When we were in junior high school, my friend Rich and I made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity. This was easy to do, because kids only ate lunch with others of about the same popularity. We graded them from A to E. A tables were full of football players and cheerleaders and so on. E tables contained the kids with mild cases of Down’s Syndrome, what in the language of the time we called ”retards.”

We sat at a D table, as low as you could get without looking physically different. We were not being especially candid to grade ourselves as D. It would have taken a deliberate lie to say otherwise. Everyone in the school knew exactly how popular everyone else was, including us.

My stock gradually rose during high school. Puberty finally arrived; I became a decent soccer player; I started a scandalous underground newspaper. So I’ve seen a good part of the popularity landscape.

I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story: there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular.

Why? To someone in school now, that may seem an odd question to ask. The mere fact is so overwhelming that it may seem strange to imagine that it could be any other way. But it could. Being smart doesn’t make you an outcast in elementary school. Nor does it harm you in the real world. Nor, as far as I can tell, is the problem so bad in most other c

The key to this mystery is to rephrase the question slightly. Why don’t smart kids make themselves popular? If they’re so smart, why don’t they figure out how popularity works and beat the system, just as they do for standardized tests?

One argument says that this would be impossible, that the smart kids are unpopular because the other kids envy them for being smart, and nothing they could do could make them popular. I wish. If the other kids in junior high school envied me, they did a great job of concealing it. And in any case, if being smart were really an enviable quality, the girls would have broken ranks. The guys that guys envy, girls like.

In the schools I went to, being smart just didn’t matter much. Kids didn’t admire it or despise it. All other things being equal, they would have preferred to be on the smart side of average rather than the dumb side, but intelligence counted far less than, say, physical appearance, charisma, or athletic ability.

So if intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don’t really want to be popular.

If someone had told me that at the time, I would have laughed at him. Being unpopular in school makes kids miserable, some of them so miserable that they commit suicide. Telling me that I didn’t want to be popular would have seemed like telling someone dying of thirst in a desert that he didn’t want a glass of water. Of course I wanted to be popular.

But in fact I didn’t, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Not simply to do well in school, though that counted for something, but to design beautiful rockets, or to write well, or to understand how to program computers. In general, to make great things.

At the time I never tried to separate my wants and weigh them against one another. If I had, I would have seen that being smart was more important. If someone had offered me the chance to be the most popular kid in school, but only at the price of being of average intelligence (humor me here), I wouldn’t have taken it.

Much as they suffer from their unpopularity, I don’t think many nerds would. To them the thought of average intelligence is unbearable. But most kids would take that deal. For half of them, it would be a step up. Even for someone in the eightieth percentile (assuming, as everyone seemed to then, that intelligence is a scalar), who wouldn’t drop thirty points in exchange for being loved and admired by everyone?

And that, I think, is the root of the problem. Nerds serve two masters. They want to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time, not in the fiercely competitive environment of an American secondary school.

Alberti, arguably the archetype of the Renaissance Man, writes that ”no art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it.” I wonder if anyone in the world works harder at anything than American school kids work at popularity. Navy SEALs and neurosurgery residents seem slackers by comparison. They occasionally take vacations; some even have hobbies. An American teenager may work at being popular every waking hour, 365 days a year.

I don’t mean to suggest they do this consciously. Some of them truly are little Machiavellis, but what I really mean here is that teenagers are always on duty as conformists.

For example, teenage kids pay a great deal of attention to clothes. They don’t consciously dress to be popular. They dress to look good. But to who? To the other kids. Other kids’ opinions become their definition of right, not just for clothes, but for almost everything they do, right down to the way they walk. And so every effort they make to do things ”right” is also, consciously or not, an effort to be more popular.

Nerds don’t realize this. They don’t realize that it takes work to be popular. In general, people outside some very demanding field don’t realize the extent to which success depends on constant (though often unconscious) effort. For example, most people seem to consider the ability to draw as some kind of innate quality, like being tall. In fact, most people who ”can draw” like drawing, and have spent many hours doing it; that’s why they’re good at it. Likewise, popular isn’t just something you are or you aren’t, but something you make yourself.

The main reason nerds are unpopular is that they have other things to think about. Their attention is drawn to books or the natural world, not fashions and parties. They’re like someone trying to play soccer while balancing a glass of water on his head. Other players who can focus their whole attention on the game beat them effortlessly, and wonder why they seem so incapable.

Even if nerds cared as much as other kids about popularity, being popular would be more work for them. The popular kids learned to be popular, and to want to be popular, the same way the nerds learned to be smart, and to want to be smart: from their parents. While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please.

So far I’ve been finessing the relationship between smart and nerd, using them as if they were interchangeable. In fact it’s only the context that makes them so. A nerd is someone who isn’t socially adept enough. But ”enough” depends on where you are. In a typical American school, standards for coolness are so high (or at least, so specific) that you don’t have to be especially awkward to look awkward by comparison.

Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Unless they also happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they’ll tend to become nerds. And that’s why smart people’s lives are worst between, say, the ages of eleven and seventeen. Life at that age revolves far more around popularity than before or after.

Before that, kids’ lives are dominated by their parents, not by other kids. Kids do care what their peers think in elementary school, but this isn’t their whole life, as it later becomes.

Around the age of eleven, though, kids seem to start treating their family as a day job. They create a new world among themselves, and standing in this world is what matters, not standing in their family. Indeed, being in trouble in their family can win them points in the world they care about.

The problem is, the world these kids create for themselves is at first a very crude one. If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted to point out to us that we were savages, and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid world. This was too subtle for me. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn’t get the additional message. I wish they had just told us outright that we were savages and our world was stupid.

Nerds would find their unpopularity more bearable if it merely caused them to be ignored. Unfortunately, to be unpopular in school is to be actively persecuted.

