Barça's recipe for avoiding overweight players after the holidays

BarcelonaWhen Hansi Flick arrived at Barça a year ago, he was quite surprised by the physical level of the players. As a representative of the German school, he considered the players to be poorly prepared. They needed a different approach than what had been done so far at the Sports City. His first impulse was to hire a staff A trusted coach from Germany. But, advised by president Joan Laporta and sporting director Deco, he gave his confidence to Julio Tous, whom the club had hired a few weeks earlier to be the club's new head of fitness trainers.

Between Flick's demands and Tous's new ideas, the first sessions of the summer became grueling. The players had to make up for lost time. The results were evident on the pitch, with a dramatic improvement compared to the previous season, but the wear and tear was also noticeable in the final stretch of the season, where the players were short on gas.

To prevent this from happening again, once the league season was over and before swapping their boots for flip-flops, Tous gave the players a personalized dossier with a series of exercises they had to complete during the summer. No matter how many millions the world of football moves, the club is clear that players are people too and need to go on vacation to unwind. But they are also elite athletes who must take care of themselves with healthy eating habits and physical routines to stay in shape. On Sunday the 13th, the day of the official return to work with medical tests, it was time for an exam to check if everyone had done their homework.

In fact, the activity at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper had begun a few days earlier. Many players, those who had already returned home after spending the summer abroad, decided to give it their all to continue with the routines they had been assigned. "Instead of doing them at home, they come to do them with us. Whenever we can, we lend a hand," they point out from Sant Joan Despí. Today, the vast majority of footballers already have their own personal fitness trainer. "This world is very small, and most of us know each other," they admit from the team.staff Barça, where they assure there is trust between the players, their personal trainers, and those of Barça. Even so, dropping by Sant Joan Despí a few days beforehand allows for an inspection of the work done so far, resolve doubts, and correct errors in order to arrive at the first day of training at their best.

Those summers of the 80s and 90s are long gone, when players would wait until the last minute of their vacations and return in baggy clothes to hide their summer excesses. The most veteran players admit that they could easily come back five kilos overweight. And it wasn't a sin, because everyone did the same. The recipe of the time involved starting to run and getting in shape during a preseason that could last a good two months. Today, there's a month to spare, and thank goodness. And, to top it all off, preparation is conditioned by intercontinental tours with training camps of dubious quality and schedules filled with publicity events.

Details of Barça's physical preparation during the holidays

"Barça and Barcelona are very fortunate: they have a lot of knowledge about physical preparation. We don't understand why they had let good habits slip away in recent years. Now we're trying to recover them," says one of the sources consulted. Each player has specific physical characteristics. It depends on age, muscle type, medical history, or whether they're recovering from an injury. However, all players start from the same base. In Barça's case, Tous had two dossiers prepared: one for those who started their vacations after the end of the La Liga season at San Mamés, on May 25; and the other for those with international commitments, which began the week of June 9. Other summers, the coach gives international players a few extra days, but Flick considered a full month was enough, so everyone was called up on the 13th.

The preparation dossier includes a calendar specifying what to do each day. The first few days after the competition are for rest. There is no set routine. Then, players begin with very gentle sessions to reactivate the body. The intensity, naturally, increases as the day of returning to work approaches. The routines include strength, mobility, endurance, and realignment work, with graphic examples of how to do them correctly. There are several exercises, and they are combined depending on the day. Some are very specific, while others, such as endurance running, can be done in the city or in the woods. However, the club recommends avoiding treadmills during the initial days to avoid excessive overload, and reminds players that if they don't feel good, they should stop and report it immediately.

Once the first few weeks of rest are complete, players begin with continuous or interval runs. The intensity alternates, since initially the average runs range between 8 and 15 kilometers per hour. Over time, the continuous running disappears and the intervals are replaced, which can be linear or zigzag, depending on the day. In the same way, the pace increases to 24 km/h for about 15 or 20 minutes.

"During the preseason, many earn their place and know that if they arrive overweight or excessively out of shape, they will fall behind their teammates," says a former member of thestaff Barça. Barça's recent history is full of players who, despite being warned, ignored all this. With Flick, this began to change last season. If you're not in shape, you don't play. Period.