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The 11+: The Warm-Up That Replaces Your Warm-Up

Twenty structured minutes, three parts, done at the start of training — and the one rule that decides whether it works.

Aidan Dayton

Aidan Dayton

Technical Director, Coach Central

For me the 11+ is the clearest example of a warm-up with an objective — it is not there to raise the heart rate, it is there to groove the movements that protect the knee, and the research behind it is strong enough that I think every coach should know its shape.

The shape of it

The 11+ is three parts and fifteen exercises, done in order at the start of training, and it replaces the warm-up you already run so it costs no extra time. Part one is about eight minutes of slow running through a line of cones. Part two is the engine room — about ten minutes off the ball covering core, hamstrings, single-leg balance, squats and jumps, each with three levels of difficulty. Part three is a short two minutes of faster running with planting and cutting. The structure is deliberate: switch the body on, build the control, then take it toward game speed. Teams that run it regularly have cut injuries by somewhere between a third and a half, with the biggest drops in the serious ones.

Objectives before intensity

The way I would coach it is the way I coach anything — start with the objective, not the activity. The objective of every exercise is clean movement: straight leg alignment, the knee stacked over the toe, soft landings, the knee never caving inward. So you start every player at level one and you keep them there until they own it. Correct the mistakes out loud, the same as you would a bad body shape to receive. Only move a player up when they can do the current level cleanly for the full count, and it is completely fine for the same player to be at level three for the plank and level one for the hamstrings. Raising the difficulty before the movement is clean just trains the fault harder.

The rule that decides everything

Compliance. I want to be honest about this because it is the whole thing — the research is blunt that the benefit tracks almost entirely with how often and how well a team actually does it. At least twice a week, performed properly. A programme on paper protects nobody. So the real coaching job is not memorising fifteen exercises, it is protecting those twenty minutes every single week, especially on the day everyone turns up tired and wants to skip to the ball, and holding the quality when you do. Do that and you keep your best players available. Available players develop faster and win more. Those were never two different goals.

Block the 11+ into two specific training slots for the next month as your warm-up, not an addition. Write down which slots, who leads it, and how you will hold the quality on the tired day. Run it for two weeks, then note where your group's movement is strongest and weakest.

  • The 11+ is three parts (running; strength/balance/plyometrics; faster running) done in order as a replacement warm-up.
  • Start everyone at level one and progress per exercise only when the movement is clean — technique before intensity.
  • The protective effect depends on compliance: at least twice a week, done properly. On paper it protects nobody.

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