It appears that developing athleticism is a primary goal of coaches on the high school, collegiate and professional levels. Substantiation for this comes from the emphasis placed on physical conditioning.
It is believed that by developing greater levels of strength, speed, power, agility etc., these qualities will automatically transfer to the skills possessed by the athlete and as a result, he will become more athletic. Athleticism is highly regarded and it is usually easy to spot the athlete who has the highest levels.
This athlete is typically the one who seems to do many different tasks and do them fairly well. In other words, he has many all-round abilities that he can execute with good coordination, ample speed, quickness and so on. He often appears as a multi-talented athlete.
The question that must now be asked is whether this is an end result — in order to play on the highest levels, especially in professional ball — or is it a base upon which the athlete can hone his competitive skills? Close examination indicates that it should be the latter in order to develop the best competitive player.
For example, a recent newspaper article about Sacha Kljestan, who now plays for the national soccer team, brought out that he was not invited to join the top youth clubs in Southern California, and “…he was cut from the prestigious Olympic development program at age 16, presumably because he was too short, too thin, too slow, too weak. He wasn’t highly recruited by West Coast colleges and went east to play at Seton Hall”.
He is now considered to be the first true American playmaking midfielder in years, even though he came from the unlikeliest of backgrounds. According to the article, American soccer is “quite adept at churning out world-class goalkeepers — and an endless parade of athletic, obedient, positional, cookie-cutter field players who have a high work rate but rarely conjure any sort of imaginative brilliance”.
Kljestan appears to have the potential to be a special kind of player — an improvisational genius–“… the kind that American youth and college programs, so obsessed with athleticism, have repeatedly failed to develop”. If you agree with this conclusion, then you must also agree with the conclusion that athleticism is not an end in itself; it is a means to develop what is needed to play on a high level.
In other words, the athleticism should be the base upon which specialized competitive work is done. Understand that in order to develop new techniques or tactics the player must have the necessary physical and coordination abilities to make the necessary improvements. The athlete must be able to develop himself to a point where he is capable of learning and making improvements.
The player of the future is not known today. We must train the athlete so that he is capable of adjusting and learning what will be necessary to be successful on the highest levels 5, 10 or more years from today. If we simply prepare an athlete for today’s demands he will not be able to play on the highest level when new and better players come along.
In conclusion, athleticism is very important and should be developed in all athletes to serve as a base or a foundation for specialized training that duplicates, and in many cases creates, the skills and abilities needed in competitive play. This type of training should constitute 80 to 90% of the total training time of the elite athlete.
For more information on this topic read Build a Better Athlete