Transcription
What's going on, guys? Matt Sheldon here from Become Lee, and in today's Two Minute Tuesday, I want to rank football training equipment. So, welcome to the video.
So, I don't know if you guys have seen this tiered ranking system before; it's kind of a Gen Z thing. But basically, S-tier is the best, and it goes all the way down to F-tier being the worst. So, I want to go over all the football training equipment I can possibly think of and rank it in the system. And once again, when it comes to training equipment, I pretty much think that all this stuff is going to help your game in some way, shape, or form—maybe except for the F-tier stuff—but I definitely think there's levels to like what's the most useful and what's the least useful or effective. So anyway, let's put the time on the screen, let's ignore it again, and let's get started.
So the first item that we're going to go over is the speed or agility ladder. I think I'm going to put this at the C-tier. I think it's a useful piece of equipment; I think that it's good to get the footwork going at the beginning of training as a warm-up tool, and I really like it for younger athletes to work on coordination. But I do think it's a little overhyped in terms of its ability to improve your speed or agility. I think there's much more useful tools, which we'll get into, uh, but I don't think it's the worst piece of equipment in the world. So yeah, I'm gonna put that right smack dab in the middle.
The next piece of training equipment we're gonna go over is the GPS tracker, and I'm gonna put this down at the E-tier. I think, especially for individual training, I don't really see a ton of benefit from it. I mean, unless you're really trying to track how many miles you run and everything. But again, I think it can be misleading because sometimes the best training sessions that you're going to do aren't going to be a ton of running. I think the GPS trackers are fantastic to using games, into using training to compare yourself with your teammates, with your opponents, or to see your game-by-game stats, uh, but as an individual piece of training equipment just to use in your own individual sessions or even your own team sessions, I just—I think there's much better ways to spend your money.
Third item is hurdles. I like this a little bit more than the speed ladder. I think it's useful to really get the knees up higher whenever you're doing kind of footwork drills, uh, so I'm gonna put this at the B-tier. I think three hurdles is pretty much all you need to do a couple footwork type drills, uh, and yeah, I definitely like them, and I'm gonna put those slightly higher than the speed and agility ladder.
Okay, the next item we have is mannequins, uh, I'm gonna put this at the D-tier. I do like mannequins; I mean, you really only use them for free kick training, uh, so that's why I'm going to put them down with a D-tier. I think that you can—you get other pieces of training equipment that you're going to use for a far wider variety of drills and stuff to do. Mannequins are pretty much only for free kicks and maybe if you're a goalkeeper, like running out and trying to, like, you know, get around mannequins or push mannequins or something like that. So it's good; it's going to help your game, but again, if I was spending that money and I was buying the item, it would probably be pretty far down on this list.
Next, we got the match-grade football; this is S-tier. I mean, this is pretty much as basic as you can get, and this is like the beauty of the game. I mean, you don't need any of this stuff besides a football. You can have football; you can go out into any park, your backyard, your garage, or anything, and you can get quality, quality training sessions. I mean, even when I was down in like New Zealand and I didn't have that much training equipment at all, I just used one ball and a couple of random shoes as cones, and I got fantastic, fantastic training sessions. So S-tier for sure, and I think that you should get about five to ten match-grade footballs or decent training footballs before you go and start getting like speed ladders, mannequins, GPS trackers, and all that stuff.
Okay, so the next item we have is cones, and in particular, we got these mini cones. I absolutely love these mini disc cones because they can store very easily in any of your bags, and you can—and you can basically do anything that normal cones can do, but they're less obtrusive. I'm gonna put these mini cones at the A-tier. I don't think they're absolutely essential to training, but they're close.
Okay, next we have like a net or a goal. If you don't have like a place to go out and train like a field or something that already has a goal, I think that it's almost essential to get some form of net or something to shoot into. So I'm gonna put the net or the goal at A-tier.
