Referee István Kovács HI training session

FIFA referee István Kovács shares his favourite fitness exercises with the readeres of my blog. It’s a high-intensity training sessions and below he explains how it goes and why he loves it.

István Kovács is a Romanian Elite referee for Uefa and he officiated the 2022 Conference League final. He also has been to several final tournaments now. Because he’s top fit, I asked him to share his favourite exercise with me.

“My favorite is exercise is 10 times 400 m run”, he says. That’s one lap on the athletics track. And what is his pace? “400 m in 70 sec and 1 min recovery between each lap.”

It is a HI training session and it helps me during the matches, because it keeps my heart rate high for long time. I feel never tired during the matches.”

Where do you run this? “I’m doing this on track and sometimes on grass in 50 m run, but then the time is extended to 80 sec/rep and 1:30 recovery time.”

It’s an intense session, that’s why he never runs this shortly before a game. “Always at the beginning of the week.”

Advice for you: just make sure what your pace is for a round of 400 metres. Don’t start to rush things, because you might get injured. Build the pace up or break up the 10 rounds in 2 times 5 rounds for example.