Penalties
Experiments 1:
I used this session 2 times a day, 5 days a week, and filled the rest of the program with "Rest". Training after match day=yes.
Experimental results:
Heading:
13 players were improved, 14 points of improvement in total.
Set Pieces:
10 players were improved, 11 points of improvement in total.
Penalty taking:
09 players were improved, 10 points of improvement in total.
Crossing:
07 players were improved, 09 points of improvement in total.
Experiments 2:
I used this session 3 times a day, 5 days a week, and filled the rest of the program with "Rest". Training after match day=no.
Experimental results:
Set Pieces:
14 players were improved, 21 points of improvement in total.
Heading:
14 players were improved, 18 points of improvement in total.
Penalty taking:
13 players were improved, 15 points of improvement in total.
Crossing:
11 players were improved, 14 points of improvement in total.
Conclusions:
This is weird... It makes sense that Penalty Taking and Set Pieces are improved, but it makes no sense at all that Heading and Crossing are also improved.
I think I know what 's going on.. SI has connected Penalty Taking and Set Pieces, so that a training regime that improves one of them improves the other one too (since Penalty Taking is a subgroup of Set Pieces). They have also connected Set Pieces with Heading and Crossing, since these attributes are very important when a cross comes in from a corner or a free kick. But they forget that no matter how good I am at shooting penalty kicks, I will never know how to head the ball correctly.