We immediately reached out to them and found that their Academy has been consistently implementing TTM in their passing and finishing drills and, "[The Training Triangle] is perfect to develop in players the optimum body orientation."  Here's what else they had to say about TTM (roughly translated):

Bueno, TEC!!  This is a fantastic example of an Academy fully utilizing the potential of TTM by incorporating the triangles into their 'pass wheels' (also known as pattern recognition training or mannequin training), technical figures, isolated domain stations, and dribble drills.

Needless to say, we hope to stumble upon many more videos of how coaches are implementing TTM within their own teams.. and when we do we will be sure to share them in future posts!

Check out more teams using TTM on our Instagram feed here:

Impressive feet! @futebolformandfitness #quickfeet #agility #agilitytraining #soccer #soccertraining

A video posted by @the_training_triangle on Jan 27, 2017 at 7:58pm PST

Awesome Triangle Training from @futebolformandfitness #soccertraining #triangletrainingmethod #hustle #patterrecognitiontraining

A video posted by @the_training_triangle on Jan 27, 2017 at 7:55pm PST

Recent findings have shown that the sub-concussive impacts of a regulation soccer ball cause both short term and long term mental health problems.  Studies have shown that repeatedly heading a regulation ball causes short term impairment of brain function with as much as a 41-67% decline in memory test performance:

On average, soccer players head the ball six to 12 times during games, and 30 times or more during practice.  Scientists are worried that repeated "subconcussive" impacts of the brain — getting shaken in the skull — might result in brain damage such as laceration of nerve fibers. 

What recent research has found, is that there is a threshold number of 885 headers with a regulation ball that we don’t want to exceed per year in order to minimize the risk of developing long term brain damage symptoms.  Players who had exceeded this threshold of 885 times a year or more showed cognitive impairments consistent with brains who had sustained traumatic brain injury.

"Our study provides compelling preliminary evidence that brain changes resembling mild traumatic brain injury are associated with frequently heading a soccer ball over many years,"  Says Dr. Michael L. Lipton, associate director of Magnetic Resonance Research Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

Another major concern for head injuries in soccer is from a collision with another player.  In order to minimize the chances of players colliding heads during a header, the safest technique for performing a header needs to be trained.  Just like learning any new skill, players need a high number of repetitions practicing proper technique to learn effectively.

...So how do soccer players practice these necessary repetitions without exceeding the threshold that causes brain damage?

Why Our Sport Needs The Heading Trainer:

We have created a solution to this problem in the form of a lightweight ball that maximizes the simulation of a normal ball's flight pattern, and minimizes the sub-concussive impact when heading the ball. (It doesn't even register in a test for impact by top concussion research labs!)* Tested using Tri-Ax SIM-P Technology*

 “Eliminating head injuries in soccer is likely impossible, but reducing exposure and enhancing player safety is not,” says NSCAA Director of Coaching Education Ian Barker, who uses our ball for instruction in the new heading NSCAA course featuring Abby Wambach, focusing on techniques, practice activities and preparations. “What’s important is that coaches emphasize correct positioning and stance for executing safe, purposeful, and effective headers.”

Our lightweight ball allows players to get those high number of repetitions of practice that are needed to learn the safest technique for winning a header, while also keeping players well below that dangerous threshold of 885 headers per year with a regulation soccer ball.  We have also included heading progressions and videos of how to use The Heading Trainer to teach correct heading in our free mobile app for iOS and Android.  So, when the inevitable situation comes where players need to use their head during a match, they will do so more safely and effectively.

Through our Ball for a Ball program, for every Heading Trainer ball sold, we also donate a high quality soccer ball to disadvantaged youth in the USA through the ASK Foundation.

Sources: 

http://www.ebiomedicine.com/article/S2352-3964(16)30490-X/fulltext)

http://www.medicaldaily.com/heading-soccer-ball-could-result-long-term-brain-damage-246721 

 https://www.pathlms.com/nscaa/courses/3356

Amplified Soccer has reviewed their analytics for the past year and have counted down below the 16 most read posts, with The Triangle Training Method holding both the 1st place and 2nd place positions for the year! Thank you to all of our contributors that helped make it an amazing year. Full List

16. Finishing Drills Making Use of the Entire Team

This drill incorporates game related components and involves the whole team in the build-up to the shot. The outline for this drill is below the video along with the rest of the session outline. Watch Now

15. Aerobic Endurance Training Session by Ritchie Semple

If you want to compete at your best at soccer, you need to commit to pre-season training, so that your team’s strength and cardiovascular fitness peaks at the right time. This drill can get you started.