Why? Once again, anyone currently in school might think this a strange question to ask. How could things be any other way? But they could be. Adults don’t normally persecute nerds. Why do teenage kids do it?

Partly because teenagers are still half children, and many children are just intrinsically cruel. Some torture nerds for the same reason they pull the legs off spiders. Before you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.

Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better. When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I’ve read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks.

But I think the main reason other kids persecute nerds is that it’s part of the mechanism of popularity. Popularity is only partially about individual attractiveness. It’s much more about alliances. To become more popular, you need to be constantly doing things that bring you close to other popular people, and nothing brings people closer than a common enemy.

Like a politician who wants to distract voters from bad times at home, you can create an enemy if there isn’t a real one. By singling out and persecuting a nerd, a group of kids from higher in the hierarchy create bonds between themselves. Attacking an outsider makes them all insiders. This is why the worst cases of bullying happen with groups. Ask any nerd: you get much worse treatment from a group of kids than from any individual bully, however sadistic.

If it’s any consolation to the nerds, it’s nothing personal. The group of kids who band together to pick on you are doing the same thing, and for the same reason, as a bunch of guys who get together to go hunting. They don’t actually hate you. They just need something to chase.

Because they’re at the bottom of the scale, nerds are a safe target for the entire school. If I remember correctly, the most popular kids don’t persecute nerds; they don’t need to stoop to such things. Most of the persecution comes from kids lower down, the nervous middle classes.

The trouble is, there are a lot of them. The distribution of popularity is not a pyramid, but tapers at the bottom like a pear. The least popular group is quite small. (I believe we were the only D table in our cafeteria map.) So there are more people who want to pick on nerds than there are nerds.

As well as gaining points by distancing oneself from unpopular kids, one loses points by being close to them. A woman I know says that in high school she liked nerds, but was afraid to be seen talking to them because the other girls would make fun of her. Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense.

It’s no wonder, then, that smart kids tend to be unhappy in middle school and high school. Their other interests leave them little attention to spare for popularity, and since popularity resembles a zero-sum game, this in turn makes them targets for the whole school. And the strange thing is, this nightmare scenario happens without any conscious malice, merely because of the shape of the situation.

For me the worst stretch was junior high, when kid culture was new and harsh, and the specialization that would later gradually separate the smarter kids had barely begun. Nearly everyone I’ve talked to agrees: the nadir is somewhere between eleven and fourteen.

In our school it was eighth grade, which was ages twelve and thirteen for me. There was a brief sensation that year when one of our teachers overheard a group of girls waiting for the school bus, and was so shocked that the next day she devoted the whole class to an eloquent plea not to be so cruel to one another.

It didn’t have any noticeable effect. What struck me at the time was that she was surprised. You mean she doesn’t know the kind of things they say to one another? You mean this isn’t normal?

It’s important to realize that, no, the adults don’t know what the kids are doing to one another. They know, in the abstract, that kids are monstrously cruel to one another, just as we know in the abstract that people get tortured in poorer countries. But, like us, they don’t like to dwell on this depressing fact, and they don’t see evidence of specific abuses unless they go looking for it.

Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens’ main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I’ve read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.

In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to. The most important thing was to stay on the premises. While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to teach you something. But beyond that they didn’t want to have too much to do with the kids. Like prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us to ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we created was barbaric.

Why is the real world more hospitable to nerds? It might seem that the answer is simply that it’s populated by adults, who are too mature to pick on one another. But I don’t think this is true. Adults in prison certainly pick on one another. And so, apparently, do society wives; in some parts of Manhattan, life for women sounds like a continuation of high school, with all the same petty intrigues.

I think the important thing about the real world is not that it’s populated by adults, but that it’s very large, and the things you do have real effects. That’s what school, prison, and ladies-who-lunch all lack. The inhabitants of all those worlds are trapped in little bubbles where nothing they do can have more than a local effect. Naturally these societies degenerate into savagery. They have no function for their form to follow.

When the things you do have real effects, it’s no longer enough just to be pleasing. It starts to be important to get the right answers, and that’s where nerds show to advantage. Bill Gates will of course come to mind. Though notoriously lacking in social skills, he gets the right answers, at least as measured in revenue.

The other thing that’s different about the real world is that it’s much larger. In a large enough pool, even the smallest minorities can achieve a critical mass if they clump together. Out in the real world, nerds collect in certain places and form their own societies where intelligence is the most important thing. Sometimes the current even starts to flow in the other direction: sometimes, particularly in university math and science departments, nerds deliberately exaggerate their awkwardness in order to seem smarter. John Nash so admired Norbert Wiener that he adopted his habit of touching the wall as he walked down a corridor.

As a thirteen-year-old kid, I didn’t have much more experience of the world than what I saw immediately around me. The warped little world we lived in was, I thought, the world. The world seemed cruel and boring, and I’m not sure which was worse.

Because I didn’t fit into this world, I thought that something must be wrong with me. I didn’t realize that the reason we nerds didn’t fit in was that in some ways we were a step ahead. We were already thinking about the kind of things that matter in the real world, instead of spending all our time playing an exacting but mostly pointless game like the others.

We were a bit like an adult would be if he were thrust back into middle school. He wouldn’t know the right clothes to wear, the right music to like, the right slang to use. He’d seem to the kids a complete alien. The thing is, he’d know enough not to care what they thought. We had no such confidence.

A lot of people seem to think it’s good for smart kids to be thrown together with ”normal” kids at this stage of their lives. Perhaps. But in at least some cases the reason the nerds don’t fit in really is that everyone else is crazy. I remember sitting in the audience at a ”pep rally” at my high school, watching as the cheerleaders threw an effigy of an opposing player into the audience to be torn to pieces. I felt like an explorer witnessing some bizarre tribal ritual.