Okay, next item is altitude masks. Altitude masks, I'm gonna put down at F-tier. I think that there is a little bit of evidence, a little bit of science saying the altitude mask can help your VO2 max by strengthening your actual lung muscles, but I think honestly they do a little bit more harm than good. Most of the time when you have an altitude mask on, it just makes it feel harder without the actual benefits of being at a higher altitude. So you're just doing a workout that's harder, and you'll usually tire out faster, meaning that you'll get less work done without the actual benefit that you would normally get from being at a higher altitude. So I just see them doing more harm than good. They look sick; they look badass, but they really don't help out as much as a lot of people think.
Okay, the next item we have is passing arcs. I've really only used these once in my life, and I liked them. I thought it was cool to have a little target to kind of pass through and work on passing the ball so it's not bobbling, so it doesn't hit the arc, uh, it makes you focus a little bit more. But again, you know, I've only used them once in my career, and I really haven't found them to be like that game-changing. So I'm gonna put these down at the D-tier.
Next we have resistance bands. Resistance bands are great; I think they're fantastic to use as a warm-up tool to activate the muscles and also kind of like a strength tool as well for some of the smaller, isolated muscle groups like your hip flexors or groins or ankle stuff like that. But again, I don't know if I would be like absolutely essential. I'm gonna put these at the B-tier.
All right, the next piece of training equipment we're gonna go over is the rebounder. I'm a big fan of rebounders or just walls in general; big fan of walls because I think one of the best things you can do as a footballer is work on just hitting the ball against some surface so that it bounced back to you, and you're just working on that first touch. There's so many things you can do, and I think that you get so many reps and touches in by doing this. It's just a fantastic way to train at any level, any—any age, just great. However, I'm going to put this at the—at the S-tier because I think that you can go out and find walls for free pretty much anywhere. I found walls in Germany, in New Zealand, I found walls in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Portland, uh, by going to elementary schools, parks, and just kind of looking around. So it's not essential that you actually buy one of these things, but if you're having trouble finding a wall, rebounders are a great investment.
Okay, next we have the speed parachute, uh, I'm a big fan of these parachutes. I think it's a fantastic, fantastic way to work on speed, to work on acceleration, to work on just overall power, uh, much better than like speed ladders. So I'm gonna put this at the B-tier. It's not absolutely essential for a footballer to use, but I think it's a great investment to really work on top-end speed.
After that, we have the—the finishing net. I'm going to put the finishing net down at the D-tier. I don't know what it is about them, but I really just don't find them that useful to me whenever I'm training, and I have an open goal, like I don't need to have something to block out the middle parts of the goal. I know when I hit a good shot and when it's a bad shot. I think the finishing nets are good, maybe a good visual tool for younger players to really focus on aiming at the corners, but I do think it's an expensive item for something that—for me, I just don't see getting a ton of value from. So yeah, I'm gonna put that down to the D-tier.
I'm not really sure what to call this next item, but it's kind of like a waist belt thing with some bungee cord or elastic cord where you kick the ball out and it rebounds back to you. I'm gonna put this down at the E-tier. I think that they might be good for very, very young footballers just to—just kind of like as a fun tool to work on, but if you want to work on rebounding, some form of shooting or whatever, I'd go with a normal rebounder, and if you want to work on shooting, I'd go with a net. I think the waist elastic things, they tear or they break very easily, especially as you get older, and I think it's way better to work on receiving and controlling the ball from a real surface, the—the real rebound that you'd actually get. I think those bungee cords aren't 100% realistic to how that ball would kind of fire into you. So yeah, I'm gonna put these down at the E-tier.
Okay, the next item we have is agility poles. This will be a little contradictory because I've used agility poles pretty much at every single professional club I've been at, and I do see the use of it—of really getting your body around and like swallowing through the poles. But I think that, you know, you can kind of do the same thing with cones and just work on really rounding the cones, uh, so I'm gonna put this down on the D-tier. It's not the worst thing in the world, but again, there's many more pieces of training equipment that I would buy before I bought agility poles.
Okay, next we have mini goals. I'm a big, big fan of many goals in my training. I love using mini goals as like a shooting target or a passing target for like a slotted shot or a lace pass or something like that, as well as using mini goals as just 1v1 work whenever I'm out there with a partner. I love doing 1v1s; I think mini goals are just a great way, so there's no controversy if the ball is going over—over the cone or something like that. I'm gonna put mini goals at A-tier.