14. Individual Defending Exercises by Jeff Tipping

When defense is discussed, it is often in the context of the team. Yes, the defensive system employed by a coach, whether it is man-to-man or zonal, is important. But what are as important and often overlooked are the technical and tactical defensive abilities of the individual players. Keep Reading

13. Soccer Awareness Elite Academy and Barcelona Double Rondos for 10 Players – Part 1 by Wayne Harrison

This exercise is what the SAEA and Barcelona thinking model of passing and movement is built on. This is a transition game teaching a mentality to switch from attacking to defending and defending to attacking We build it up to make it work with real pace and accuracy; as again; it speeds up the mind and body in decision making. Keep Reading

12. The American Future Coach: The DaVinci Coach by Jeff Tipping

UEFA’s brilliant Technical Director, Andy Roxburgh, penned the phrase DaVinci Coach shortly after the book ‘The DaVinci Code’ hit the bestselling charts. His 2007 presentation in Basle, Switzerland focusing on the skills of the European future coach captivated an audience of European Technical Directors who came away inspired and anxious to get to work. Over the years I have found that Andy has that effect on people. It set me on the road to thinking about the skills our American “Future Coaches” must have in our unique and challenging position. Read More

11. Barcelona Rondo: Angled Passing and Moving in 4s by Wayne Harrison

This is a very simple but effective angled passing and moving drill teaching speed of play; accuracy of passing and angles of support. This is a grounding to prepare the thinking process in players in a very simple but effective way. The real test is when they get to ONE TOUCH passing and moving. Read More

10. Training The Final Pass / Breaking the Lines from The Triangle Training Method

Training players to know how and when to play the final pass that breaks down defenses is an extremely important piece of training for your team's attacking players. These type of passes, that are executed so consistently by elite playmakers like David Silva and Andrés Iniesta, are exciting to watch and often result in quality chances on goal. Watch Now

9. Preparing to Play – a Mental Warm Up by Dan Abrahams

How do you conduct yourself in the hour before kick off? What do you do? How do you go about preparing for an important game? As the match approaches so you should have protocols that help your body and your mind attune to competitive intensity. So let’s go step by step through a great pre-game mental warm up. I hope it will help you. Get The Script

8. Developing Decision Making Speed in Soccer from Performance Conditioning Soccer

This article discusses an important element affecting soccer performance - decision making speed. A player's ability to make correct split- second decisions is particularly critical at higher levels of competition where time and space are limited. The individual who can consistently choose the best course of action from a variety of possible options under conditions of limited time, restricted space, physical fatigue and challenging opponents will have a decided edge on players who lack that ability. Read More

7. Passing Patterns to Combine from Soccer Champions Coaches' Clinic

Passing patterns are designed patterns which players execute in a pre-set order. The patterns can range from very simple to very complex. These Passing Patterns to Combine drills develop technical ability, increase coordination of player movements, establish timing & rhythm, increase passing accuracy and player focus. Get The Drills

6. Awareness Session Warm Up by Wayne Harrison

Use this drill to make sure your team is physically and mentally prepared for their training session or game. Get The Drill

5. 7 Crazy Quick Ideas to Improve Your Soccer Game by Dan Abrahams

Working on your soccer psychology doesn’t need to be complicated or time consuming. I’m going to keep this brief. I’m going to keep this simple. But I promise each point works, and each point is powerful. Read More

4. How much time should young players spend with the ball? from 1v1 Soccer FC

From 1v1 Soccer FC’s perspective, the Arsenal model confirms our belief that for players to become successful in the game, they must be practicing more and more with the ball. Steve Bould (former Arsenal defensive star as a player, current assistant manager and former youth team coach) believes that young English players are still behind young European players in terms of weekly training time. Read More

3. Youth Conditioning - Integrating Speed, Agility, Strength and Fitness Training into Practice from Performance Conditioning Soccer

Time is always a consideration, with some club teams coming together only a few times a week. The coach has a lot to worry about. For coaches pressed for time, make speed and agility part of your warm up routine. Here's a progression that you can use. Keep Reading

2. Full Triangle Training Method Session #1 from The Triangle Training Method

With The Triangle Training Method learn mannequin training exercises used by top European teams such as Arsenal and Bayern Munich as well as games that create environments to pass and play in triangles. All age groups and skill levels can benefit from this type of training. Here is a sample training session

1. Mannequin Training, Pep Guardiola and The Triangle Training Method from The Triangle Training Method

Watch Pep Guardiola's former Bayern Munich 1st Team, an exemplary top European team, performing mannequin training. This is why Coach Warming believes it to be so important that US Soccer adopts this training methodology for player development throughout all age groups and tiers. Proper mannequin training is the most efficient way to give players functional repetitions of different patterns of play on the field. Watch Now

The Triangle Training Method and Pep Guardiola

Warming has helped design a completely free website TheTriangleTrainingMethod.com aimed at sharing innovative training methodologies to develop players of all age groups and skill levels.  The site outlines some of his team's training practices in Fall 2015 using mannequin training like this one:  

Notice Any Similarities? 

