Evaluation Tests for Football players: All you need to know

Football is a sport with high physiological demands. It requires stamina, strength, power, agility, flexibility and correct technique. Have you ever wondered about your personal limits? Have you ever been evaluated by the clubs you have competed for? When and why should a football player be evaluated? Fitness coaches at major clubs often organize a series of tests that have to do with football requirements and each club’s budget. They have to be valid, reliable and effective in a short time. So, in order to identify each player’s pros and cons, to design targeted training programs, to prevent injuries and motivate players to reach high levels of performance, we need to test the afore mentioned areas. Most tests take place at the beginning of the preparation season, usually the first two days. That is, because players are coming back from their off season, so we need to know what level they’re on. Also, it’s a period that is more flexible compared to the season when they’re competing. Theoretically, the right thing to do is test them at the beginning of the pre-season, at the end of the pre-season and at the end of each long game cycle to see if the goals we set are accomplished. We don’t need to test all areas all the time. That depends on the coach’s requirements and goals.

Which tests are often used in football?

There are two main categories. Laboratory tests and field tests. Big clubs do both, but this choice has to do mainly with the budget and time frame each team has at its disposal. The usual order the teams often follow is doing anthropometric tests first, such as physical composition or fat measurement, blood and urine tests and cardiograms. What usually comes next, are:

• flexibility tests such as overhead squat test
• power tests such as the counter-movement jump on a dyno-floor
• strength tests such as 1RM squat test
• speed tests such as sprinting in a straight line for 30 meters with high speed cameras
• agility and COD (change of direction) tests, such as the arrowhead agility and cardiorespiratory endurance tests, such as oxygen uptake with a mask on the treadmill or the palindrome Yo-Yo test on the field.

Fitness trainers in cooperation with coaches will select the most appropriate tests based on the sport’s requirements and each player’s needs. If your team doesn’t have a fitness trainer, there are several reputable centers that can guide you through, in consultation with your coach.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, if you want to improve your football performance, you need to do your measurements, in order to know your limits. When you have your results, you can design customized training sessions, depending on what you need to work on. For instance, if a football player lacks in speed, they need to do some extra training by themselves in order to improve. This is also very practical when a player comes back from an injury. Measurements show their performance before and after the injury. When players reach their prior measurements, we can surely say that they have fully recovered! Seminars Recent Articles