If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some advice, the main thing I’d tell him would be to stick his head up and look around. I didn’t really grasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in was as fake as a Twinkie. Not just school, but the entire town. Why do people move to suburbia? To have kids! So no wonder it seemed boring and sterile. The whole place was a giant nursery, an artificial town created explicitly for the purpose of breeding children.

Where I grew up, it felt as if there was nowhere to go, and nothing to do. This was no accident. Suburbs are deliberately designed to exclude the outside world, because it contains things that could endanger children.

And as for the schools, they were just holding pens within this fake world. Officially the purpose of schools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose is to keep kids locked up in one place for a big chunk of the day so adults can get things done. And I have no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society, it would be a disaster to have kids running around loose.

What bothers me is not that the kids are kept in prisons, but that (a) they aren’t told about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly by the inmates. Kids are sent off to spend six years memorizing meaningless facts in a world ruled by a caste of giants who run after an oblong brown ball, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. And if they balk at this surreal cocktail, they’re called misfits.

Life in this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And not just for the nerds. Like any war, it’s damaging even to the winners.

Adults can’t avoid seeing that teenage kids are tormented. So why don’t they do something about it? Because they blame it on puberty. The reason kids are so unhappy, adults tell themselves, is that monstrous new chemicals, hormones, are now coursing through their bloodstream and messing up everything. There’s nothing wrong with the system; it’s just inevitable that kids will be miserable at that age.

This idea is so pervasive that even the kids believe it, which probably doesn’t help. Someone who thinks his feet naturally hurt is not going to stop to consider the possibility that he is wearing the wrong size shoes.

I’m suspicious of this theory that thirteen-year-old kids are intrinsically messed up. If it’s physiological, it should be universal. Are Mongol nomads all nihilists at thirteen? I’ve read a lot of history, and I have not seen a single reference to this supposedly universal fact before the twentieth century. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and eager. They got in fights and played tricks on one another of course (Michelangelo had his nose broken by a bully), but they weren’t crazy.

As far as I can tell, the concept of the hormone-crazed teenager is coeval with suburbia. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I think teenagers are driven crazy by the life they’re made to lead. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance were working dogs. Teenagers now are neurotic lapdogs. Their craziness is the craziness of the idle everywhere.

When I was in school, suicide was a constant topic among the smarter kids. No one I knew did it, but several planned to, and some may have tried. Mostly this was just a pose. Like other teenagers, we loved the dramatic, and suicide seemed very dramatic. But partly it was because our lives were at times genuinely miserable.

Bullying was only part of the problem. Another problem, and possibly an even worse one, was that we never had anything real to work on. Humans like to work; in most of the world, your work is your identity. And all the work we did was pointless, or seemed so at the time.

At best it was practice for real work we might do far in the future, so far that we didn’t even know at the time what we were practicing for. More often it was just an arbitrary series of hoops to jump through, words without content designed mainly for testability. (The three main causes of the Civil War were…. Test: List the three main causes of the Civil War.)

And there was no way to opt out. The adults had agreed among themselves that this was to be the route to college. The only way to escape this empty life was to submit to it.

Teenage kids used to have a more active role in society. In pre-industrial times, they were all apprentices of one sort or another, whether in shops or on farms or even on warships. They weren’t left to create their own societies. They were junior members of adult societies.

Teenagers seem to have respected adults more then, because the adults were the visible experts in the skills they were trying to learn. Now most kids have little idea what their parents do in their distant offices, and see no connection (indeed, there is precious little) between schoolwork and the work they’ll do as adults.

And if teenagers respected adults more, adults also had more use for teenagers. After a couple years’ training, an apprentice could be a real help. Even the newest apprentice could be made to carry messages or sweep the workshop.

Now adults have no immediate use for teenagers. They would be in the way in an office. So they drop them off at school on their way to work, much as they might drop the dog off at a kennel if they were going away for the weekend.

What happened? We’re up against a hard one here. The cause of this problem is the same as the cause of so many present ills: specialization. As jobs become more specialized, we have to train longer for them. Kids in pre-industrial times started working at about 14 at the latest; kids on farms, where most people lived, began far earlier. Now kids who go to college don’t start working full-time till 21 or 22. With some degrees, like MDs and PhDs, you may not finish your training till 30.

Teenagers now are useless, except as cheap labor in industries like fast food, which evolved to exploit precisely this fact. In almost any other kind of work, they’d be a net loss. But they’re also too young to be left unsupervised. Someone has to watch over them, and the most efficient way to do this is to collect them together in one place. Then a few adults can watch all of them.

If you stop there, what you’re describing is literally a prison, albeit a part-time one. The problem is, many schools practically do stop there. The stated purpose of schools is to educate the kids. But there is no external pressure to do this well. And so most schools do such a bad job of teaching that the kids don’t really take it seriously– not even the smart kids. Much of the time we were all, students and teachers both, just going through the motions.

In my high school French class we were supposed to read Hugo’s Les Miserables. I don’t think any of us knew French well enough to make our way through this enormous book. Like the rest of the class, I just skimmed the Cliff’s Notes. When we were given a test on the book, I noticed that the questions sounded odd. They were full of long words that our teacher wouldn’t have used. Where had these questions come from? From the Cliff’s Notes, it turned out. The teacher was using them too. We were all just pretending.

There are certainly great public school teachers. The energy and imagination of my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Mihalko, made that year something his students still talk about, thirty years later. But teachers like him were individuals swimming upstream. They couldn’t fix the system.

In almost any group of people you’ll find hierarchy. When groups of adults form in the real world, it’s generally for some common purpose, and the leaders end up being those who are best at it. The problem with most schools is, they have no purpose. But hierarchy there must be. And so the kids make one out of nothing.

We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest. And that’s exactly what happens in most American schools. Instead of depending on some real test, one’s rank depends mostly on one’s ability to increase one’s rank. It’s like the court of Louis XIV. There is no external opponent, so the kids become one another’s opponents.

When there is some real external test of skill, it isn’t painful to be at the bottom of the hierarchy. A rookie on a football team doesn’t resent the skill of the veteran; he hopes to be like him one day and is happy to have the chance to learn from him. The veteran may in turn feel a sense of noblesse oblige. And most importantly, their status depends on how well they do against opponents, not on whether they can push the other down.

Court hierarchies are another thing entirely. This type of society debases anyone who enters it. There is neither admiration at the bottom, nor noblesse oblige at the top. It’s kill or be killed.

This is the sort of society that gets created in American secondary schools. And it happens because these schools have no real purpose beyond keeping the kids all in one place for a certain number of hours each day. What I didn’t realize at the time, and in fact didn’t realize till very recently, is that the twin horrors of school life, the cruelty and the boredom, both have the same cause.

The mediocrity of American public schools has worse consequences than just making kids unhappy for six years. It breeds a rebelliousness that actively drives kids away from the things they’re supposed to be learning.

Like many nerds, probably, it was years after high school before I could bring myself to read anything we’d been assigned then. And I lost more than books. I mistrusted words like ”character” and ”integrity” because they had been so debased by adults. As they were used then, these words all seemed to mean the same thing: obedience. The kids who got praised for these qualities tended to be at best dull-witted prize bulls, and at worst facile schmoozers. If that was what character and integrity were, I wanted no part of them.

The word I most misunderstood was ”tact.” As used by adults, it seemed to mean keeping your mouth shut. I assumed it was derived from the same root as ”tacit” and ”taciturn,” and that it literally meant being quiet. I vowed that I would never be tactful; they were never going to shut me up. In fact, it’s derived from the same root as ”tactile,” and what it means is to have a deft touch. Tactful is the opposite of clumsy. I don’t think I learned this until college.

Nerds aren’t the only losers in the popularity rat race. Nerds are unpopular because they’re distracted. There are other kids who deliberately opt out because they’re so disgusted with the whole process.

Teenage kids, even rebels, don’t like to be alone, so when kids opt out of the system, they tend to do it as a group. At the schools I went to, the focus of rebellion was drug use, specifically marijuana. The kids in this tribe wore black concert t-shirts and were called ”freaks.”

Freaks and nerds were allies, and there was a good deal of overlap between them. Freaks were on the whole smarter than other kids, though never studying (or at least never appearing to) was an important tribal value. I was more in the nerd camp, but I was friends with a lot of freaks.

They used drugs, at least at first, for the social bonds they created. It was something to do together, and because the drugs were illegal, it was a shared badge of rebellion.

I’m not claiming that bad schools are the whole reason kids get into trouble with drugs. After a while, drugs have their own momentum. No doubt some of the freaks ultimately used drugs to escape from other problems– trouble at home, for example. But, in my school at least, the reason most kids started using drugs was rebellion. Fourteen-year-olds didn’t start smoking pot because they’d heard it would help them forget their problems. They started because they wanted to join a different tribe.

Misrule breeds rebellion; this is not a new idea. And yet the authorities still for the most part act as if drugs were themselves the cause of the problem.

The real problem is the emptiness of school life. We won’t see solutions till adults realize that. The adults who may realize it first are the ones who were themselves nerds in school. Do you want your kids to be as unhappy in eighth grade as you were? I wouldn’t. Well, then, is there anything we can do to fix things? Almost certainly. There is nothing inevitable about the current system. It has come about mostly by default.

Adults, though, are busy. Showing up for school plays is one thing. Taking on the educational bureaucracy is another. Perhaps a few will have the energy to try to change things. I suspect the hardest part is realizing that you can.

Nerds still in school should not hold their breath. Maybe one day a heavily armed force of adults will show up in helicopters to rescue you, but they probably won’t be coming this month. Any immediate improvement in nerds’ lives is probably going to have to come from the nerds themselves.

Merely understanding the situation they’re in should make it less painful. Nerds aren’t losers. They’re just playing a different game, and a game much closer to the one played in the real world. Adults know this. It’s hard to find successful adults now who don’t claim to have been nerds in high school.

It’s important for nerds to realize, too, that school is not life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile and half feral. It’s all-encompassing, like life, but it isn’t the real thing. It’s only temporary, and if you look, you can see beyond it even while you’re still in it.

If life seems awful to kids, it’s neither because hormones are turning you all into monsters (as your parents believe), nor because life actually is awful (as you believe). It’s because the adults, who no longer have any economic use for you, have abandoned you to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do. Any society of that type is awful to live in. You don’t have to look any further to explain why teenage kids are unhappy.

I’ve said some harsh things in this essay, but really the thesis is an optimistic one– that several problems we take for granted are in fact not insoluble after all. Teenage kids are not inherently unhappy monsters. That should be encouraging news to kids and adults both.

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The animal within. Player Education© 

By Sergio Garcia, Director of Australian Football Players.  

The animal within. Player Education© hopes to assist young players build and succeed in all aspects of their game. This e-book is intended as a guide only. Many styles of coaching and training are utilized in this book. Some are taken from professional player’s preferences, others from lessons taught by the Football Federation of Australia, some from professional fitness experts and some from personal experience. Few players (and coaches) outside of the professional game fully appreciate the impact that proper conditioning can have on performance. There is quite rightly a heavy emphasis on technique and skill development at every level of the game, but skill can only be applied within the limits of player’s physical capacity. We’ve all seen those players who lack good technique yet still prove to be deadly effective. Often their speed and power is enough to outshine opponents and team mates who posse’s significantly greater talent. There is no substitute for correct technique. But the greater a player’s soccer-specific fitness, the higher the level they can apply what skill they do have.In small-size sections, this e-book covers the most important elements of fitness in the game of soccer. Starting with endurance training, it progresses through strength, pow