Here's a look at one of our favorite playmakers #21 David Silva, using the across body cut pass (mostly in the final 1/3 of the field) to break through the lines of the defense and pass out of tight space.

These type of passes, that are executed so consistently by elite playmakers like David Silva and Andrés Iniesta, are exciting to watch and often result in quality chances on goal.  More importantly this pass is usually an across body pass where the players hips are facing one direction (perhaps facing the defender), but he passes the ball with his leg swinging across his body, in a different direction.  This is an important type of pass for players to train, and perfect their technique, as it is used all the time to successfully break the lines of the opponents defense.

Watch 21 David Silva cut passes used to play between the lines of the opponents defense:

In order for these "breaking the lines" passes to come off consistently with your team, the timing and type of pass needs to be properly trained, as well as the timing and type of run made by the receiving player.

This Final Pass Set Up is just one of the many mannequin training exercises Arsenal uses with their first team as well as youth teams to train players to consistently execute the final pass:

Learn how to train the Final Pass in The Triangle Training Method eBook - Click Here to Purchase Separately or included with your Team Set of Training Triangles

 Since we began using this  methodology as part of our training,  we have never been out of first place  in the Big 10 Conference for even one  week from October 2012 to November  2014.  It was an amazing run by our  players.  Our percentage of completed passes has been over  82%, not typical in college soccer.    We have had soccer at Penn State for  105 seasons and a lot of records have  been broken during this recent run by our players.  We are far from perfect and do have our bad performances.  However, I believe the success of the program, in part, is because of this type of training.

Ok...so what is this training?  Virtually every European soccer club is performing some form of mannequin training in their youth development programs...and even with their first teams.    There is a lot of value in the repetition and patterns of combination play and different weight and angles of passes that mannequin training can provide...that is why so many clubs are using them!    In fact, it's difficult to find a pro training session of any top club on the internet where you don't see mannequins set up on for some portion of training. 

 In my experience, from observing  training sessions across our country,  very few clubs in the US Soccer  Development Academy are utilizing  mannequin training as part of our  youth development program.    Outside the Academy, it's almost non  existent.  The coaches of the players  in the Academies likely did not do  mannequin training when they were  playing, so they don't have a lot of  experience in using them personally.  We tend to teach only what we know!  Some of the primary reasons we have found that mannequin training has not been prevalent in the US are: lack of exposure to this type training as a player, not being taught in our coaching schools,  storage issues of mannequins, cost, portability etc. 

  I am certainly not saying that mannequin  training is the magic bullet for developing  players. However, when you examine what  first teams and youth teams are doing in  top clubs in Europe to develop players and  examine what we are doing in our youth  development programs... this type of  training is one prevalent training method  that seems to be missing. The good news  for you is that we have developed a  completely free coaching education  website that demonstrates for coaches how to do some of this type of training and some small sided games that can be used as a progression from the passing exercises: www.TheTriangleTrainingMethod.com.  If you want to incorporate mannequin training, similar to what the top clubs are doing with their players, the free website will provide you with hundreds of training ideas and quality demonstrations.

One of my personal favorite exercises comes from a mannequin exercise that Arsene Wenger does with his first team players in developing concepts of playing between the lines of opponents.  There is so much to teach in this exercise...body shape, communication, looking before you receive it, finding a new space to receive the ball, proper footwork, backing up to create space, different weight passes and many more.    http://www.thetriangletrainingmethod.com/three-box-progression.html

When I first started coaching, I used big traffic cones…yep, I know... I am old as dirt and that was all there was available back then.  No little cones existed when I started coaching nearly 40 years ago.  When little cones came on the market no one thought they could work because there was no height.  As you can see in the video, the triangles we use take the place of mannequins.   We use the flat triangles because the concept of the tall traffic cones applies to mannequins as well.  

What we need for passing exercises that involve mannequin training was the space that mannequins occupy, not the height.  That’s where The Training Triangles come in.  What we have found is that the Triangles can be used for a lot more than replacing mannequins.  They can also provide great agility and quick feet training in a small space (takes the place of speed ladders)

There is a lot of great work being done by a lot of coaches in the USA, not trying to change any of that!  Just think we are missing a training piece that is occurring in  Academies in Europe. Hopefully the free website will help you implement some of these training concepts into the first 45 minutes of your teams training.

Bob Warming

Head Soccer Coach

Penn State University

Watch Jurgen Klopp and his team conduct a training session with Liverpool and guess what training method they are using? (starts at about 2:30):

Learn how to perform this type of mannequin training (with less lines) and much more using the Training Triangles in your included Triangle Training Method eBook.  

To Read the Transcript of the Podcast Click Here

  Notice the symbol Chelsea uses to depict a mannequin?

 

Stoke City implementing a mannequin training exercise that can now be easily replicated using The Training Triangles:

Levante Mannequin Training: