Below is a link to a very interesting article written by Llyod Biggs (A coach and sports scientist from California) in which he interviews Paul Hart, a Strength and Conditioning Coach at UCSB and former professional soccer player from the United Kingdom.  The interview discusses Mr. Hart’s thoughts on age-appropriate fitness and physical training for youth soccer players.  Considering all of the work I have been doing in the past two years with several different Ontario Player Development League (OPDL) teams, comprising elite male and female players aged U13 and up, this interview was a great read for me.  I especially liked this closing comment from Mr. Biggs:

In the perfect world — regarding the physical fitness of youth soccer players — each player would be monitored as an individual and data collected to understand when the peak growth spurts were taking place. Fitness testing would also be tracked to allow us to see the specific strengths and weaknesses of the individual player, and specific training plans would be modelled for each individual.

Here is the link to the article:

Impact of Puberty on Youth Soccer Players

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.  Drop me a line here to get the conversation started.