Sport performance
Soccer strength and conditioning program
phase.fitness plans football around the fixture list: heavy and low-volume lifting because the sport already supplies the volume, an eccentric hamstring progression that is never cut, repeated sprints instead of long runs, and a week whose days are named by their distance from the match.
Updated
- Level
- All levels
- Length
- 8–12 + season weeks
- Days per week
- 2–3 gym + conditioning
- Modalities
- StrengthCardio
- Equipment
- A rack, a Nordic curl setup or a partner, a pitch or track for sprints
- Sessions go to
- Hevy, Garmin, Strava
The short answer
A soccer program in phase.fitness follows the association-football document: off-season (2–4 weeks of rest then general strength, with sprinting reintroduced before the first team session), pre-season (4–8 weeks with aerobic base and strength front-loaded, high-speed running introduced early, repeated-sprint work in the second half) and in-season, where the highest gym load lands two days after the match, the highest running volume three days before, speed and change of direction two days before, and nothing that creates soreness the day before. Main lifts are 3–5 × 3–6 heavy; the eccentric hamstring exercise, a single-leg exercise and a calf exercise appear every week regardless of what else is cut. Conditioning is 5–8 efforts of 4–6 seconds with 20–25 seconds of recovery, 2–4 sets.
The fixture list is the program
The football document phase.fitness reads makes the week revolve around match day. MD+1 is recovery; MD+2 carries the highest gym load — strength, power, eccentric hamstrings; MD-3 the highest running volume; MD-2 speed and change of direction at low volume with full recovery; MD-1 activation only. The limiting quality is repeated-sprint ability rather than aerobic capacity, and adding aerobic volume to a player who already trains and plays rarely improves match performance and reliably adds fatigue.
Three items appear every week no matter what: an eccentric hamstring exercise, a single-leg exercise, a calf and Achilles exercise. Eccentric hamstring strength is the single best-supported injury intervention in the sport — introduced over 4–6 weeks from one set of 3–5, never removed in season. High-speed running exposure is protective too: removing sprinting to reduce load raises hamstring risk instead of lowering it.
How do you prevent hamstring injuries in football?
phase.fitness keeps an eccentric hamstring exercise, a single-leg exercise and a calf exercise in every week, whatever else is cut — Nordic curls at 2 × 6 on the main gym day — and reintroduces sprinting before the first team session of pre-season, because high-speed running is protective rather than risky.
How long should pre-season be for a footballer?
Four to eight weeks in a phase.fitness plan, with the aerobic base and the strength work front-loaded, high-speed running introduced early, and repeated-sprint work arriving in the second half. The off-season before it is two to four weeks of rest, then general strength.
What phase.fitness builds
A program is a sequence of phases, each with a job. These are the phases phase.fitness writes for this case, with the bands the generator has to respect — transcribed from the document it reads, not invented for this page.
Off-season
2–4
Pre-season
4–8
In-season
season
| Phase | Weeks | Job | Band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off-season | 2–4 | Rest, then general strength; sprinting back before team training | Main lifts 3–5 × 3–6; eccentric hamstrings from 1 × 3–5 once a week |
| Pre-season | 4–8 | Aerobic base and strength front-loaded; high-speed running early; repeated sprints in the second half | Strength 2×/week 3–5 × 3–6; hamstrings to 2–3 × 6–8; maximal-velocity blocks 2×/week, 4–6 × 20–40 m |
| In-season | season | Match day names the week | Gym 1–2×/week heavy, low volume, MD+2; repeated sprints 5–8 × 4–6 s, 20–25 s rest, 2–4 sets, mid-week; nothing sore on MD-1 |
A sample week
One week from the first phase, as it would sit on the calendar. Your own week follows the days you say you have — 2–3 gym + conditioning here — and the equipment you list.
