Dear Referees,
Please see attached training cycles that you may have already received from other sources. These types of cycles are used by top referees around the world to help referees plan their individual training needs. If you are not familiar with them you will need to take some time to review the documents and understand the methodology. This cycle covers 6 weeks that will take you to approximately the end of the outdoor season in Ontario.
The cycles are based on the assumption that the referee has one game per week (not your reality probably) and it is on Sunday. If in fact you referee only one day per week then this cycle could work for you. Simply apply this to whatever day you referee and adjust the other days accordingly. If you referee more often then assume the extra games you referee are Hi Intensity training days. At the very least the guide will give you advice on different types of training techniques and approximate times and distance to get greatest benefit.
Often the training is described with referees working in groups. Again, this may not be your reality but take from the session what will work for you.
The theme of these cycles is that High Intensity days should be followed by rest or recovery days. Match Day should be considered High Intensity. You will also notice that the sessions all start with a warm up and end with a cool down. This is highly recommended.
Each week has a combination of exercises that cover all facets of physical ability for a referee: Strength, agility, speed, endurance, speed endurance, high intensity, etc.
Exercises are described based on HRmax. For example, if your Heart rate maximum is 190 beats per minute (bpm), 90% HRmax is equal to 171 bpm. If you know (or can approximate) your HRmax then training to that number is most beneficial.
Almost all of the exercises are recommended to be done on a soccer field. This may be impractical for you but with a little imagination they can be adapted to the street, local park, track or gymnasium.
Please share this with as many referees as possible. The more referees that adopt good training habits the better for the game.I hope you find this useful and incorporate some of this into your training regime.
Happy training.
Regards,
Isaac Raymond
Please click here to download the full document, Macrocycle_III_2014-15 Rev1 (PDF file)
