Featured Image Credit: LFC - X/@statsports
Topics: Arne Slot, Liverpool, Premier League
Jack Kenmare
Liverpool manager Arne Slot and his backroom staff have decided to introduce a new fitness test to pre-season training at Kirkby – and footage of the drill has emerged.
Jurgen Klopp would often welcome his players back to pre-season with the dreaded Lactate Test – an exercise used to learn the highest intensity at which a player can train or compete before hitting the wall from high levels of blood lactate.
In short, players were tasked with running around one of the training pitches at a series of different intervals and paces, with blood tests taken by staff after every interval to test for levels of lactic acid.
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James Milner, who enjoyed eight seasons at Liverpool following his switch from Manchester City in 2015, won the test every year before leaving in 2023.
"We are a fit team, there are a lot of players who have great engines - Hendo, Gini, Robbo. But Milly, I don’t think I’ll ever see anyone as fit as him [Milner]," Trent Alexander-Arnold said.
"I remember a few years ago Kev Stewart would give him a run for his money in pre-season. But considering his age and how long he’s played for, to still be the fittest player in arguably the fittest team in the world, and by some margin, that takes some doing."
Now, it appears new Liverpool manager Arne Slot has ditched the Lactate Test in favour of a 6-Minute Race Test (6MRT) to obtain the players’ maximum aerobic speed.
As mentioned by X account STATSports, the players involved ran for six minutes around a 400m race track, as seen in the footage below.
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'Essentially it is to gauge maximal aerobic speed," the company state. "From there, the performance staff can understand the physical thresholds of each player and design training plans accordingly, monitored by our GPS.
"The 6MRT is very similar to the Lactate test in terms of what it’s achieving (obtaining each player’s MAS) - they’re just carried out in different ways.
"The lactate is intermittent. You run at increasing speeds/intervals then stopped at stages so medical staff can take your blood to see if your lactate has passed a certain threshold; if it has, you’re out of the test. The 6MRT is a continuous race."
Slot isn't renowned as a strict disciplinarian, but he still some rules that he sticks to in training.
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While at Feyenoord, Slot asked his players to press 'all the time'. His style of play, which is based around pressing and dominating possession of the ball, makes use of statistics and video clips.
It is said that the players were 'bombarded' with these as a form of 'indoctrination'.
Furthermore, he also adapted the popular rondo drill so that players could only take one touch before passing it to a team-mate. They also cannot return the ball to the player that passed it to them, and must keep the ball below the knee at all times.