I hope everyone enjoyed the VUSC Annual Meeting. It sounds like there
were some productive discussions and great material presented by the AVHS
coaches.
Most teams are well into their winter practices, though a few
teams are just starting up. Some teams are playing winter leagues such as
at Soccer Blast. Wherever you are in your training cycle, this is still a
great time to be focusing on basic techniques like passing, receiving, dribbling, shooting and 1v1 skills.
I want to remind everyone of the importance of regular
communication with your team parents. Whether you use a weekly, or other
recurring email, or some kind of regular meeting, the parents of your players
want to know what is going on with the team. It's handy to remind parents
where and when practices are for the upcoming couple of weeks, and especially
to let them know of any schedule changes. Also, parents want to hear how
the team is progressing. If you establish regular communications I think
you'll find many other aspects of the season will go smoother.
Barry
1. MYSA Winter Symposium
2. VUSC Annual Meeting
3. MYSA Coach training
4. MYSA Goalkeeper Challenge
5. Referee Clinics
6. Drills of the Month - some fun drills from socceramerica.com's Youth
Soccer Insider
7. Video of the Month - Movement off the ball
8. Article of the Month - Does Ibuprofen Help or Hurt During Exercise?
1. MYSA Winter Symposium
350 Coaches and Administrators from around the state enjoyed the MYSA
Winter Symposium. We had 8 representatives from VUSC there! We got
to see some great sessions on topics like goalkeeping, ball work, defending and
combinations, including a lively session by Coerver
trainer Carl Craig. The handouts from the sessions, as well as those from
2009 and 2008, are posted at: http://www.mnyouthsoccer.org/events/symposia.cfm
2. VUSC Annual Meeting
Thanks to AVHS coaches Chuck Scanlon, Keith Randa
and Chris Lee for their participation in the annual meeting! The handouts
from the technical segment are posted on my website.
And, a reminder that you can find all kinds of
coaching resources on that site. There are videos, drills, full
practice plans, forms, lineup grids and plenty of other material to give you
ideas. Follow the link from the VUSC website, www.vusc.org>Coaches and the
link is at the bottom of the page.
3. MYSA Coach training
There are many E and Y courses listed on
the MYSA Coaches Training page, http://www.mnyouthsoccer.org/coaches/clinics.cfm.
In addition, for those who already have a National D license, MN will be
hosting a National C license class this summer at Macalester. See the
website for eligibility requirements.
There will be two NSCAA Goalkeeper Coaches classes at Eastview this summer. Unfortunately, these are the
same weekend as the second weekend of our Apple Valley Invitational Tournament.
If you would like more information on any of these opportunities,
please let me know.
4. MYSA Goalkeeper Challenge - this is a great opportunity... and it's at Eastview!
The Goalkeeper Challenge is a four-day intensive training program designed for
the highly-committed and motivated goalkeeper ages 14 and up, including current
college goalkeepers. We are excited to have Rob Walker, part of the U.S.
National Goalkeeping Staff, to be once again directing this camp. Register now
to secure your spot.
Space is limited. For
more information visit www.mnyouthsoccer.org/programs/gk_challenge.cfm.
5.
Referee Clinics
There are many benefits for your players to become refs.
Players who ref: get added fitness benefits; they see the game from a different
perspective; they learn the laws of the game, and; learn new respect for the
challenges facing refs. It's one of the better paid jobs around for
kids. Refs must be 12 or older.
Players interested in ref'ing travel
games must become certified. Information on certification clinics can be
found at www.minnesotasrc.org.
Players interested in ref'ing community
games get trained through VAA starting in May. Players can sign up to be
on the ref list at www.valleyathletic.org.
6. Drills of the Month - some fun drills from socceramerica.com's Youth Soccer Insider
More Backyard Games
By Mike Singleton
Here are more ways players can work on their skills on their own. ...
* 2v2 or 2v1 Games
Any 2v2 and 2v1 drills or games will be extremely
useful. The entire game can be broken down into 2v2 or 2v1 situations. The more
skilled you are at these, the more success you will have in the larger game.
