Pre-seasonPre-seasonTraining loadAthlete monitoring

Pre-Season Monitoring: A 6-Week Plan for Coaches

Plan and monitor a 6-week pre-season with session RPE, ACWR, and wellness checks, no GPS needed. A week-by-week readiness guide for small-club coaches.

Quick answer

Pre-season monitoring means tracking three things across the 6 weeks before your first match: training load (session RPE and ACWR), wellness (sleep, soreness, mood, stress, fatigue), and readiness signals like pain and physical-test baselines. The goal is a progressive load ramp from a low base rather than a spike. Build the week-to-week load gradually, keep the acute:chronic workload ratio roughly between 0.8 and 1.3, and let wellness and pain data flag the players who aren't coping before they break down.

Why it matters

Pre-season is where the season's injuries are set up

Players come back detrained after the off-season, and the temptation is to make up for lost time fast. That jump off a low base is exactly the pattern that gets athletes hurt.

A returning squad has a low chronic workload. The bodies in front of you are adapted to weeks of rest, not to double sessions. When you load hard in week one to "get them fit," the acute load spikes while the chronic base is still low. That combination, a sharp acute rise on a low foundation, is the highest-risk quadrant in the load-injury research. Pre-season is also where you build the fitness buffer that protects players later, so the block has to load them without breaking them.

5-7x

Higher non-contact injury risk

When ACWR exceeds 2.0 on a low chronic base (EPL, 33 players, 3 seasons).

0.8-1.3

ACWR working range

The commonly cited sweet spot for balancing fitness and injury risk.

This isn't a reason to train soft. Under-loading pre-season leaves players unprepared for the demands of competition, which carries its own injury cost when the fixtures start. The job is a controlled ramp: enough load to build a base, applied gradually enough that nobody outruns their own adaptation. Session RPE gives you a way to see that ramp without a single GPS unit. Read our guide to session RPE if you're setting it up from scratch.

Bowen et al. (2019), English Premier League, found non-contact injury risk 5-7 times higher (RR up to 6.7) when ACWR exceeded 2.0 with low chronic load. Gabbett (2016) and Malone et al. (2017, professional soccer) describe a lower-risk ACWR range around 0.8-1.3, though that "sweet spot" is contested: Lolli et al. (2019) and Impellizzeri et al. (2020) show the ratio is mathematically unstable when chronic load is low, which is exactly the case early in pre-season. Treat ACWR as a monitoring aid, not an injury predictor.

Expect ACWR to read high early, and don't panic

Coming off the off-season, the chronic base is low, and a low chronic load mathematically inflates the ratio. So the first weeks will show higher ACWR values that mean less than they look. That's normal. The number tightens and becomes more useful as the base builds. What actually raises risk is a sharp jump in acute load while the chronic base is still low, not a high reading on its own. Higher ratios are also more tolerable once players are fit, since a well-built chronic load is itself protective. Treat 0.8-1.3 as a guide, not a hard rule.

The shape of the block

Split the 6 weeks into base, build, and sharpen

A pre-season block has a rhythm. The first weeks rebuild a foundation, the middle weeks carry the heaviest load, and the last weeks sharpen and taper into the opening fixture.

Phase (weeks)	Load focus	Monitoring focus
Base (weeks 1-2)	Rebuild volume from a low base. Moderate intensity, generous recovery.	Establish baselines. Watch soreness and sleep as bodies re-adapt.
Build (weeks 3-4)	Highest weekly load of the block. Add intensity and football-specific work.	Watch ACWR and monotony. This is where spikes hurt people.
Sharpen (weeks 5-6)	Reduce volume, keep intensity sharp. Friendlies replace some training load.	Confirm readiness is rising. Flag anyone still carrying fatigue or pain.

Coach takeaway

The base phase earns you the right to load hard in the build phase. If you skip it and go straight to heavy weeks, the build-phase load lands on a foundation that isn't there yet. Weeks 1-2 aren't wasted time, they're what makes weeks 3-4 safe.

The inputs

What to monitor, and why each one earns its place

You don't need a lab. Four data streams, collected on the athlete's phone, tell you almost everything you need to manage a pre-season block.

Training load (RPE x duration)

Session RPE multiplied by minutes gives you internal load in arbitrary units. Feed it into ACWR and monotony and you can see the ramp, spot spikes, and compare weeks without any hardware.

Wellness (McLean scale)

A daily 1-5 check on sleep, soreness, stress, mood, and fatigue. Pre-season fatigue accumulates fast. A falling wellness trend is often the first sign a player is behind on recovery. Our wellness monitoring guide covers the scale in detail.

Body pain mapping

Where it hurts, how much, and what kind. A rising pain signal on a specific region is the earliest warning you get, usually before a player is willing to say they're struggling out loud.

Physical-test baselines

A short battery in week one gives you a reference point: strength, power, speed, endurance, mobility. Retest late in pre-season to confirm the block actually built something, not just tired people out.

Session RPE (Foster et al. 2001) is a validated, low-cost load measure: intensity on a 0-10 scale multiplied by session duration. Reviews since (Haddad et al. 2017) confirm it's reliable and practical for team sport, which is why it works for clubs without GPS.

The playbook

A week-by-week pre-season load ramp

This is a starting template, not a prescription. Anchor it to your own squad's starting fitness and your fixture date, then let the monitoring data pull individuals off the plan when they need it.

