How is football performance tested?
”Sports performance is the set of results obtained by an athlete according to the application of his/her resources”. Among the primary factors of performance in football, we highlight: physical and technical ability. Being aware of the physical and technical condition of each player is essential to properly schedule training sessions and, therefore, the application of tests to evaluate such factors must be very present in high-performance football.
The performance tests in football can be classified into 2 categories: physical preparation test and or skills test.
1.- Physical preparation test: aimed at the physical evaluation of players with the objective of determining their physical state and power and to know their weak and strong points. Among the most applied physical preparation tests are:
– The Yo-Yo test + Course Navette for football: the player has to repeat races of determined distances by adjusting the speed to a sound signal that increases progressively. The objective is to measure the level of resistance, cardiorespiratory fitness and recovery of the player in situations of intermittent stress.
– Flexibility test: barefoot and seated, the athlete is placed with legs extended against a drawer or bench; from this position, the player flexes the trunk trying to reach with his hands as far as possible. The objective is to measure the elasticity and flexibility of the muscles that correspond to the area of the lower back, buttocks and hamstrings.
– Abdominal resistance: perform as many abs as possible in 1 minute, in order to measure the strength and resistance of the abdominal and lumbar muscles.
2.- Skills test: aimed at evaluating the technical ability and skills of the player. Among the most used tests we find:
– Pass and shooting: consists of dividing the goal into 3 sections of equal sizes with scores determined according to the difficulty. This evaluates the player’s pass and shooting ability.
– Driving: complete a certain circuit to detect the ability to drive, control and change direction with the ball.
– Header shot: head ball impact exercise to determine the player’s capacity and distance travelled by the ball.
The High Performance programs of our Campus Experience Real Madrid Foundation incorporate the application of specific tests that allow the evaluation of the initial performance of players and their evolution during the period of Campus. In this way, our coaches plan the training sessions with specific objectives obtained from these evaluation tests.