Okay, next we have a football tennis net. Another fantastic game; I think every kid out there should be playing football tennis somewhere, and if you don't have a tennis court near you where you live, I think buying a little football tennis net online can be a great tool, and it's a great game that's tons and tons of fun that you can pretty much do in most smaller spaces. I'm gonna put the football tennis net at the B-tier. I'm gonna—I'm gonna put it up there; I just think it's such a good game that works on so many different aspects, touch, everything.
Okay, next we have the classic foam roller. I'm gonna put the foam roller at the B-tier. I think it is great to warm up with it, to massage out tight areas, but again, uh, especially now, I think the best form of recovery that you can really do is just kind of sleeping, eating right. I always talk about that kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean, I use a foam roller almost every day, so B-tier.
Similarly to the foam roller, we have the massage guns, uh, I love these things, but I'm gonna put them down at the C-tier, and I'm doing this because I think you can get a better, deeper tissue self-myofascial release from the foam rollers, even though it's a little bit more strenuous because you have to move your whole body across the foam roller. I still think it's a deeper massage than the massage guns. Now, I use both pretty much every day, but if I were just to buy one, I would go with the cheaper foam roller that can give me a deeper massage.
The next training item that we have is these reaction pods. I'm gonna put these down at the E-tier. I think they're okay; I think that it is important to work on your reaction time, and these are a good tool to use. I just think they're an expensive thing to get when I think there's better things you can do for your reaction time in a much cheaper way. I've only used these once or twice in my career; I liked them, but again, I was like, I probably wouldn't buy them for myself. I know many people think differently, but yeah, I just think—I think they're okay, so I'm gonna throw them down at the E-tier.
All right, next we have agility rings, um, I'm gonna put this right next to the agility poles down in the D-tier. Again, we use these a lot, and we use these to do like lateral skater jumps; we're basically bounding off one leg, landing in the ring and pushing off and jumping onto the other ring, uh, I think you can do the same exact thing with cones or even just without cones and just working on jumping as far as you can. But I mean, the rings are okay if you have tons of money to spend; yeah, you can buy it, but there's many other pieces of equipment that I would use before these.
The next item we have is these ab toning belts. I think you've seen probably like Cristiano Ronaldo kind of showcasing these. I'm going to throw these down at the F-tier. I did a lot of research on these things; they do help miniscule; they do contract the muscle, and it does show slight signs of strengthening up the abdominals, but it's just a crazy expensive tool to get when you can do much simpler ab work for free, and I think that that's kind of taking the easy way out in terms of exercising and everything. So again, much like the altitude masks, yes, there is a little bit of science to show that they can be beneficial in small instances, but again, it's just an expensive item that I think just does more harm than good.
Next we have these leg compression units. Love these things; I think they feel absolutely amazing after a game to put your legs into, and you just really—you do really feel lighter after them. However, very expensive, and I don't know if I would say they're absolutely essential for the training gear. I'm gonna put these at the C-tier. I think they have a ton of benefit, but again, there's other things that I would buy before shelling out a grand for these, uh, compression units.
The last item that I'm gonna go over is bungee cords. I think bungee cords definitely have a place in training, um, but I think there's better things that you can use in terms of improving your acceleration and improving your overall speed. I'm going to put bungee cords down at the D-tier. I've used them in training; I've gotten benefit from them, but if I'm going to work on speed, acceleration, I think that the parachute is a better way, or even just going to a hill and running up a hill can be even better than that.
So, so anyway, that is my full ranked list of the training equipment. Once again, all the equipment from the S-tier down to the E-tier, I use; I don't use the F-tier items, but everything else I use, but I just thought it would be a good place to kind of showcase in my head what I'd buy first, what I buy second, what to buy third, and kind of go down the list that way. Please let me know if I missed any pieces of training equipment; I can do a part two to this video, throw up the other ones that I missed, and let me know if you guys disagree with anything that I posted. I'm always interested to see what you guys think as well. So hope you guys like this video; if you did—oh wait, how'd I do on time? I—I know I'm overtime. Anyway, I hope you guys liked this video; if you did, hit the thumbs-up button, subscribe; I'll see you guys in the next video. Bye guys. Hi.