Playing combination passes is key!
* Paired Tag
Pair players up, giving each pair two balls. One player starts and is given a
two-second lead to break away from his/her partner. The chaser ("it")
dribbles after the first player and tries to tag him/her with his/her hand. If
tagged, the roles reverse and the player who was previously "it" has
two seconds to break away before their partner tries to tag them. Players must
always dribble their soccer ball during this activity.
* Marbles
Players are in pairs, each with a ball. One player plays out his ball and the
partner passes his own ball in an attempt to strike the ball his partner played
out. Players should keep track of how many times they hit their partner's ball.
This game should be fast-paced, because players take turns at trying to hit
each other's ball without ever stopping.
If Players 2 misses Player 1's ball, then Player 1 immediately runs to her own
ball and tries to hit Player 2's ball (Player 2 does not get to touch his ball
after missing Player 1's ball). After Player 1 has a chance, then Player 2
immediately tries to hit player 1's ball right back. etc.
This game is continuous and players
should keep score.
(Hint: If two balls are lose to each
other, a player should kick his/her ball hard at the other ball so that when
they hit it, it is more difficult for the other to hit their ball back).
* Soccer Tennis
With a partner, set up two 10x10 grids that are separated by a net (or a line,
couple of bags, string tied to bags - something serving as a net). Just as in
tennis, players play the ball (though with their feet) into the other's grid
and the ball must bounce once in that grid. If the receiving player(s) allows
the ball to drop twice, the server earns a point. Receiving players can play
volleys. Limit your touch count to two- or three-touch.
* SLAM
Get a partner or partners and play against a wall (or turn over a bench). Use
one-touch to kick the ball against the wall.
Turns
alternate between partners.
Players earn a letter if the ball goes over the bench or goes wide of the
bench/wall until they spell "SLAM." Once they spell "SLAM"
they are out of the game.
Check out Backyard Games Part I HERE.
(Mike Singleton is the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association's Head State Coach
and Director of Coaching. He is a Region I ODP Senior Staff Coach and a U.S.
Soccer and US Youth Soccer National Staff Coach. This article first appeared in
Mass Youth e-News.)
Previous editions of the Youth
Soccer Insider on improving skills outside of practice include:
Getting Kids To Play On Their Own
Practicing Solo: The 720 Challenge
Improving skills on your own: wall play
Getting players to juggle
7. Video of the Month - Movement off the Ball
This video shows a great sequence of passing by Arsenal leading to a
goal. There are so many lessons here such as: switching the ball, back
passing, moving away from pressure, and great runs off the ball. The
focus of the blog post is the final decoy-run in the box which pulls defenders
away from the shooter.
http://soccer-coaching-blog.com/2009/11/23/movement-off-the-ball-creates-the-space-to-score-goals-nasris-goal-v-manchester-utd/
8. Article of the Month - Does Ibuprofen Help or Hurt During Exercise?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/phys-ed-does-ibuprofen-help-or-hurt-during-exercise/?em
The New York Times, September 1, 2009, 11:59 pm
Phys
Ed: Does Ibuprofen Help or Hurt During Exercise?
Several years ago, David Nieman set out to study racers at the Western States
Endurance Run, a 100-mile test of human stamina held annually in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains of California. The race directors had asked Nieman, a well-regarded physiologist and director of the
Human Performance Laboratory at the North Carolina Research Campus, to look at the
stresses that the race places on the bodies of participants. Nieman and the race authorities had anticipated that the
rigorous distance and altitude would affect runners’ immune systems and
muscles, and they did. But one of Nieman’s other
findings surprised everyone.
After looking at racers’ blood work,
he determined that some of the ultramarathoners were
supplying their own physiological stress, in tablet form. Those runners who’d
popped over-the-counter ibuprofen pills before and during the race displayed
significantly more inflammation and other markers of high immune system
response afterward than the runners who hadn’t taken anti-inflammatories.
