How to plan microcycle load in football

In studies of professional clubs, the load of a one-match week tends to be highest in midweek (MD-4 and MD-3) and to fall as the match approaches. But the pattern is not universal: one Premier League study found differences only on MD-1. The published numbers describe what those clubs did, not what is optimal, so they work as a starting point for comparison, not as a target.

What a microcycle is and what MD-x means

The microcycle is the working week organised around one or more matches. Its days are named by their distance from the match: MD-1 is the day before, MD-4 is four days before and MD+1 is the day after. Naming from the match makes different weeks comparable even when the calendar changes. Some studies use “day 1, 2, 3” before the match instead of this nomenclature (Anderson et al., 2016a).

How load is spread in a one-match week

The most detailed study we use is Martín-García et al. (2018): the reserve team of a La Liga club (2015/16, 24 players, a six-day week with five sessions). Load fell as the match approached: MD-4 > MD-3 > MD-2 > MD-1 (p < 0.05). This is a reserve side with a mean age of 20, not a first team.

In the Eredivisie, MD-4 was also the highest-load day, with a gradual decline afterwards. Relative to the match, training reached 52–20% in running (from MD-4 to MD-1), 38–15% in HSR and 67–35% in total distance. Time above 90% of HRmax was 17 minutes on MD-4 and 3–4 minutes on the following days, against 23 minutes in the match. The authors conclude that matches are the most important physiological stimulus (Stevens et al., 2017).

A systematic review of 16 studies and 317 players agrees that MD-3 is the most demanding session (except in decelerations, average speed and player load) and MD-1 the least demanding (except in sprinting and RPE). Its conclusion: midweek sessions can be chosen to apply higher training loads, whereas sessions immediately before and after the match can be used to taper or recover (Silva et al., 2023).

Conflicting evidence. In another Premier League sample (30 players, 2011-12), load was lower on MD-1 than on MD-2 to MD-5, with no apparent difference between those latter days: periodisation was limited to MD-1 (Malone et al., 2015). That contradicts the stepped MD-4 > MD-3 > MD-2 hierarchy of Martín-García et al. (2018).

High speed: it depends on position and varies a lot

In the reserve-team study, the session with the most HSR and sprint relative to the match was MD-4. Full-backs did more HSR and sprinting than other positions on MD-4 and MD-3, so the microcycle is not the same for every position. In addition, week-to-week variability is high: a coefficient of variation of around 40% on MD-3 and MD-4, and over 80% in HSR and sprint (Martín-García et al., 2018). With that spread, a single figure is not a usable target.

One-, two- and three-match weeks

In the Premier League (n = 12, 2013-14), training total distance was 5,223 ± 406, 3,097 ± 149 and 2,912 ± 192 m on days 1, 2 and 3 before the match (Anderson et al., 2016a). With more matches, daily load falls but weekly load rises:

Source: Anderson et al. (2016a). A single club, n = 12 and three weeks chosen for convenience.

Tapering before the match

Two clubs, one from Portugal and one from the Netherlands, showed an MD-1 with lower volume (4,585 m) and MD-5, MD-4 and MD-3 as the most intense, with a marked taper over the last two days. There were also differences between clubs and countries: the Portuguese club had more volume and intensity (Clemente et al., 2019).

Compensating non-starters

• MD+1: in the reserve team, players who played more than 60 minutes did recovery (MD+1R) and those who played less did a compensatory session (MD+1C) with a technical circuit, a positional game and a small-sided game. MD+1C exceeded MD+1R in total distance, HMLD, metabolic power, accelerations and decelerations (effect size 1.4–1.6), but not in HSR or sprint (0.1–0.2). The authors conclude that the small-sided game did not develop HSR and sprint qualities (Martín-García et al., 2018).
• Cumulative gap: regular starters (≥60% of matches) accumulated far more HSR (35.0 ± 8.2 vs 18.6 ± 4.3 km) and sprint (11.2 ± 4.2 vs 2.9 ± 1.2 km) over the season than non-starters (<30%). Total distance and minutes did not differ (Anderson et al., 2016b).
• Non-starters’ training: in a Dutch league, load was lower than regular training, for example −55% in running and −42% in high accelerations on MD-4, and the authors call it potentially under-loaded (Stevens et al., 2017).
• Top-ups: they lasted 17.1 ± 7.4 minutes, with 1.7 km of total distance and 0.4 km of high-speed distance at a Championship club; unused substitutes do longer sessions. The study describes what is done; it does not measure efficacy or injuries (Hills et al., 2020).

