Training equipment
Training and performance equipment
Training and performance equipment covers the kit a team brings to training and, at higher levels, to matchday. This guide explains the simple drill equipment used by coaches at every level, and the performance trackers that are common in professional and academy football.
What training equipment covers
A football training session involves more than a ball and a pitch. Even a basic warm-up uses several pieces of kit, and a structured drill usually adds several more.
Most training equipment is simple and inexpensive. Bibs, cones and a handful of poles are enough to run small-sided games, pattern-of-play drills and most warm-ups. As sessions get more structured, coaches add mannequins to act as opposition, ladders and hurdles for footwork drills, and rebounders for first-touch work. The same equipment is used at every level of the game, from grassroots training to professional clubs.
On top of the drill equipment, many professional and academy teams use electronic performance and tracking systems in training. These systems may use small wearable devices, optical tracking or local positioning systems to record how each player moves around the pitch. The data is reviewed after the session and, in some environments, during it.
Bibs
Bibs are the most-used piece of training equipment after the ball itself.
A bib is a lightweight mesh top in a bright colour, worn over a player's training kit so that two or more teams can be told apart during a drill. The simplest sessions use just two colours — one team in bibs, one team without. Larger groups or more complex drills can use three or four colours at once, with each team assigned a different role in the exercise.
Most clubs keep several sets of bibs in different sizes, so that the colour identification still works in matches between players of very different builds. Bibs do not have to follow the kit-clash rules of a match, which is one of the reasons they exist as a separate item — coaches can pick whatever colours stand out best on the day.
Cones, mannequins and drill tools
A handful of small items make up the standard set of training kit used by coaches at every level.
Cones and discs
Small plastic markers used to set out the pitch, mark target zones, and show players where to start, stop, or run. Cones are the taller, more visible version; flat discs are used where players need to run over them without tripping. Most coaches carry both.
Mannequins
Player-shaped figures, usually made of foam on a weighted base, used to stand in for opposition players. Mannequins are most often used to set up free-kick walls, to add defenders to a pattern-of-play drill, or to give wingers something to dribble around in repetition work.
Training poles
Tall plastic poles, usually flexible, set into the ground or weighted at the base. Poles are used as targets, as obstacles to run around, and as markers for areas a player must stay within. They give a clearer vertical line than a cone, which makes them useful for set-piece work.
Agility ladders
A flat ladder made of plastic or rope, laid on the ground for footwork drills. Players step through the rungs in various patterns, working on quick feet, change of direction and coordination. Agility ladders are most common in warm-ups and in youth coaching.
Hurdles
Small plastic hurdles, usually no higher than the knee, used in jumping and bounding drills. Hurdles add a vertical element to footwork training and are often used alongside agility ladders.
Rebounders
Angled, sprung boards that bounce a ball back to a player. Rebounders are used in first-touch, passing and shooting drills, particularly when one player is training alone or when the coach wants to control the speed and angle of the return.
Tracking vests and performance systems
Electronic performance and tracking systems, usually called EPTS, are common in professional football and academy environments.
A wearable EPTS device is usually a small unit carried in a pouch on the back of a tight-fitting vest. The vest is worn under the player's shirt, with the device often sitting between the shoulder blades. EPTS data can come from GPS, internal motion sensors, optical tracking or local positioning systems around the pitch.
The data is uploaded after each session and reviewed by coaching and sports-science staff. Over time, individual profiles build up for each player — how far they run in a typical match, how often they sprint, how their workload changes from week to week — and the data is used to plan training, manage injury risk and decide when a player needs a rest.
What EPTS data covers
The data from a tracking vest covers more than just total distance. Several categories of measurement are used together.
Distance covered
The total distance the player has run during the session or match. Distance is usually broken down into walking, jogging, running, high-speed running and sprinting, so coaches can see not just how far a player has gone but how hard they have been working.
Sprints and accelerations
The number of times a player has accelerated past a certain speed, and the number of full sprints they have performed. Sprint counts are a strong indicator of the intensity of a match or training session, and are watched closely when a player is returning from injury.
Heart rate and physical load
Many EPTS systems include a heart-rate monitor, either built into the vest or worn as a separate chest strap. Combined with movement data, heart rate gives a measure of the physical load each player has experienced — useful for spotting fatigue and managing rest days.
Position and movement patterns
Where on the pitch each player has been during the session, plotted as a heatmap. Position data is used to check whether players are sticking to their tactical role, whether the team's shape is holding under pressure, and where individual players tend to be when goals are scored or conceded.
Wearables in matches
For most of football's history, only kit was worn under the shirt. Electronic tracking systems became part of the game during the modern era.
The Laws of the Game allow wearable technology as part of electronic performance and tracking systems where the equipment is safe and does not pose a danger. In official competitions organised under FIFA, confederations or national associations, the competition organiser must ensure that wearable EPTS meets the FIFA Quality Programme requirements. In practice, EPTS systems are mostly seen at professional clubs and in academy football.
The data collected during matches is used in the same way as training data — to manage workload, to track recovery between matches, and to inform tactical work in the days that follow. Some competitions also share anonymised match data with broadcasters, which is why television coverage often includes statistics on distance covered and top speeds during the match itself.
What to read next
Training equipment is the link between the kit a player wears and the pitch they play on. The next two pages cover each of those in turn.