Addressing Deceleration Demands in Training Through Global Positioning System
Deceleration is a key aspect of cutting and change of direction performance across all court and field-based sports. During changes of direction (COD) athletes are required to brake, plant, and accelerate. The braking and planting phases are underpinned by the individual’s deceleration ability. Simply by training power, strength, and movement economy, athletes can gain an advantage over their opponents by becoming more efficient when performing tasks that involve COD. These cutting or COD actions create a considerable amount of joint stress of the lower limbs, particularly with fast cuts ranging from 90-180-degrees. It is not only important to address deceleration during the training process for the purposes of enhancing performance but also reducing injury risk. Therefore, it will be the purpose of this article to propose a strategy in which practitioners can influence deceleration load during the session design to accurately manage the training prescription.
When planned correctly the training process should allow for the players to adapt to the key match actions so they can be performed maximally and frequently. For the key actions to be considered as a part of the training process, it is essential that the influence on player performance and health is appropriately estimated. Deceleration load is usually an overlooked metric when measuring the physical demands of football compared to sprint distance, high-speed running, or acceleration load. While, rapid decelerations create greater joint stress than accelerations, decision making regarding training design are often made with deceleration load being an afterthought. (Harper et al., 2022). It is critical for football players to be prepared for a substantial deceleration load during match play as there has been a considerable rise in lower limb soft tissue injuries during the last decade. The sport has seen a 24% increase in hamstring injuries in the professional game in recent years and while it is often thought to be attributed to an increase in high-speed running and sprint distance (Ekstrand et al., 2022), it is lesser known that because of the rapid stretching of the hamstring during deceleration that is also a leading mechanism for the injury (Steventon‐Lorenzen et al., 2026). It is the role of the sport science and fitness coach to support the design of the training process and influence the training load to improve conditioning, enhance performance, and protect against soft tissue injuries. There is no doubt that when neglected, the mismanagement of deceleration load can increase injury risk. However, the important question to answer next is what the right amount and how can it be implemented into the session design?
A common expression in the industry of sports performance is, “fitness might not help you win but a lack of it will certainly help you lose.” To successfully design the training process, the physical aspects of the sport must be considered in addition to the technical and tactical components. Like how 30% of goals derive from set pieces, 83% of goals involve a high-speed or explosive action (Martínez-Hernández et al., 2023). These critical goal scoring moments can take place at any time, after any number of repeated high-intensity actions, or after a full field transition. Therefore, it is essential that physical preparedness is addressed exhaustively during the training process. To best plan the training process, the physical demands of the sport must first be examined. In a paper by Moreno-Azze et al (2025), examined a Spanish Second Division team during match play showed an average of 10 zone 6 deceleration (between -5 and -10 m/s2) and 3 zone 6 decelerations (between 5-10m/s2). While these outputs would vary across positional groups (i.e. full back, centre back, midfielder, attacker) it showed that high-intensity decelerations were more common than high-intensity acceleration in a professional football match. Whereas, in another paper that quantified the training load of various sessions relative to match day showed that both medium and high-acceleration efforts were greater than medium and high-deceleration efforts on MD -4, -3, -2 training days (Stevens et al., 2017). For most teams it is generally accepted that matches have more decelerations than accelerations and training have more accelerations than decelerations. To appropriately prepare football players for the physical demands of their sport, deceleration volume must be considered as well as the other critical variables such as high-speed running and sprint distance. This can be achieved by selecting drills that help meet specific weekly (~300%) or training day targets (100-150%).
When addressing the physical actions of match play during the training process, it is important that drills that elicit those actions are selected as a part of the session design. For instance, moderate and high-intensity decelerations commonly occur during high-speed pressing actions. The key variables that will influence the intensity of the pressing actions during a drill are grid dimensions and participants. It is common practice to utilise small-sided games (SSG) and expect to produce greater moderate and high-intensity deceleration than match average. For example, in a paper by Asian-Clemente et al (2020), showed that a 5v5+5 in a 30x30-meter grid allowed an overload in deceleration compared to an official match. However, when selecting the most appropriate drills it is important to understand the individuality of maximum deceleration capacity. It is common practice for sport science practitioners to categorize moderate and high-intensity declarations as changes of velocity between -2.5m/s2 and -3.5m/s2 and less than -3.5m/s2. However, this does not reflect decelerations close to a professional football players maximal capacity. In papers that assess maximal decelerations capacity observed changes in velocity on average of -4.2m/s2 but in some cases -7.4m/s2 when decelerating from a 30-meter sprint (West et al., 2026). Although SSG seem to offer a sufficient environment to increase deceleration volume, the space available for players is limited and therefore it is unlikely that the running speed that are required to elicit decelerations near the players maximal intensity. To target decelerations that are close to the players maximum large spaces need to be made available to the players so that physical, technical, and tactical components of pressing can be met during the session.
The importance of training deceleration capacity in professional football has just recently been recognised by the industry. However, addressing these demands during the training process is not yet well refined within the sport science community. This article aims to inform coaches of an approach of assessing match demands, demonstrates the importance of decelerations compared to other key variables, and provides advice to address the nuances deceleration intensity during the training process. There is no doubt that deceleration demand in football is not yet given the respect of other key physical output in football, however, as its importance is realised it is critical to properly periodize the increased exposure to deceleration demands during the training process as well as select the appropriate training day relative to match day to target the stimulus aggressively.
Citations
Asian-Clemente, J., Rabano-Muñoz, A., Muñoz, B., Franco, J., & Suarez-Arrones, L. (2020). Can small-side games provide adequate high-speed training in professional soccer? International Journal of Sports Medicine, 42(06), 523–528. https://doi.org/10.1055/a-1293-8471
Ekstrand, J., Bengtsson, H., Waldén, M., Davison, M., Khan, K. M., & Hägglund, M. (2022). Hamstring injury rates have increased during recent seasons and now constitute 24% of all injuries in men’s professional football: The UEFA Elite Club Injury Study from 2001/02 to 2021/22. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 57(5), 292–298. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-105407
Harper, D. J., McBurnie, A. J., Santos, T. D., Eriksrud, O., Evans, M., Cohen, D. D., Rhodes, D., Carling, C., & Kiely, J. (2022). Biomechanical and neuromuscular performance requirements of Horizontal Deceleration: A review with implications for random intermittent multi-directional sports. Sports Medicine, 52(10), 2321–2354. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01693-0
Martínez-Hernández, D., Quinn, M., & Jones, P. (2023). Most common movements preceding goal scoring situations in female professional soccer. Science and Medicine in Football, 8(3), 260–268. https://doi.org/10.1080/24733938.2023.2214106
Stevens, T. G., de Ruiter, C. J., Twisk, J. W., Savelsbergh, G. J., & Beek, P. J. (2017). Quantification of in-season training load relative to match load in professional Dutch Eredivisie football players. Science and Medicine in Football, 1(2), 117–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/24733938.2017.1282163
Steventon‐Lorenzen, N., Fitzwilliam, E., Schache, A. G., Opar, D., & Maniar, N. (2026). Hamstring mechanics during acceleration, deceleration and sidestep cutting. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 36(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.70257
West, M. A., Compton, H. R., Dascombe, B. J., & Secomb, J. L. (2026). Comparison of sprint deceleration capacity in front‐ and side‐facing end stances in multidirectional team sport athletes. European Journal of Sport Science, 26(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsc.70143
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