Recently, I started a journey to get myself back into acceptable football shape after two years without playing. Obviously, I've been training in the gym regularly, but football-specific training is a different beast. So, let's see how I managed to achieve this goal.
Before getting into the steps I took and the whole process, I want to give you some context, because the background is important if you want to understand how the results came about.
If you're only interested in the steps themselves, you can skip ahead to the seven-step breakdown. But if you want to understand the reasoning behind the process and walk away with a better understanding of football fitness, keep reading.
Understanding My Starting Point
Over the previous two years, I had no football-related activities. I went for a tempo run probably once or twice, and I spent a year and a half working in a warehouse. Weight training had been my only regular form of exercise for a long period of time.
The key to maintaining football fitness is simple: keep playing.
Regular football training that simulates the game, combined with playing a match at least once a week, keeps your body familiar with the intensity required to maintain decent football readiness.
When you stop playing for a long time, however, problems arise. Football isn't like going for a jog and setting your own pace. In football, you don't set the tempo; you adapt to it. If you struggle to keep up, your opponents can take advantage of that and defeat you more easily.
That's why, before even starting this journey and completing my first official workout, I introduced a one-week adaptation period.
Preparing My Body Before the First Workout
During that first week, I did mini-training sessions lasting up to five minutes in my yard. These consisted of basic football drills involving changes of direction and intensity, combining walking jogging and sprinting. The purpose was to reintroduce my body to those types of movements. Also since i knew that in the beginning i was going to focus a lot more on stamina and speed, before i began this journey i regularly did some wall passing so i can get that stuff in and get my feeling back quickly.
I also gradually began adding more plyometric and bodyweight exercises to my regular gym workouts. This made my sessions more dynamic, with more movement and variety throughout.
Looking back, doing these two things was an absolutely brilliant decision. When I finished my first official workout of this comeback journey, I felt much better and was less tired and fatigued than I had expected.
The beginning
The first session wasn't going to be overly structured. My approach was to reintroduce my body to the movements performed during a football match or training session.
Another important decision was to focus much more on my weaknesses than my strengths during the first five training sessions. Improving speed, stamina, acceleration, and long shooting became the main priorities of this first cycle.
My First Training Session
I made sure to include different types of exercises, with plenty of variety and relatively few repetitions. Overall, the workout lasted two hours.
The worst parts were definitely sprinting and shooting, which were both really bad. However, by the next session, I had already noticed a slight improvement in my shooting because I had figured out a better technique for myself.
Making Technical Training a Daily Habit
After focusing mainly on running during the first couple of training sessions, I began implementing technical sessions every single day.
Most of the time, these consisted of basic wall-passing drills designed to keep my technique sharp and polished.
I did this every day, sometimes for only five minutes, sometimes for 30 minutes, and sometimes through four mini-sessions lasting 10–15 minutes each.
I had to adapt my training around other responsibilities, but I always made sure to get my repetitions in. In a way, this type of structure helped me a lot.
Why Shorter, More Frequent Sessions Can Work Better
To become football-ready, you don't necessarily have to go out and run 10 kilometres every other day. But one way or another, the training needs to get done.
In my opinion, the best way to approach this after a long hiatus is to progress gradually, step by step.
For example, instead of doing one gruelling three-hour session, you could do six sessions lasting 30 minutes each.
Why?
Because you need to keep your movements sharp, whether you're performing a technical drill, sprinting, or working on stamina. The quality of execution is important.
As you train more and more, you'll become capable of repeating those quality executions more frequently and maintaining that level for longer periods.
Building Up My Running Capacity
Over time, after each session, I began doing around four to seven laps around the pitch. I adjusted the tempo so that I would work at my highest intensity during the final two laps.
Personally, this was the hardest part of the training sessions. However, I wanted to challenge my body further instead of becoming too comfortable with stop-start movements, constantly speeding up and slowing down.
Why Conditioning Was My Main Focus
When it came to technique, I focused less on that aspect because I believe it is one of my strengths and that I can regain my feel for the ball relatively easily.
That's why conditioning remained the main focus throughout this journey.
