A football training schedule for individual players

Anchor the week to club training and fixtures

For a footballer, club training nights and the weekend fixture are the fixed structure of the week. Place them first, and the open evenings and afternoons become your space for individual work.

Own your development between sessions

Club training is built for the team, not for you specifically. The technical detail, finishing, agility and strength that move your own game forward usually happen in the extra sessions you plan yourself, each tied to a skill you’re building so the week has a point.

Plan around the fixture, not into it

Loading a hard individual session onto the day before or after a fixture costs you both. Keep those days lighter and push the demanding work to mid-week. A full-week view makes the right spacing obvious.

An example football training schedule for a week

Here is what a weekly football training schedule can look like for a youth club player: school five days a week, two club sessions, one weekend fixture, and individual work planned into the days that stay calm. Treat it as a template, not a prescription — your club nights may fall differently, and it is the shape of the week that matters, not the exact days.

The logic is simple. Wednesday carries the hardest club session because it sits furthest from the fixture. Friday’s individual session is deliberately easy — touches and mobility, nothing that leaves fatigue in Saturday’s legs. And the two rest days are planned, not leftover: Thursday breaks up the two halves of the week, Sunday absorbs the match. A player with three club sessions would drop one individual session rather than a rest day — the club work rises, so the extra work must give way.

When the week changes: two matches, or exams

With a midweek fixture as well as a weekend one, the week flips from building to recovering. Cut individual work back to one short technical session at most, keep the days either side of both matches light, and hold on to a full rest day even if it feels like doing nothing. Development doesn’t stop in a congested week — it moves into the matches themselves.

Exam weeks work the other way round: the body is fresh but the head is full, and school fatigue is real load even though no training happened. Keep the club sessions — the structure and the break from revision usually help — and drop the individual sessions first. They come back the week after. Seeing school and football in the same weekly plan turns this into a decision instead of a collision.

How much extra training by age group

Roughly U13–U15: one, at most two, short individual sessions on top of club training. These are growth years — load climbs quickly, and a young player gains more from quality touches and varied movement than from volume. Roughly U16–U19: two individual sessions is a sensible norm, three only in an otherwise calm week, and strength work starts to earn its place. At every age, at least one full rest day stays in the week, and the weekly total stays sensible.

It is tempting to copy professional volumes. Don’t — but do copy the structure. Our guide to how professional footballers structure their training week covers what is worth borrowing and what isn’t.

Watch the total, not just the sessions

School football, a club side and individual training stack up quickly for a young player. Progressure sums every session into one weekly load and lays out training and fixtures as the scaffold, so you plan around real life and keep the total in range.