“Strength and Conditioning work in Soccer is only in the beginning!”

In this exclusive interview with the FC Porto Strength and Conditioning Coach, Nuno Cerdeira, Soccer HUB asks about his job and the future of Strength and Conditioning in a Soccer Club context!

RB:  Could you tell me a little bit more about yourself, and what kind of work do you do on your day to day basis?

NC: Okay, thank you very much and hello to everyone. In fact in my daily basis I work with athletes, mainly related with soccer, right now in the top soccer team in Portugal. But I’m engaged in other sports for instance gymnastics, tennis and with common citizens it means non-athletes too.

So my passion is to enhance the athlete’s performance, and to prevent their injuries, to make them understand that they can be in the field or in the pitch as long as they can and in the best shape ever.

RB:  So in your online course you talk about the APEAR model, before we talk really about the course, I would like to know a little bit more what is the APEAR model, and what kind of benefits can the coaches that use it can take from it.

NC: In fact the APEAR model is a way, a path from the beginning until the end. It means that we have the A point for each step is the starting point, and first of all we have to do the assessment, just to know in the middle of the path, what can we do to enhance even better, or what can we do to change things, to make the athlete more confident for instance, or make the athlete very focused on their task.

So, as a resume, as an abstract we make the assessment, and the assessment is the main target for every work, we make the assessment and then we have a lot of tools too. As we have the assessment engaged, we can know what is the way to enhance the athlete’s performance. It means that if we can go back, if we can turn back we will turn back but we have always the value of the assessment, okay. So is this assessment that we plan, then we enhance, then we reassess all with this kind of meaning for instance.

RB: Can you please talk a little bit more about your online course?

NC:     For years I practiced, I went to a lot of practices, a lot of courses and mainly one of the things that in fact in some courses it was not a lot of engagement between the theory and the practical field. So our course it’s engaged with practical situations, it means that we have five things that we put as the main things, like first of all assessment, second of all plan, third of all enhancement then reassess and then analyze and then reassess.

And it’s all made with practical examples, with practical meaning to make the people understand that they can apply in their jobs, they can apply in their daily basis, and even if they make or see five minutes of my course, they can apply one minute later. Okay so it’s very practical to make the people understand that the value is always applied one minute later, two minutes later, 30 minutes later it depends off the context of anyone.

RB: You have practical exercises and you give it a lot of tools so the coaches can use on a day-to-day basis.

NC: Yes.

RB: That’s the objective of soccer coaching is to give tools, and I think your course goes straight into the bull’s eye, because it delivers a series of tools to be used on the day-to-day basis.

NC: Yes, we have a very strong theoretical part, all the evidence in science. But mainly the practical stuff is bigger than the theoretical approach it means.

RB: And now before we finish, do you have any special message to the Soccer HUB followers, of course regarding this specific area? I don’t know maybe if you think that this area particularly will be a good area to work with in the future, do you have any kind of advice like that Nuno?

NC: This is one of the greatest areas that are growing faster and faster and faster. The first ones that can engage a special value to the athletes and to the clubs will be the first that can achieve whatever they want. So the physical conditioning, the strengthening conditioning, the physical recovery, and the fitness coach… a lot of names for the same thing, is one of the best areas to improve right now.

This is only at the beginning, mainly in soccer it’s only at the beginning; in other sports maybe it’s in the middle of the bridge. Right now it’s in the beginning, so it is very important that who loves this area, who likes to improve, who loves to enhance the players performance and injury prevention, they must have tools to make the difference and to show to his work, and to provide maybe a better opportunity careers or job offers who knows, yes.

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