, tactical, physical, and psychological components of their playing style and system. However, as each format exposes players to different external and internal loads, it is vital that the return-to-play phase is planned clearly in terms of doses, and monitored thoroughly to reduce any re-injury risk.
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