The ibuprofen users also showed signs of mild kidney impairment and, both
before and after the race, of low-level endotoxemia,
a condition in which bacteria leak from the colon into the bloodstream.
These findings were “disturbing,” Nieman says, especially since “this wasn’t a minority of
the racers.” Seven out of ten of the runners were using ibuprofen before and,
in most cases, at regular intervals throughout the race, he says. “There was
widespread use and very little understanding of the consequences.”
Athletes at all levels and in a wide
variety of sports swear by their painkillers. A study published earlier this month on the website of the
British Journal of Sports Medicine found that, at the 2008 Ironman Triathlon in
Brazil, almost 60 percent of the racers reported using non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory painkillers (or NSAIDs, which include ibuprofen) at some
point in the three months before the event, with almost half downing pills
during the race itself. In another study, about 13 percent of participants in a
2002 marathon in New Zealand had popped NSAIDs before the race. A study of professional Italian soccer players found that
86 percent used anti-inflammatories during the
2002-2003 season.
A wider-ranging look at all of the legal substances
prescribed to players during the 2002 and 2006 Men’s World Cup tournaments
worldwide found that more than half of these elite players were taking NSAIDS
at least once during the tournament, with more than 10 percent using them
before every match.
“For a lot of athletes, taking
painkillers has become a ritual,” says Stuart Warden, an assistant professor
and director of physical therapy research at Indiana University, who has
extensively studied the physiological impacts of the drugs. “They put on their
uniform” or pull on their running shoes and pop a few Advil. “It’s like candy”
or Vitamin I, as some athletes refer to ibuprofen.
Why are so many active people
swallowing so many painkillers?
One of the most common reasons cited
by the triathletes in Brazil was “pain prevention.”
Similarly, when the Western States runners were polled, most told the researchers
that “they thought ibuprofen would get them through the pain and discomfort of
the race,” Nieman says, “and would prevent soreness
afterward.” But the latest research into the physiological effects of ibuprofen
and other NSAIDs suggests that the drugs in fact, have the opposite effect. In
a number of studies conducted both in the field and in human performance
laboratories in recent years, NSAIDs did not lessen people’s perception of pain
during activity or decrease muscle soreness later. “We had researchers at water
stops” during the Western States event, Nieman says,
asking the racers how the hours of exertion felt to them. “There was no
difference between the runners using ibuprofen and those who weren’t. So the
painkillers were not useful for reducing pain” during the long race, he says,
and afterward, the runners using ibuprofen reported having legs that were just
as sore as those who hadn’t used the drugs.
Moreover, Warden and other
researchers have found that, in laboratory experiments on animal tissues,
NSAIDs actually slowed the healing of injured muscles, tendons, ligament, and
bones. “NSAIDs work by inhibiting the production of prostaglandins,”substances
that are involved in pain and also in the creation of collagen, Warden says. Collagen is the building block of most tissues. So
fewer prostaglandins mean less collagen, “which inhibits the healing of tissue
and bone injuries,” Warden says, including the micro-tears and other trauma to
muscles and tissues that can occur after any strenuous workout or race.
Related
The painkillers also blunt the
body’s response to exercise at a deeper level. Normally, the stresses of
exercise activate a particular molecular pathway that increases collagen, and
leads, eventually, to creating denser bones and stronger tissues. If “you’re
taking ibuprofen before every workout, you lessen this training response,”
Warden says. Your bones don’t thicken and your tissues don’t strengthen as they
should. They may be less able to withstand the next workout. In essence, the
pills athletes take to reduce the chances that they’ll feel sore may increase
the odds that they’ll wind up injured — and sore.
All of which has researchers
concerned. Warden wrote in an editorial this year on the website of
the British Journal of Sports Medicine that “there is no indication or
rationale for the current prophylactic use of NSAIDs by athletes, and such
ritual use represents misuse.”
When, then, are ibuprofen and other
anti-inflammatory painkillers justified? “When you have inflammation and pain
from an acute injury,” Warden says. “In that situation, NSAIDs are very
effective.” But to take them “before every workout or match
is a mistake.”