This drill is based on fartlek training, which is more specific to soccer and less monotonous than running laps of a soccer pitch: Warm up with a steady jog for 10 minutes Run hard for 3 minutes, jog slowly for 1 minute Repeat 6-8 times Cool down at a steady pace for 10 minutes ANaerobic Endurance TrainingAnaerobic endurance training will help players to recover more quickly from successive bursts of high intensity exercise. It is not uncommon for a player to have to sprint 20-30yards in order to defend an attack only, to turn and sprint in the opposite direction when counter-attacking. Soccer can be classed as high-intensity, intermittent exercise. Successive sprints or high intensity work bouts, with little rest in between, quickly leads to an accumulation of lactic acid. When the muscles and blood become acidic, their function is severely hampered. The player must slow down to recover and the last thing they want in this scenario is to receive the ball!With anaerobic endurance training, the ability to tolerate lactic acid is increased. In other words, it takes longer for lactic acid to accumulate in the blood and muscles and when it does, it can be cleared more rapidly allowing recovery to be that much quicker.Sample ANaerobic Endurance DrillSet out 5 cones 10 meters/yard apart. Starting on cone 1, jog to cone 4 then immediately sprint to cone 5. Turn and jog to cone 3 and then sprint to cone 1. Turn and jog to cone 2 and sprint to cone 5. Finally, turn immediately and sprint to cone 1. Rest for 60 seconds and repeat 3-5 times. This is one set. Complete 2-3 sets. Soccer Endurance Training for Junior PlayersPlayers that have not yet reached, or who are in the early stages of puberty should only complete aerobic endurance training. Intense, anaerobic drills are too demanding on young players, who have a limited capacity to produce and tolerate lactic acid.In very young players (i.e. 6 – 10) endurance “drills” should be avoided altogether. Instead the conditioning effect should come from endurance-based games that can easily be incorporated into a coaching session. Soccer Endurance Training For Youth PlayersAs young soccer players mature, they are naturally able to cope with more demanding training. Aerobic versus anaerobic conditioning should still be emphasized, however some more demanding interval training drills can be added into a players program.Interval training simply refers to breaking a low intensity drill up into several shorter intervals. Because a rest period is allowed between each interval, the overall intensity can increase. When you think about it, this is a lot like the nature of a soccer game.Soccer Endurance Training For Mature PlayersWhen players mature physically (usually between ages 16 – 21), their soccer endurance plan should be tailored to meet the precise demands of the game. Players should be completing much more interval training than steady-paced continuous training. They should also incorporate lots of anaerobic endurance drills to help them tolerate the build up of lactic acid.At this level, endurance training should also be periodized. That simply means that over the course of a season there will be specific periods where aerobic endurance conditioning is emphasized, specific periods when anaerobic endurance conditioning is emphasized and periods of structured rest and recovery.  Part 2 – Strength Training For Soccer Soccer players require strength in both the lower and upper body. Nearly every movement in the game from kicking, to tackling, to twisting and turning, sprinting and heading, requires a good foundation of strength and power.However, strength training for sport is very different from simply lifting weights and trying to lift more and more each session. The bodybuilding mentality still predominates in soccer strength training routines but it’s important to remember that for most players, simply adding muscle size and bulk, or even pure strength, is not what they require to play soccer successfully.There are essentially FOUR distinct types of strength training for soccer. Each one has its place and don’t worry… they are not all completed at the same time! In fact, in older players, the most effective strength training plan is designed so that one form of strength training builds on another over the course of a season. Let’s look at each in a little more detail…Basic Strength Training for SoccerBasic strength training is designed to build a solid and balanced foundation. It prepares the joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons for more intense work later on in the training plan. It is designed to strengthen underused stabilizer muscles and to balance the right and left side of the body. Soccer, like any sport, tends to place uneven demands on various muscles leaving some overdeveloped and some neglected. Overly strong quadriceps is a classic example, placing the hamstrings under an uneven amount of stress.Maximal Strength Training for SoccerOnce a solid base has been built, and muscle balance is restored, more intense training can be completed in order to develop a player’s maximum strength.Maximal strength and muscle size or bulk is NOT the same thing. Bodybuilders train for muscle size – known as hypertrophy training. A bodybuilder may look very strong, and they are, but their strength is not proportionate to their huge size. In order to train for maximal strength, very heavy weights are used for a small number of repetitions. This limits the amount of muscle bulk that is developed but adapts the neuromuscular system so the greatest amount of force can be applied.The main goal here is to develop as much strength as possible so that it can be converted into a high level of explosive power and muscular endurance.Explosive Power Training for SoccerPower is the ability of the neuromuscular system to produce the greatest amount of force in the least amount of time. A soccer player can be very strong but unable to apply that strength rapidly, so their explosive power is limited.One way to develop power is through a form of training called ply metrics. A muscle that is stretched before it contracts will contract more forcefully and rapidly (like an elastic band). This is essentially what plyometric exercises do – they stretch muscles rapidly and then immediately demand a powerful contraction. It’s easier to imagine with a practical example:Imagine the jumping movement to win a header…The very first phase of this movement has to be a downward thrust. If you try jumping off the ground without first bending your knees, you can’t even leave the ground. As you “dip” down just before a standing jump you are stretching muscle groups like the quadriceps and hip extensors. These are the muscles that will contract very forcefully a split second