Week and load	Session focus	Watch for
Week 1 (low, rebuild)	Aerobic base, movement quality, low-intensity football.	Excessive soreness, poor sleep from the sudden return.
Week 2 (low to moderate)	Add volume. Introduce more football-specific work.	Anyone whose soreness isn't settling between sessions.
Week 3 (moderate to high)	Raise intensity. First heavier conditioning blocks.	ACWR climbing too fast on individuals returning late.
Week 4 (peak load)	Peak weekly load. Full-intensity football and conditioning.	Monotony (too many samey hard days), strain, falling wellness.
Week 5 (moderate, sharpen)	Cut volume, keep intensity. First friendlies.	Fatigue that isn't lifting as volume drops.
Week 6 (low, taper)	Match-specific sharpness, set-pieces, final friendly.	Any lingering pain flags before the opening fixture.

1
Set week-one baselines
Run a short physical-test battery and start daily wellness and RPE from day one, so you have a reference to measure against.
2
Ramp load gradually into week four
Increase weekly internal load step by step. Avoid large jumps between weeks, especially for players who arrived back late or under-prepared.
3
Watch ACWR through the build phase
Weeks 3-4 are where acute load rises fastest. Keep individuals in a sensible range and pull back anyone spiking well above their chronic base.
4
Sharpen and confirm readiness
In weeks 5-6, drop volume, keep intensity, and use friendlies as load. Retest to confirm the block built fitness rather than fatigue.

Week-to-week checks

Weekly load rose gradually, with no single sharp spike.
ACWR stayed roughly in the 0.8-1.3 range for most players.
No player has a sustained falling wellness trend.
Pain flags are being reviewed individually, not averaged away.
Late returners are on a slower, separate ramp.

Reading the data

How to know the block is working

A pre-season is working when fitness is rising and the warning signals stay quiet. Here's how to tell the difference between productive fatigue and a player heading for the treatment table.

Signal	Looks healthy when	Red flag when
ACWR	Reads high early, then settles as the chronic base builds.	A sharp acute jump on a still-low base (a real spike, not just a high reading).
Monotony	Weeks have clear hard and easy contrast.	Every day looks the same, with no recovery variation.
Wellness trend	Dips after hard days, recovers within a day or two.	Falls for several days and doesn't rebound.
Body pain	Occasional, low-intensity, resolves quickly.	Same region, rising intensity, across multiple check-ins.
Physical tests	Late-block retest shows maintained or improved output.	Retest output drops, suggesting accumulated fatigue.

Individuals over averages

A squad average can look fine while one player quietly falls apart. The value of monitoring is catching that individual early. When a player's pain climbs or wellness slides, adjust their load before the team number ever moves.

In practice

Run the whole loop without a spreadsheet

The monitoring above is simple in theory and painful in a spreadsheet: chasing RPE submissions, recalculating ACWR by hand, and eyeballing wellness across a full squad. This is the job Fractall automates.

Fractall pre-season loop

Athletes submit RPE and daily wellness on their phone, plus body pain and physical-test results.

Fractall calculates internal load, ACWR, monotony, and strain automatically as the block progresses.

The coach dashboard flags spikes, falling wellness, and rising pain by player, not just by team average.

Export a PDF at the end of each phase to review the ramp with staff before the next block.

No hardware, no GPS units, no formulas to maintain. You schedule sessions, players submit, and the load and wellness metrics build themselves. When pre-season ends and the fixtures start, the same loop carries into your in-season match-week planning, so nothing gets rebuilt from scratch.

Monitor your pre-season without spreadsheets

Collect RPE and wellness, calculate ACWR and monotony automatically, and see player readiness before every session.

Try Fractall free

FAQs

Pre-season monitoring questions

Short answers for coaches building a monitored pre-season block.

How long should a pre-season block be?

Six weeks is a common window for many clubs, but the length depends on your calendar and how detrained the squad returned. The principles hold whether you have four weeks or eight: rebuild a base, load progressively, then sharpen.

Do I need GPS to monitor pre-season load?

No. Session RPE multiplied by duration gives you internal load and everything built on it, including ACWR and monotony, without any hardware. GPS adds external-load detail, but it isn't required to run a well-monitored block.

What ACWR should I aim for in pre-season?

Expect it to read high early. A low chronic base coming off the off-season mathematically inflates the ratio, so the first weeks look higher and mean less. What matters is a real spike: a sharp jump in acute load while the chronic base is still low. The commonly cited 0.8-1.3 range is a guide, not a hard threshold, and the "sweet spot" figure itself is contested in the research. Read ACWR as a trend alongside wellness and pain, not a single number that decides everything.

How do I handle players who join late?

Put them on a slower, separate ramp. A late returner has an even lower chronic base, so the same team session is a bigger relative spike for them. Individual monitoring is what lets you manage that without holding the whole squad back.

What's the single most useful thing to track?

If you can only start with one stream, start with session RPE. It takes seconds per player, needs no hardware, and gives you load, ACWR, monotony, and strain. Add daily wellness next.

Coach recap

Rebuild a base in weeks 1-2 before loading hard in weeks 3-4.
Ramp weekly load gradually and avoid spikes off a low base.
Track load, wellness, pain, and physical-test baselines together.
Manage individuals, especially late returners, not just the squad average.
Carry the same monitoring loop into the season once fixtures begin.

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