Pre-Season S&C for Junior Footballers in Five Dock

Pre-season is when the gym work fits

Pre-season strength and conditioning for junior footballers in Five Dock lands in a narrow window. Soccer and AFL sides start running in January and February. Rugby league clubs are often on the field before Christmas. Once weekly games begin, a 15-year-old playing club soccer plus school sport plus a rep squad has almost no room left for anything new. The eight to twelve weeks before round one is the part of the year where you can add load rather than just manage it.

That window is also where the difference between the three codes matters most. A junior AFL midfielder and a front-row forward both need to get stronger, but not in the same order and not with the same running.

What each code asks of a teenage body

Soccer. Repeated sprints with short recovery, sharp changes of direction, and a kicking leg that gets loaded thousands of times a season. Hamstring and adductor demands are high, and the hip has to tolerate both striking a ball and decelerating hard on the same limb. Junior players who jump from two sessions a week to four plus a game feel it in the groin and the back of the thigh first.

Rugby (league or union). Collisions, wrestling, repeated acceleration over 5 to 20 metres, and getting off the ground again and again. Upper body and trunk strength carry more weight here than in the other two codes, along with neck strength for tackle and ruck positions. Acceleration and braking capacity matters more than top-end speed for most forwards.

AFL. The highest running volume of the three. A junior midfielder can cover a lot of ground in a game, much of it at low speed with repeated hard efforts on top. Add kicking off both sides, contested marks and awkward landings, and the ankle, calf, hip and lower back all take a share. Aerobic base and running durability sit near the front of the plan.

Testing before programming

We start with numbers rather than a template. At Five Dock that usually means a session on the VALD ForceFrame for hip adduction and abduction strength, hamstring strength, and left-to-right comparisons. AxIT force plates give us squat and single-leg force output, jump and landing data, and calf capacity. We add range of motion checks, single-leg calf raise counts, and a look at how the athlete decelerates and lands.

That first session tells us useful things quickly. A soccer player with a 20% gap between adductor strength on each side needs different work to one whose groin numbers are even but whose calf gives out after nine reps. A rugby forward who cannot control a landing on one leg gets a different starting point to one who can. We write the numbers down so we can retest them in six to eight weeks and see whether the program is doing what we intended.

What a 1:1 session involves

Sessions run one-to-one in the gym space, with no double-booking, so the coach watches every set. For a junior footballer a typical session runs 45 to 60 minutes and looks something like this.

Warm-up that doubles as skill work: hip and ankle prep, low-level plyometrics, and drills for landing and change of direction. Then the main strength work, usually a lower body push (trap bar deadlift, split squat or step-up), a posterior chain movement (Nordic hamstring curl or hip thrust), and a calf and foot block. Rugby players get pressing and pulling volume plus neck work. Soccer and AFL players get Copenhagen adductor progressions and more single-leg loading.

Running and sprint exposure sits inside the same plan, not beside it. Short accelerations and controlled top-speed exposure are part of getting a hamstring ready for a season of sprinting, and we build them up gradually rather than letting the first trial game supply the first fast run of the year.

Technique gets coached properly. Most 13 to 17 year olds have not been taught to hinge, brace or land, and the first few weeks are largely about earning the right to add weight.

Growth, maturation and load

Two 14-year-olds in the same team can be years apart biologically. During a growth spurt, bone lengthens ahead of the muscle-tendon unit adapting, which is why we see knee and heel pain in that age group and why we adjust jumping and running volume around it. We ask about height changes, shoe sizes, training load across all teams, and how long symptoms have been around. A boy who has grown 9cm in a year and plays three codes needs a plan that accounts for that, not a generic program.

Well-coached resistance training with appropriate loads is a normal part of youth athletic development and does not stunt growth.

When to get assessed

Book a look if your junior footballer has pain that lingers after a session rather than settling overnight, is guarding one leg, has had a hamstring or groin strain in the last 12 months, or is stepping up to a rep squad or a higher grade. Coming in six to eight weeks before pre-season starts gives you room to test, build and retest before the first trial game.

If you want a starting set of numbers for your child before the season begins, our Five Dock team can assess and take it from there.

Read more about our youth services.

We go deeper on youth at sydneyathleticdevelopment.com.au.

If you would like it assessed at our Five Dock clinic, you can book an athletics strength & conditioning.