Season so Far

Sorry for the 2 months off writing but I have been busy. Our team Sydney Olympic FC is now in the 7th round of the regula season and after winning the pre season cup we have had 3 wins, a draw and a first round loss and our round 6 game was postponed due to racial tension between our club which has a large Greek supporter base and another club which has a Macedonian supporter base (politics and sport - what can I say). We are going ok and our conditioning program has produced good results with the last testing results showing an averge beep test score of over 14.3 (predicted Vo2 > 60ml/kg/min) and signivficant reductions in body fat and also 20 metre sprint times. The players have all self reported never feeling as well conditioned and injuries have been low with little incidence of soft tissue injury. I am still predicting improvements as I am not acceptinng that the season has to be maitainance (I think this is a mistake) and I work on blocks of 4 weeks cycling 3 weeks of increasing intensity with a drop off week at week 4. My biggest concern with the players is that they do not play at their tempo but rather they do what they have to do. We are just finishing week 3 of a block of 4 and the players have complained about the intensity as they have been use to having the hard work completed by the season starting. However I am monitoring recovery etc and all looks well but I cant deny the physcological impact my program has and to be honest I have to be aware of the human side as the scientist in me just expects robotic behaviour which of cause is ridiculous. I would love for some of you to try my DS protocol which I believe is outstanding at increasing performance in multi sprint sport athletes.