The 7 Steps to Get Back Into Football Shape After a Hiatus
Step 1: Body Adaptation Process
For one week, perform short mini-sessions lasting up to five minutes.
Include:
Brief changes of direction.
Sprints at around 40–50% intensity.
Combinations of walking, high-speed running, and sprinting.
These are not actual workouts. Think of them as a preparation and body-adaptation process designed to reintroduce your body to football-specific movements.
Step 2: Address Your Main Weakness
During the first week, place your main focus on your biggest weakness, which will probably be stamina.
The first session should be all-around workouts that expose you to as many different exercises as possible.
In the first 7 days of your journey, you should do at least 4 training sessions. First one all arounder, two strictly dedidated for stamina and speed, and one strictly dedicated to technique.
Structure:
Monday: All arounder
Wednesday: Stamina, speed
Thursdday: Technique
Saturday: Stamina, speed
Step 3: Adjust Your Gym Routine
Gradually introduce more bodyweight and plyometric exercises into your regular weight-training routine.
The purpose is to make your workouts more dynamic and keep your body moving throughout the sessions.
Step 4: Increase Training Sessions, Decrease the Time
As you progress further into your comeback journey, the quality of your execution needs to improve.
Yes, you'll work extremely hard, but the goal isn't to train until failure every time.
The objective is to gradually increase your failure time — meaning the amount of time you can continue performing high-intensity movements before your performance begins to deteriorate.
With each training session and each passing week, you want to improve your overall capacity as an athlete and become capable of performing high-intensity movements for longer periods.
You'll still get your repetitions in one way or another, but there should be more strategy behind how you approach them. The goal is to ensure that your repetitions are performed properly during every session.
Step 5: Wall Passing and Ball Receiving
As you approach the end of your comeback journey, your technical sessions should focus primarily on wall passing and, especially, ball receiving.
There are multiple combinations you can practise, but this particular drill is the main event when it comes to preparing for a comeback.
This is a very common way players receive the ball during a match. To make sure you don't feel rusty when you return to the pitch, repeat this drill relentlessly.
When game time comes, you'll feel much more comfortable with this particular aspect of your game — almost as if you never left.
Step 6: Full-Body Workouts
Around the middle of your comeback journey, start incorporating more full-body workouts that combine plyometric and bodyweight exercises.
You need to make your body a weapon in itself.
Set time limits, write down the minimum number of repetitions needed to complete a set, and challenge your body to perform at a high level.
It's not just about maintaining activity for a long time. It's about producing force repeatedly and maintaining that output over time.
Step 7: Football Simulator — The Final Chapter
This is the football-readiness test I created for players.
Instead of immediately attempting the entire workout, I recommend starting with three sessions of just five minutes each.
The week before the final test, work up to 15 minutes. Then, in the final chapter, complete the full 25-minute Football Simulator test and assess your readiness to play.
If your breathing feels comfortable, you experience no discomfort throughout those 25 minutes, and you feel as though you could do even more, it's fair to say that you've passed the test.
Measuring high-speed capacity over just three seconds is difficult, so those types of details take a backseat and aren't the main metric here.
What's important is how your body feels during the test and afterwards.
Thankfully, I didn't experience any problems in the days following my test and was completely ready to perform high-impact training, even on the same day.
I couldn't have said the same thing after my first week of training. Usually, by the time I finished a session, my legs were pretty much done (i had energy to work out in the gym though, just my legs didn't recover as quickly in the beginning as they were in the later stages of the journey).
However, as I gradually increased the intensity and strategised my way through the training sessions, my body began recovering faster and my overall readiness improved.
Final Thoughts: Hard Work, Smart Work, Consistency, and Strategy
Getting back into football shape is about hard work, smart work, consistency, and strategy.
If you want to achieve meaningful results, give yourself at least one or two months. Don't expect to return to proper football shape in just 10 days.
Take your time, get your repetitions in, and be smart about how you approach your training.
That's how I approached my comeback journey, and it's the structure I followed to improve my football readiness after two years away from the game.
Creator of the presentation: Marko Kostovski
17.10.2026
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