11 Aug 2019

Slovakia women national football team fitness coach, Michal Hulej has said he was impressed by the positive response he got from Botswana senior women national football team during training on Friday.

The team is in Slovakia for a two-week training camp and Hulej was part of the Slovakia technical team who drilled the team during their intensive training session.

He said physical training was very important in every team before and after game as it helps to relax the muscles and avoid injuries.

He said during training, he conducted Raise, Activate, Mobilize, Potentiate (RAMP), adding that in the session more emphasis was on narrow muscular system and fine motor skill to coordinate small muscles in their bodies.

He said in the Raise session they did a jig-jaz, jog and low intensity workouts to raise their blood pressure and temperature.

In Mobility, he said they worked on internal and external rotation of hips, which he said was very important for the players, given that normally players get tired easily and that session would help them to have endurance.

“I have observed that their hips were not strong and that alone will make them to be prone to injuries. They need to be trained so that they are strong and their opponents do not push them over,” he said.

Also, he said during training, he had observed that many players were not using their hips but were comfortable in using their knees.

“The hip is important as it helps stabilise and strengthen the surrounding muscles and helps to achieve proper running during the game,” he said.

Furthermore, he added that the team did dynamic warm up exercises adding that he had realised that some of the exercises were new to them. “So I did basic exercises and some were new to the players. The fitness coach said the players need to be strong in their core muscles and torso as that would save them from back injuries.

Furthermore, he said players had to have enough strength and endurance to become very fast during the game.

Football, he said all about strength, power, good energy system and speed, adding those were the basics of winning a ball against their opponents. ENDS