- SStrength
- CCardio
- Rest
| Day | Modality | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | Rest | MD+1: recovery, light movement, optional upper body |
| Tue | S | MD+2: squat or trap-bar deadlift 4 × 4, hip thrust, Nordic curl 2 × 6, calf raises |
| Wed | C | MD-3: repeated sprints 3 × (6 × 5 s / 25 s), 3–4 min between sets |
| Thu | S | MD-2: speed 4 × 30 m full recovery, change of direction; short upper-body session |
| Fri | Rest | MD-1: activation only |
| Sat | Rest | Match |
| Sun | Rest | — |
S = strength · C = cardio · K = calisthenics. The order is the point: hard days are kept apart and the long session gets the clean slot.
How it adapts when a phase ends
phase.fitness reads the gym sessions from Hevy, Liftosaur or the watch — the main lift's load, whether the Nordic curls happened and at how many sets — and the conditioning from Garmin or Intervals.icu, where the match itself arrives as an activity with its high-speed running. Garmin activities are read only if you allow it. The hamstring progression only advances when the previous stage was completed: a block that skipped it restarts at the last set count done, not at the next one. Season dates you give phase.fitness are what turn the pre-season into the in-season week; the plan is rewritten from the first free week when they change.
Where the sessions go
phase.fitness plans; you train in the app or on the watch you already use, and the completed session comes back. For this program:
What phase.fitness does not do here
phase.fitness plans the gym and the conditioning; team training and the match are yours and your coach's, and their load is counted only when they come back from your watch. The plan does not write a rehab protocol — an athlete with a current hamstring injury needs a clinician, and the document says so.
The evidence
The documents this page is built from
These are the knowledge-base documents the phase.fitness generator reads for this case. The phases, bands and weekly numbers above are transcribed from them.
- Physical Preparation for Association Football (Soccer) — updated 2026-10-09, soccer
- Mechanics of Speed and Power Development — updated 2026-02-21, athletics
Read more in the knowledge base
Frequently asked questions
How does the plan handle the week around a match?
As the football document prescribes: recovery the day after, the heaviest gym load two days after, the highest running volume three days before, speed and change of direction two days before, activation only the day before. phase.fitness lays the days out from the match date you give it.
Why is the lifting so low in volume?
Because, as the phase.fitness football document says, the sport already supplies enormous volumes of low-intensity work. Football players benefit from heavy, low-volume strength — 3–5 sets of 3–6 on the main lifts — plus the three non-negotiables every week: an eccentric hamstring exercise, a single-leg exercise and a calf exercise.
Is there long-distance running in the program?
Only off-season and in return to play, as the phase.fitness football document prescribes. In season the conditioning is repeated sprints — 5–8 efforts of 4–6 seconds with 20–25 seconds recovery — because the limiting quality is repeated-sprint ability, and aerobic volume on top of training and matches mostly adds fatigue.
The only app that plans strength, cardio and calisthenics together
For a footballer the calisthenics day is single-leg control and trunk anti-rotation — pistol-squat steps, hollow and side holds — the braking strength that change of direction is made of.
Right now, phase.fitness is the only training app that writes strength, cardio and calisthenics into one periodized program — same calendar, same phases, same recovery budget.
You choose the mix. A calisthenics-only plan, a cardio-only block, strength plus cardio, or all three: the phases, the end-of-phase analysis and the sync work the same way with one modality or three.
Why calisthenics is in the plan
Bodyweight skill work is strength training in a different shape. Straight-arm work, levers and handstands build scapular control, tendon capacity and relative strength that barbell and machine work leave untouched, and they transfer because they are closed-chain, whole-body patterns. Treated as a modality rather than a warm-up, they get sets, holds and progressions like a squat does.
No exercise catalogue on the market contains a tuck front lever, so those sessions run in the phase.fitness built-in player; strength goes to Hevy, Liftosaur or a Garmin watch, cardio to Garmin and Intervals.icu. How the skill work is programmed.
Free to start, no card. The first phase is yours to keep whatever you decide.