later to produce the jump.The shorter and more rapid this downward movement or pre-stretching action is, the more forcefully those muscle groups can contract… and the higher you will jump!There are many types of ply metric exercises. Lower body ply metric exercises have also been called jump training and one of the simplest drills is very similar to the game hopscotch. Here’s a good soccer-specific drill below:Muscular Endurance Training for SoccerTraining for muscular endurance incorporates lighter weights and more repetitions. One of the best formats is circuit training where several exercise stations are performed consecutively. Many of the exercises can be performed with little or no equipment such as push-ups, step ups, burpees, squat thrusts, walking lunges, bench dips, crunches and so on.Ideally, exercises should stress the same muscles in a similar way as a competitive soccer game would. For example, using high box step ups rather than lying leg presses for the leg muscles, is more specific to soccer.Here’s another example… squat jumps are a classic circuit training exercise that build strength in the lower body. Having a partner throw a ball in the air to head is one way to make the drill more soccer specific. Another adaptation is to have a partner play a ball along the deck for you to pass back on every landing.Now let’s move on to strength conditioning for the various age groups… Soccer Strength Training for Junior PlayersThere is no reason why pre-pubescent players (as young as age cannot take part in resistance training activities.In fact, the American College of Sports Medicine (ASCM) suggests that if children are ready for organized sport, they are ready for some form of strength training. There are some scare stories regarding strength training in children, such as stunted growth and deformed limbs. However, when completed correctly, under proper supervision, a junior resistance training plan can actually help to prevent injuries that can occur in contact games like soccer.Here are some important strength training guidelines for young soccer players: Players who are not physically mature should NEVER lift heavy weights. They should NOT attempt to see how much weight they can lift. Young players should be supervised at all times with at least one competent instructor for every 10 players. Players must be given chance to master correct technique with no resistance before resistance is gradually added. Exercises that use bodyweight and light medicine balls are more suitable than free weights and machines. Most resistance machines are not designed for the length of children’s limbs and should be avoided. Soccer Strength Training For Youth PlayersAs players reach puberty they naturally grow in strength (particularly males). However, bones are still growing and the end plates are still susceptible to damage.Even players who seem to have matured early should NOT lift heavy weights (i.e. a weight that cannot be lifted at least 10 times). The progression from bodyweight exercises to free weights and machines should be gradual and based on a player’s own development. Because players grow rapidly during puberty, it’s important that a soccer strength training program helps to balance muscle groups. Bones usually grow faster than muscles develop, which can often lead to overuse injuries such Osgood Schlatter disease. A combination of strength and flexibility exercises can help to reduce the incidence and severity of these.Soccer Strength for Mature PlayersOnce players have matured fully, soccer strength training can become much more structured and soccer-specific.During the off or closed season, players should follow a general or basic strength plan. This will help to rebalance the body after a tough season.During the later stages of the off-season and the early stages of pre-season, players should switch to a maximal strength program. This can be converted into power and strength endurance during the latter stages of the pre-season, ready for the first competitive game.  Part 3 – Soccer Speed Training You may hear many coaches say that modern day soccer is all about speed. Today’s players are faster than ever and the game is played at high tempo from start to finish. But what exactly makes a quick player?In a sport like soccer it’s not simply the ability to run fast…Players rarely, if ever get the chance to reach maximum speed in a game. Far more important is acceleration and speed off the mark. A player may be quick over 30-40 yards but lack the skill and dexterity to run quickly while in possession of the ball. And then there’s speed endurance…Soccer is a high intensity intermittent game. Players must make several strong runs or sprints back-to-back with minimal rest. Their ability to maintain sharpness and power is a measure of their speed endurance.How about quickness of feet? Speed of thought and reaction time? And don’t forget the ability to decelerate and change direction rapidly. All of these attributes combine to make what we would call a quick player. And the good news is that from this list of physical attributes most can be improved through proper training. Don’t let anyone tell you being quick are solely down to the luck of the genetic draw!So how does a player (or a team) become quick? It takes a combined training approach. And the first type of soccer speed training that will make a significant difference is something we’ve already covered…Strength & Power TrainingWhat determines running speed? It’s not just the ability to move your legs rapidly. While this is important, the greater the force you can apply with each ground contact, the quicker you can propel yourself. Of course, it doesn’t matter how much force you can apply if you can’t apply it rapidly. So the ability to run fast is really a combination of strength and speed… also known as explosive power!A phase of maximal strength training will increase the amount of force that a player can apply. That’s the first half of the equation taken care of. A subsequent phase of ply metric training conditions the body to apply that force very rapidly… the result is power development and a faster player!But remember, there are other elements to speed aside from the ability to run quickly…Speed, Agility & Quickness TrainingSpeed or sprint training will further help to improve you speed off the mark, acceleration and power.Agility training allows you to change direction without the loss of balance, strength, and speed or body control.Quickness training will help to improve your foot speed and co-ordination.In reality there is a lot of overlap between these three types of training. From a practical point of view they can all be combined into one session using just a handful of drills.Sample Sprint Training Drill – Hollow Sprints

