Fitness coach of «Dynamo» Vitaliy Kuliba spoke about the first days of the team’s preparation at the training camp in Austria and the peculiarities and specifics of the work:
Photo: fcdynamo.com— Usually, players find it a bit hard to work during the first days because during this time there is a lot of running and strength work, as well as no balls. The guys don’t really like to do exercises where there is no ball. But we try to alternate different types of work, diversify exercises, and relieve the players a bit.
— How many more days will such work continue?
— The thing is that one group of players started working 10 days ago, later another group joined, and recently the players of the U-21 team arrived. We need to bring everyone to a certain level of physical readiness. The first group will work in this mode for maybe another week, while the rest will gradually catch up.
— How quickly will the players of the Ukrainian U-21 national team, who started work today, join the main group?
— They will have several acclimatization days as per the plan, a lot of running work— a large volume, but low intensity. In 2-3 days they will pass the endurance test, and then they will work more intensively for another couple of weeks.
— When players participate in such major tournaments as the European Championship in the summer, how hard is it for them to prepare and get into the new season?
— In my opinion, it’s harder for them than for others, as they have almost no vacation and very little rest. The psychological load is high, and the physical burden is great. Of course, players need to be given rest because during the season they play a lot of matches at a high level. European cup matches are an additional burden and great responsibility. Therefore, it is really not easy to recover after such tournaments. That’s why the coaching staff gave them two weeks to rest, so they just started working now. I hope they have recovered and will be ready for the next season.
— Yesterday was an unusual day on the training field— players worked less with the ball, and there was more strength work; please tell us more about it.
— Yesterday was dedicated to the development of speed-strength qualities, which are very important in football, as there is often a lot of struggle for the ball during matches, and players frequently need to win the ball in confrontations. So such exercises need to be done periodically. They are themselves not easy, but if we include actions with such a focus in the work, the load is transferred more easily. Because if we only do endurance exercises, specific running work, the loads accumulate.
