Within Club NXT's youth training program, physical preparation plays an increasingly important role. Also at the U16 the focus is on laying a strong physical foundation that should prepare players for the next steps in their development. Steven Vanmedegael, physical coach of Club NXT U16, explains how strength, stability and monitoring come together in a targeted training program.
The U16 age is a real key period. At that age, players develop the strength and power they need to physically make a difference in subsequent years. "With a solid foundation of stability and strength, we create the foundation we need later to really focus on power and explosiveness," Steven Vanmedegael explains. That stability, explosiveness and agility are crucial in modern soccer. Players who are strong in their bodies, react quickly and change direction efficiently have an advantage on every meter of the pitch. That's why the emphasis is not only on strength training in the gym, but also on making those physical gains visible in soccer-specific actions. This is done by combining transfer exercises with plyometrics (jump strength training) and on-field agility training.
Vanmedegael brings a broad sports background to his work and sees clear similarities between different sports. "In both volleyball and soccer, strength training revolves around the same foundation: developing strong, explosive and injury-resistant athletes," he says. The difference? Whereas volleyball consists mainly of short, explosive moves and jumps, soccer requires much more endurance. Players must repeatedly sprint, accelerate, decelerate and stay in constant motion for long periods of time.
One of the biggest differences Steven noticed in his transition to soccer is the variation in maturity within the same team. "Within one team, the difference in physical development can be huge," he states. That makes it necessary to be much more specific within strength training and plyometrics. What is just enough for one player may be too much or just too little for another. In volleyball, physical training is on a higher pedestal. Therefore, at Club NXT U16, I consciously take both staff and players through the "why. If they understand why we integrate physical stimuli as a full building block alongside soccer, the involvement as well as the quality grows.
Monitoring also plays a central role in this approach. By following what players perform physically every day, we get a clear picture of their form, load capacity and what stimulus they need at that moment. By linking technology to personal development goals, we can steer much more precisely and substantiate subjective impressions with objective information.
That meticulous preparation, monitoring and follow-up is necessary because soccer continues to evolve quickly physically. Players run faster, deliver more high-speed running per minute and make more accelerations and decelerations during a game. "As a physical coach, my job is to prepare players exactly for those demands and arm them for the peak intensity of the modern game," Steven concludes.
