Young Terriers continue their fitness and college work at home
- Academy players being put through their paces
- Youngsters are being tested mentally and physically
- Development of the Young Terriers being closely watched
Huddersfield Town’s Academy players are working hard at home as they stay away from Canalside during the current COVID-19 social distancing policies.
The Young Terriers have been given full, daily schedules to follow at home so they can continue their physical development as well as possible.
The youngsters will still be continuing their usual 9am to 4pm schedules to give them a familiar structure to follow. The only change is that the programmes are unique to each player’s needs to develop certain areas of their games or to support what they’ve been working on previously.
The majority of the week is made up of conditioning, strength and mobility work or individual football sessions if the players have access to a pitch (sticking with the Government’s COVID-19 guidelines).
The Young Terriers all use the Strava App, so the Club’s Academy staff can monitor the work they are doing. The App also allows the youngsters to compare what they’ve been doing with each other through our leaderboard, which gives them that extra competitive edge!
The strength and mobility work is done via video calls in groups with members of the performance staff, who dial into the players using Microsoft Teams at the allocated times. Academy physiotherapist Stella Zhang has also produced some yoga videos which were sent to players to follow.
Town’s youngsters aren’t just doing fitness and strength work; they are also continuing with their very important college work online, which is facilitated by Barnsley College and Leeds City College.
They are also being tested mentally on the tactical side of the game. At the start of the week, the Academy coaches set analysis tasks for the players. They have to work on these and then present back their thoughts to the coach and the analysts in small unit groups via video calls.
At this moment in time, they are working on the deep fight zone phase, so last week the main team task was based on the Chelsea vs Huddersfield Town game from the 2017/18 Premier League season. The match the Terriers drew 1-1 to stay in the top-flight by employing the same deep fight zone.
This week, the Young Terriers are studying Atletico Madrid looking at how they implement a deep fight zone, what are the similarities and differences are between what they do and what Town did during that game.
Last, but certainly not least, all the players have to keep a keen eye on their nutrition and make sure they continue to eat the right things. To do this, all the players are in a nutrition group on SAP led by Dan Martin, where everyone shares their attempts at meals they’ve been cooking.
You can check out some of the work they’ve been doing at home below!
