Orlando City Soccer Recovery Session

By: Dan SchuckSports Performance SpecialistSpectrum Sports PerformanceOut at the fields Thursday morning with the Orlando City Soccer team. The team had a game on Wednesday night against Rollins College where they won 1-0. A handful of the players were on the field for 70 plus minutes, while numerous got anywhere from 20-30 minutes of time. My role today, help those players who played the bulk of the minutes recover and be ready for a game in two days. I took the whole team through a 15 minute warm up, getting everyone’s core temperature up, start flushing lactic acid, and get blood flowing to the muscles they broke down the night before. Those players not receiving a bunch of playing time had an hour-long session with their coaches. I had the rest of the players after the warm-up and we did a series of soft tissue work, dynamic stretching and static stretching. We utilized several tools such as tennis and lacrosse balls to start with some trigger point work. The idea is to help the muscles get back to their normal length-tension relationship through self myofascial release (SMR). After the trigger point work, we got on foam rolls to address the entire muscle. Our goal is to identify any areas of compromised muscle tissue, work on it for 2 minutes per area. If a player found an area of tightness or pain, they sat on that spot for :30 – :45. After the players finished these areas, I took them through a series of dynamic flexibility exercises designed to take their muscles through a range of motion, actively stretching the muscle. We then finished with static stretches to try and gain some additional flexibility and length in their muscles. At the end of the session, all of the players were required to sit in a waist-deep ice bath for 8 minutes.