Movement Configuration Elements in Football Players: Beyond Dynamic Correspondence Principles

In real-world football training, limited time is available for strength and conditioning sessions during the in-season period. The search for time-efficient strategies that concurrently enhance several locomotive-specific actions while preventing injuries seems crucial. Individual sports coaching literature has provided valuable concepts such as "transfer of training" and "dynamic correspondence" to describe the extent to which a given exercise may enhance sports performance, based on how closely it reproduces the exercise's mechanical, neural, and metabolic demands. However, given the highly dynamic and stochastic nature of football movements, there is a need to introduce a more comprehensive and advanced training paradigm that includes the so-called movement/action configuration elements. These variables aim to shape how game-based football actions evolve during a real match situation and include the need to efficiently anticipate/compensate for perturbations and unknown or unexpected events by alternating eccentric overload unilateral, variable, and multidirectional movements. A review of how these elements may shape football movements is conducted to ultimately provide practical recommendations and tools for daily practice.