Thursday morning, FC Montreal players got together with the fitness coach Yannick Girard at Marie-Victorin College. Girard started the day with a group run but the finish line was not one everyone expected for a professional soccer team.
Ten minutes into the run, players arrived at the Centre de Défense Expert and in the following hour, they were practicing a new sport they were not familiar with: kickboxing.
FC Montreal ended their season last September. After practicing for a few more weeks, the players had a few weeks off before starting the transition period prior to the Holidays.
This season, the transition period lasts five weeks. Yannick Girard is in charge and uses his imagination to find the best activities for the group. In addition to kickboxing, the players will also participate in volleyball, basketball, Zumba and individual gym sessions.
“The transition period is spread over five weeks, with a priority on strength training,” explains Academy physical preparator Yannick Girard. “What I’m interested in at the physical level is the strength training weeks where we can work on each player’s weaknesses. Then, we put them in situations where they work on those weaknesses in different ways, like in kickboxing.”
The different activities are not only in place to get the player’s minds off soccer. Each of them has specific elements that correspond to certain situations we see on the pitch.
“With volleyball and basketball, we can work on jumping and receptions. Kickboxing is interesting for cardio and the strength, where you learn to control your movement to be stronger. Zumba is also a little bit of cardio, strength training in the lower body and coordination. The mental aspect is also interesting to me because players have to learn choreographies. We try to find exercises or movements similar to soccer for every activity we do.”
Some weaknesses the coaches saw during the season can also be worked on during the transition period.
“This season, FC Montreal had trouble recovering the ball. Players often think that to win a duel, you just have to jump higher than your opponent and win the ball. But you have to understand that before jumping, you need to win the space around you. It’s the same thing for basketball when you go for the rebound under the net. If you don’t jump as high as the other players, but you control the space, you will win the ball.”
Obviously, the Academy technical staff makes sure the external coaches and professors for these activities know the importance to work on movements or situations similar to soccer. Girard knows the Zumba professor well, for example, and he took time to explain to her what was expected by showing her videos of interesting movements for the group.
An important issue is also to see if the players will understand that what is in place during the transition period is there to benefit them on the field afterwards.
“What we like to do at the Academy is to make the players think. If the guys think, they will quickly make the association between the activities and the game.”
After the transition period, players will have a few vacation weeks during the Holidays, before coming back ready to face the next USL season.