What not to conclude

• That there is a universal MD-4 > MD-3 > MD-2 > MD-1 pattern (Malone et al., 2015).
• That these data are “elite”: the most detailed study is a reserve team, and the others are single clubs.
• That absolute figures work as targets: they depend on the club, the threshold, the system and the position.
• That training this way prevents injuries or improves match-day performance. Practitioners perceive the effectiveness of monitoring for injury prevention as 23% lower than expected (Akenhead and Nassis, 2016).
• That non-starters need nothing because the match is the best stimulus, or that a small-sided game or a top-up fully compensates them.

In practice

In a survey of 41 of 82 clubs, all use GPS and heart-rate monitors in every session (Akenhead and Nassis, 2016). So, rather than adopting other clubs’ numbers, compare each session against your own club’s match: what percentage of the match each day reaches, by position, and how much HSR and sprint the players who do not play accumulate. In Athlo you can plan training sessions and matches with a date, time and microcycle context and analyse load by session, microcycle and season . See the detail in Sessions and microcycles.

Sources

• Martín-García A, Gómez Díaz A, Bradley PS, Morera F, Casamichana D (2018) “Quantification of a professional football team’s external load using a microcycle structure” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 32(12):3520–3527. https://doi.org/10.1519/jsc.0000000000002816
• Anderson L, Orme P, Di Michele R, Close GL, Morgans R, Drust B, Morton JP (2016a) “Quantification of training load during one-, two- and three-game week schedules in professional soccer players from the English Premier League: implications for carbohydrate periodisation” Journal of Sports Sciences 34(13):1250–1259. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2015.1106574
• Malone JJ, Di Michele R, Morgans R, Burgess D, Morton JP, Drust B (2015) “Seasonal training-load quantification in elite English Premier League soccer players” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance 10(4):489–497. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2014-0352
• Stevens TGA, de Ruiter CJ, Twisk JWR, Savelsbergh GJP, Beek PJ (2017) “Quantification of in-season training load relative to match load in professional Dutch Eredivisie football players” Science and Medicine in Football 1(2):117–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/24733938.2017.1282163
• Clemente FM, Owen AL, Serra-Olivares J, Nikolaidis PT, van der Linden CMI, Mendes B (2019) “Characterization of the weekly external load profile of professional soccer teams from Portugal and the Netherlands” Journal of Human Kinetics 66(1):155–164. https://doi.org/10.2478/hukin-2018-0054
• Silva H, Nakamura FY, Castellano J, Marcelino R (2023) “Training load within a soccer microcycle week—a systematic review” Strength and Conditioning Journal 45(5):568–577. https://doi.org/10.1519/ssc.0000000000000765
• Anderson L, Orme P, Di Michele R, Close GL, Milsom J, Morgans R, Drust B, Morton JP (2016b) “Quantification of seasonal-long physical load in soccer players with different starting status from the English Premier League: implications for maintaining squad physical fitness” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance 11(8):1038–1046. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2015-0672
• Hills SP, Barrett S, Busby M, et al. (2020) “Profiling the post-match top-up conditioning practices of professional soccer substitutes” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 34(10):2805–2814. https://doi.org/10.1519/jsc.0000000000003721
• Akenhead R, Nassis GP (2016) “Training load and player monitoring in high-level football: current practice and perceptions” International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance 11(5):587–593. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2015-0331