Sprint for 30 meters/yards, jog for 30 meters/yards, sprint for 30meters/yards, and jog for 30meters/yards. Walk slowly back to the start and repeat. Sample Agility Training Drill – Follow the LeaderMark out an area about 10 meters/yards by 10 meters/yards. In pairs, one player runs randomly within the marked area. The other player must follow maintaining no more the 2 meters/yards distance. The leader should be changing direction and pace constantly. Two sets of pairs can be added to the area so players must be conscious of what’s around them also.Sample Quickness Training Drill – Ladder RunsAgility ladders are excellent for improving foot speed, co-ordination and overall quickness. They can cost anywhere from $30 for shorter ladders to over $100 for more elaborate designs. An alternative is to either make your own with some white parcel string and a few soccer net pegs (make sure the pegs are pushed flush into the ground). There are lots of variations you can use and you can easily make up your own foot combinations. You can see an example to the right.Soccer Speed Training For Junior PlayersIntense strength and power training is not suitable for young soccer players. Neither is intense sprint training. But that doesn’t mean a junior player can’t improve their speed on the pitch…The best way to help a young player become quick is to make use of drills that will improve their ability to co-ordinate their limbs and move them more rapidly. There are a number of drills that will help to do this and they can easily be incorporated into an obstacle course or game situation that will make them both fun and rewarding.Soccer Speed Training For Youth PlayersAs players mature all-out speed and sprint drills can be added to their soccer speed program. It’s impossible to tell how fast or slow a player will be until after puberty. So if a player is very slow as a child that doesn’t necessarily mean they will slow in adulthood.In younger players it’s also important to develop speed and co-ordination in the upper body. While this may not seem specific to soccer, it will help with sprinting ability and allows players develop overall athleticism. It’s also a good idea at this stage to teach players correct running and sprinting mechanics which will hopefully become habit when they reach full maturity.Soccer Speed Training For Mature PlayersAs mentioned earlier, physically mature players should be following a strength and power training program. This in itself will enhance their speed and agility. Additionally, speed and agility sessions should be added to the overall coaching program towards the end of the pre-season. Speed can easily be maintained with just one session a week during the in-season.  Part 4 – Soccer stretching & Warming Up  Stretching for soccer has to be the most undervalued of all the components of fitness.Not only can it help to reduce the risk of injury, good flexibility also improves athletic and technical performance. Muscles can apply force over a greater range of motion which in turn increases speed and power. Rebound movements such as kicking and jumping can become more explosive and a greater range of motion helps players reach further for the ball.There are three main types of stretching:1. Dynamic soccer stretching – often used at the beginning of a warm up. Making circles with the arms to loosen the shoulders, twisting from side to side and swing each leg as if to kick a ball is all good examples.2. Ballistic soccer stretching – bouncing or ‘jerky’ movements that use your bodyweight to increase the stretch. Bending over and bouncing to touch your toes is a classic example. Avoid ballistic stretching. There are safer and equally as effective ways to improve range of motion.3. Static soccer stretching – muscles are stretched without moving the limb or joint itself. A good example of a static stretch is the traditional quad stretch where, standing on one leg, you grab your ankle and pull your heel into your backside.From these 3 types of stretching, dynamic stretching is recommended prior to a game or training session. Dynamic stretching helps to reduce tightness which is associated with muscles tears. Avoid static stretching before a game as this may actually reduce strength and power performance and has not been shown to prevent injury.Dynamic stretching, while useful before a game is not particularly effective at increasing a player’s range of motion long term. In order to increase flexibility, static stretching is more useful and static stretches should be completed when fully warm – at the end of a training session or game is ideal.Soccer Stretching GuidelinesEach stretch should be held for 20-30 seconds and should be repeated at least twice (preferably three times). So for example, you wouldn’t perform a calf stretch, then a hamstring stretch then a quad stretch etc., and then repeat the whole routine. Instead you would perform 3 calf stretches, then 3 hamstring stretches and so on.Here are some other general, but important guidelines to bear in mind before you start your soccer stretching routine…Do NOT hold a stretch that is in anyway painful. It should feel tight and that tightness should diminish as you hold the stretch. Breathe! Avoid breathing holding as you stretch as this can raise blood pressure and leave you feeling dizzy. For optimal results try to stretch every day or at least 3-4 times a week Makes sure your body in completely warm before you start. Either do 5-10mins of light aerobic exercise or do your stretches at the end of a training session. Hold each stretch for 20-30 seconds. “Shake out” the limb and joint and repeat for a total of 2 to 3 sets. Don’t expect results overnight. It can take up to 6 weeks to see measurable improvements. Be persistent – they will come. Finally, consider testing yourself prior to starting a soccer stretching program then again after 6 weeks. Soccer Stretching For Junior PlayersWhile young soccer players are naturally flexible, stretching should not be ignored. Stretches can be added as part of a cool down after a game or training session and even between drills during a coaching session. Young children should be watched carefully so that they don’t try to compete with one another to see who can stretch the furthest. Also, they should hold their stretches for a shorter period of time (5 – 10 seconds). Soccer Stretching For Youth PlayersYouth players are prone to overuse injuries and growing pains. Very often these occur because bones grow faster than muscles develop (Osgood Schlatter disease is a case in point).A good soccer stretching program is crucial to help offset these problems and youth players should try to stretch daily if possible. They should hold stretches between 10 and 20 seconds. Soccer Stretching For Mature PlayersOlder players should stretch at least 3 times per week – ideally after training sessions and a game. They can incorporate advanced forms of stretching such as PHF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) which will help to further increase range of motion. Stretches should be held for up to 30 seconds.Warming UpEvery player and coach appreciates the value of warming up. By increasing blood flow to the muscles and raising body temperature it helps to reduce muscle stiffness – which is thought to be directly related to injury such as strains.Here are the key benefits of warming up:Muscles can contract and relax more rapidly when they are warm Muscle tightness can be reduced leading to greater economy of movement At higher body temperatures, muscles are more able to take up and utilize oxygen It can prevent muscle strains that are more likely to occur in cold, rigid muscles A specific warm up can help the body to recruit motor units more rapidly for all-out activity like sprinting and jumping As mentioned above, stretching plays an important part of the warm up – but only dynamic stretches are recommended. Static stretching prior to a game or training session can hinder performance and is not as likely to reduce the risk of injury.A good warm up routine is limited only by the coach or player’s imagination. However, there are a few general guidelines that will help to make the warm up more effectiveThe routine should start light and gradually increase to near-competitive intensity at the end. Start with general activities that involve large muscle groups. Examples include light jogging (with or without a ball) or skipping followed by some dynamic stretches. It’s important you avoid sharp, explosive movements like kicking or sprinting or any activities that might cause over-stretching.Towards the end of the routine, drills that replicate the time pressures in a game will help to increase reaction time and speed of thought. It’s often a good idea to end the warm up with conditioned games in restricted spaces. The intensity should be similar to a competitive match (apart from tackling!) with players focusing on sharp, quick movements. Part 5 – Soccer Nutrition In soccer, or any sport for that matter, proper nutrition is always undervalued.Players and coaches alike assume that diet only becomes a factor at the highest level of the game — that extra edge where the tiniest advantage can mean the difference between winning and losing.Not so!Nutrition makes a significant difference — at all levels and ages!Eating and drinking incorrectly before a game for example, can cause a sudden rise in insulin, followed by a sharp drop in blood sugar. The result is lethargy and jelly-like legs. Another example…Eat too close to kick off and it can leave feeling sick and nauseous. Why? When food is in your stomach, it becomes your body’s highest priority…Blood is directed to the digestive system in order to process the meal quickly before the food has chance to spoil and ferment. When you exercise heavily, blood is shunted away from major organs (and the digestive system) in order to supply working muscles with their increased demand for oxygen. A feeling nausea is the body’s way of limiting exercise so that blood can be directed once again to the digestive system. Ignore it, or push too hard and the only option left are to physically expel the food from your system!Ideally then, you should eat a suitable meal 3 hours before kick off. More than 3 hours and you could go into the game feeling famished and weak from low blood sugar. Any sooner and you run the risk of feeling sick.Following a game is a different story however. You want to eat as soon as possible to replenish carbohydrate stores. Having snacks to hand is a useful strategy rather than waiting until you get home for a big meal. You have a “window” — a period of time after exercise when it’s best to replenish your energy stores. Beyond this window it becomes much more difficult to replace carbohydrate stores and can take up to 2-3 days. No good if you are playing or training a day or two later.What about drinking and optimal hydrationThere are several different types of sports drinks: Hypotonic  - Isotonic  - Hypertonic  - For now, isotonic drinks are best before a game (but not to close to kick off) and hypertonic drinks are best after a game. Hypotonic drinks are useful during hot weather conditions when the most important factor is dehydration.Of course eating before and after a game is only one aspect of nutrition. What you eat on a day-to-day, meal-to-meal basis is equally as important.If you play soccer competitively you may be training and playing 3-4 times a week or more. This increases your demand for energy and possibly some vitamins and minerals, so it’s important you eat more to meet these increased demands. But eating anything and everything is not a wise move…Soccer players tend to be quite lean because the sport is so physically demanding. Sometimes players and coaches believe that this allows them to eat all manner of junk food without consequence.While weight gain may not become a problem, your overall health and performance will be adversely affected. Too often, health and fitness is judged by weight. But the old adage “you are what you eat” is as true for soccer players as it is for everyone else. With proper nutrition every system, organ and cell can function more effectively. The net result is greater athletic potential.Sports supplements are becoming more and more popular amongst soccer players. They promise the world and often deliver very little. Manufacturers have been quick to expand from the bodybuilding market, paying well-known sports stars millions to endorse their products. But celebrity endorsement does nothing to prove their effectiveness.A few supplements do have a measurable, proven effect and can enhance performance. However, substances like anabolic steroids (which is a drug not a supplement), while effective are also dangerous and illegal.Coaches and players should be aware of what supplements are safe and effective and which aren’t. Beware of researching the internet however. You’ll quickly discover one-sided, subjective reviews designed only to part you from your hard-earned money. Correct nutrition and proper fitness training can have such a dramatic effect on performance that NO supplement can come close to matching its effect!

