This last match I left the tailgate early and went in. I got to see the player warmups. Now most people don't pay much attention to these, but as a youth soccer coach I like to see what others are doing, especially the pros.
Now the Crew were doing the usual kind of warmups. "Suicide" runs, stretching, simple passing drills. The surprise was with TFC. Winsper was having TFC doing totally unusual exercises that I had never seen before in my life. Ones where they hop on one foot while rotating their other leg at the waist, and ones where they weave in and out. He also had them doing short runs with sudden change in direction. I could understand what he was doing. He was simulating the types of movements that players do in matches, particularly those that can cause injury if you're not loosened/warmed up, and warming up our players so that those injuries wouldn't occur. The boys seemed to know all of the exercises and it gave some insight into his scientific methods for preventing injury. I have to say that I was impressed.
Winsper's record speaks for itself: our team is almost injury-free.