Pre-season fitness: a 6-week training plan from scratch

The goal

By week 6, every player can run 30–40 minutes continuously at game pace without excessive fatigue. You have aerobic foundation. Now you build tactics on top of it.

Week-by-week structure

Week 1: Activation and mobility
Games-based (small-sided, no pressure on fitness). Distance running: none. Focus on movement quality, not volume.

Week 2: Aerobic introduction
Small-sided games 3x/week (each 20 min). One day: 20-minute continuous run at easy pace. Getting the body used to sustained effort.

Week 3: Aerobic build
Small-sided games 3x/week (each 30 min). One day: 25-minute continuous run. Add interval work (one day): 6× 2-minute efforts at 75% intensity with 2-minute recovery.

Week 4: Power introduction
Small-sided games 3x/week (each 30 min). Add 1–2 days of power work: explosive movements (bounding, jump squats, sprint repeats). Short bursts, full intensity, lots of recovery.

Week 5: Competition prep
Friendly matches 2x/week (70 min each). Small-sided games 1x/week (30 min). Power work 1x/week. Starting to look like match day.

Week 6: Taper and team building
Friendly matches 1–2x/week. Light training. Focus on recovery and team cohesion. Reduce volume 20–30% compared to week 5.

The golden rule: progression not perfection

Each week is slightly harder than the last. But not so hard that players are injured or burned out. Listen to their feedback. If someone is persistently fatigued or injured, dial it back.

Nutrition and recovery

Pre-season is when injuries spike because bodies are under-recovered. Emphasize sleep, hydration, and post-training nutrition. A player who sleeps 8 hours and eats well recovers in 1 day. A player on 6 hours sleep and skipped dinner needs 2 days.

Common mistake: too hard, too fast

Coaches often push pre-season intensity too high thinking it "builds mental toughness." It builds injury rate instead. Progressive is always better than aggressive.

Adjusting the plan for uneven attendance

Grassroots pre-season rarely has everyone present every week — holidays, other sports, and general summer scheduling mean the group that shows up in week 1 isn't the same group by week 4. Build each week's session to work whether 8 or 18 players turn up, and accept that a player who's missed two weeks needs a session or two back at an easier intensity before rejoining the group's current level, rather than being pushed straight back into wherever the plan has reached.

What pre-season conditioning can't fix

Six weeks builds aerobic base and reduces early-season injury risk, but it doesn't replace technical or tactical work — a fitter team that hasn't touched a ball tactically for two months will still look disorganised in the first few matches. Where time allows, folding ball-based small-sided games into the conditioning (as the plan already does from week 2) gets some of both, but don't expect fitness work alone to produce a team that plays well together on day one of the season.

Adjusting the plan for goalkeepers

A goalkeeper following the outfield running volume in this plan is building the wrong kind of fitness for their position — their game demands short explosive movements, reaction speed, and recovery between bursts far more than sustained running. Where possible, swap some of a keeper's continuous-run and interval sessions for handling, footwork, and short-recovery reaction work instead (see our goalkeeper coaching basics guide), so their pre-season actually prepares them for what a match asks of them.

When players arrive already fit from other sports

A player who's spent the summer playing cricket, doing athletics, or swimming competitively may already carry a genuine aerobic base that this plan assumes they don't have — pushing them through the full running volume regardless risks overtraining rather than building fitness they don't need. What they're usually missing is football-specific movement: changes of direction, first-touch under fatigue, and match-paced decision-making, which the small-sided games in the plan address better than extra distance running would.