We hope you have enjoyed this e-book produced by AustralianFootballPlayers.com.au, remember you need to Be Seen, to Be DiscoveredTM.  

*This is to be used as a guide only. Please consult your Doctor before performing any of these exercises.

Sergio Garcia is the Director of Australian Football Players, Australia’s first website and business devoted to promoting young, talented, football players to professional football clubs and players agents world wide. http://www.australianfootballplayers.com.au

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Acne is a chronic skin disorder caused by inflammation of the hair follicles and small glands in the skin called the sebaceous glands and almost always begins during puberty. Acne is not caused by dirt, so no amount of cleansing will deal with the problem.

Isotretinon (Accutane) can be used to treat severe cystic acne which Does not get better with other treatments. A plus point is that it helps against scars forming, but a serious side-effect is that it can cause women to miscarriage or damage unborn babies.

Natural remedies can be as effective if not more than medications and i have learned that there is just a matter right nutritional balance of your body and proper skin care to get rid of you acne.Lime juice, tomato slices, home made packs can be used for treating acne.

Beat together 1 egg white, 1 tsp spirits of camphor, 1 heaping Tbsp skim milk powder and a scant drop of essential oil of mint. First apply a thin film of odorless castor oil to the skin , then apply a thick layer of the egg white mask. Lie back for about 15 minutes. Wash off with warm water, then rinse with an apple cider vinegar and water solution or witch hazel.

Milk of Magnesia makes a low cost, wonderful facial mask for oily skin. If you find that it dries your skin too much, dilute it with water before applying. A bottle of Milk of Magnesia No preparation is needed. Just pour from the bottle and it’s ready to go. Apply directly from the bottle with your finger tip or a cotton ball. Let it dry for about five to ten minutes. Rinse off with warm water,

If you’re looking for accurate acne information, best to see a dermatologist. Some people believe doctors are predisposed to take the easy way to deal with acne… prescription drugs. But, with many, this simplistic answer may not be the appropriate course of action.

Some feel that such prescription drugs just treat the symposium and not the underlying cause. But, a local dermatologist is still your best starting point.

For me personally, I discovered a great informational acne treatment site. Not only is there good information/articles but I got their audio e-book and following it’s advice can now say that my acne is a thing of the past!

Keep in mind, were all different and there are various types of acne, so what works for some may not be totally effective for all.

Bottom line, hang in there, you will get past this! Sincere best wishes and good luck.

Rachel Broune writes articles for Acne Home Remedy . He also writes for Homemade Recipes for Acne and Home Remedies

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