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Football Fitness
Develops the physical, mental and social capabilities of young people and fosters an attitude of excellence
The Jockey Club Youth Football Fitness Assessment
Prior to this project, the lack of effective fitness data about our young players has long hampered development of football in Hong Kong. To address this challenge with the aim of optimising local training methods, The Hong Kong Jockey Club has partnered with Manchester United, with support from the Hong Kong Football Association (HKFA), the Hong Kong Sports Institute and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Sports Medicine and Health Sciences Centre to introduce “The Jockey Club Youth Football Fitness Assessment” in 2013.
Besides establishing the first-ever fitness database on local youth players, the findings also enable HKFA to undertake successive analysis and make the information accessible to all 4,250 coaches and youth players across different HKFA training schemes for their continued training optimisation.
Subjects and Methodology
Over the past three years, a total of 537 male players from local clubs and district teams, and 104 Hong Kong team players, all aged between 13 and 17, were enrolled as subjects of this pioneer project. Each player went through fitness tests on artificial turf in a specific sequence to measure their football-specific physical capabilities.
Youth Football Fitness Benchmark
Besides establishing the first-ever fitness database on local youth players, the findings also enable HKFA to undertake successive analysis.
HK Players Comparison
HK youth team players are more experienced than district league players.
HK/UK Comparison
The muscle power and aerobic endurance, as indicated by the Countermovement Jump Test and Yo-Yo Intermittent Test results, of Hong Kong youth team players were lower than their counterparts in UK.
