Why Physical Competence is Key to Success in Elite Player Development

As I state in this article as well as elsewhere, the physical development aspect of young players is one component of success. Here is why I believe this to be true.

‘The physical aspect is one of the vital foundations of success in football today at any level. With it there is the opportunity to be successful. Without it there is virtually no prospect.’

The Need For Strength Speed Power and Proprioception.

Never has there been a time when speed, power and physical ability has been so vital to success in professional sport. The athletes of today, in any sport are endowed with physical attributes that put them in an almost different universe than those of previous generations. The evolution of sports science with its nutritional and training advances has contributed significantly to this. It is also almost true to say that just having the very best technical skills in a particular sport will not be enough to ensure access to compete successfully. Today, more than ever before you need to possess the attributes of strength, speed, power, balance, proprioception and physical resilience to first of all compete, secondly to win and thirdly to do it again and again.

Supreme Athletes and The Developmental Years

Today at the elite levels of the game the best players are generally supreme athletes. In addition, and equally if not more relevant, there are players in the game playing at high levels who are supreme athletes with less than world class technical ability. Now don’t get me wrong, these individuals can play and they also will have the mental and psychological aspects in order to enable them to do so but a key difference can be seen in their physical abilities. What is so interesting about this? These physical attributes can be developed from an early age and can make a phenomenal difference, particularly in the development years. Not only will they help a young player to stand out in these formative years, they will provide the necessary foundation for them to maximally develop.

The Journey To Elite Football

The progression from grass roots to professional player is truly a journey without a map. There will be twists and turns and ups and downs. This is a certainty. On this journey any good technical player will need resilience and a good support network to handle the bumps in the road. What they will also need, to compete in the first place,is a solid physical foundation.

Two primary key elements in today’s game are strength and speed. Both of these need to be combined with the additional element of power, which is the ability to repeat the strength and speed action along with a balance and proprioceptive ability. If a player is not strong enough, they will not be able to compete, they will not be fast enough, they will be dominated, struggle for confidence, will often be overlooked and likely in time succumb to injury and fatigue.

The Why of an Excellent Physical Conditioning Regime

It is no secret that our twenty first century lifestyle in many parts of the world has lessened the everyday demands on the body. Reduced risk environments together with health and safety information and protocols are the priority and order of the day in some areas of the world. One of the results is children and young people with a tendency to be physically less developed and able than in previous generations. Causative factors do admittedly vary from country to country. 

Whatever the root causes this is a crucial factor when you consider the window of opportunity theory which suggests strongly that the younger we are, the greater the plasticity of our neural system and the greater our capacity to learn quickly and seamlessly. This does not mean that humans cannot learn new skills of course at any age but It points to the fact that the earlier one masters a skill, the greater the potential for that particular skill to be developed further. For example an ability to balance developed in the early years gives a strong basis for all the basic activities that emanate from this like walking and running. 

This links in very closely with The Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle is broadly speaking a mathematical way of expressing the common natural phenomenon that broadly speaking eighty per cent of outcomes come from twenty percent of the whole. It offers a clear explanation of this apparent inequality. It is the few who receive the majority or the rewards. For example in our beautiful game at the highest level three nations, Brazil, Germany and Italy, have won thirteen of the first twenty world cups out of a possible seventy plus competing nations. 

What is the relevance to our subject here of physical excellence in youth football? The answer lies in what is called accumulative advantage that results from the outcomes of The Pareto Principle. This simply states that the better you are at something the more likely it is you will accentuate your advantage, all else being equal, which of course is not guaranteed, by being able to accumulate even further gains as a result of your position. A simple example being the healthiest and strongest cub in a litter of lions will dominate the food chain and continue to do so in an ever increasing position of dominance as he or she gets stronger at the expense of the others. This ‘advantage’ will have every likelihood of continuing into adulthood in terms of size, health and position in the community in which it exists. Broadly speaking this same scenario plays out in all aspects of life. So in terms of our subject here: the more competent someone is physically at a younger age the greater the possibilities of them being able to progress further.

Specifically in terms of athletic development a foundational platform of high quality, efficient movement skills allows the maximisation of future development as it acts as the base to accommodate incrementally demanding strength and resistance training. This advantage is magnified as athletes and players reach physical maturity and there an ability to focus on more demanding resistance work to gain muscle strength and explosive power.  

It is the successful mastery of the basic movement patterns at a young age that is the foundational platform that enables three key, desirable outcomes:

1. To exhibit outstanding physical performance as a young player compared to peers.

2. The ability to withstand, endure and compete in the ever demanding arena of elite sport.

3. To be able to execute exacting key movements excellently with increased resistance that leads on to ever increasing gains.

It is the mastery of these important and fundamental movement patterns that are the basis for locomotor efficiency and development and are why such a player not only dominates but catches the eye.

The results of these outcomes listed above have almost unquantifiable effects now and in the future. They are not only physical but psychological with increased confidence, social with increased social standing and brutally speaking financial with the undeniable aspect of the remuneration that now exists for the best performers, even at a young age.

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