Train Like Aston Villa | The Horseshoes

Aston Villa’s lead sports scientist, Jack Sharkey, has shared some of his favorite football drills to help his athletes improve their aerobic capacity. Give this first drill a try to test and improve your aerobic capacity and see how you stack up against some of the best footballers in the Premier League.

The simple act of turning during the run adds to the physical demands. If you’re used to only ever completing long runs, you’ll notice how much the turns can take it out of you. A personal favourite of Jack’s, the ‘Horseshoe’ run helps continue to build that baseline fitness, and by the third session you’ll notice significant aerobic gains.

With a total of 10 runs you will end up covering 3.75km (2.33 miles).

The sequence is as follows:

– RUN 150m in 30s, rest 30s

– RUN 300m in 60s, rest 60s

– RUN 450m in 90s, rest 90s

– RUN 600m in 120s, rest 120s

– Work back down to 150m and then back up to 600m

Give this football drill a try, and let us know how you compare to the professionals by tagging @playrbycatapult on Instagram or Facebook!

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Want to see how well you did with these drills? Track your performance with the PLAYR Football GPS Tracker.