This season the new "Team System" will be introduced to training to provide ongoing monitoring of Youth Team players' performances
Maccabi Tel Aviv's Under-19's preparations for the upcoming 2013/14 Youth Premier League season are in full swing, this year with a completely new training system. The "Team System", that went into effect last year in the senior squad, is now being applied at Maccabi Tel Aviv "Shachar". This system will enable the Youth Team's training staff to monitor players' performances at suitable training sessions at least twice a week during the course of the season.
The "Team System" passes information from an electronic microchip attached to a belt on the player's body to a computer programme that translates that information into statistical graphs. Dr Yaron ("Boki") Barak, in charge of physical fitness at Maccabi Tel Aviv's Youth Division, explains the purpose of the "Team System": "The objective of the system is to track every player's activity in order to determine if we in the coaching staff are meeting our targets and whether the player has been making the physical effort we expect of him. Every player has his own physical data, such as maximal pulse rate, maximal oxygen consumption and application level at maximal pulse rate. With the help of the system we can take samples of the player's data and in real time during the practice we can determine whether to lower or increase the player's exertions and whether to lengthen or shorten his breaks between them".
Maccabi Tel Aviv "Shachar" are the first Youth Team in Israel to use this system and Dr Barak explained the significance of the system for the young players: "It's a scientific device designed to prepare in optimal fashion Youth Team players for senior squad responsibilities. We are increasing our demands, adjusting them to higher levels of harder work than Youth Team players were accustomed to in the past. So far we've seen that the level of training has risen, the players understand that their activity is being monitored and this motivates them to push their capacities to the limit and improve their performances".
