Low Natural Fitness (What to do?)

I've seen the odd thread knocking about for this and they seem to come to the same conclusion in that you cannot do anything about it.

I have a 17 year old left winger with superb attributes and ability but 5 for Natural Fitness and the same for strength at my Rangers team and really want to play him. Obviously, he's finding it very difficult to play 90 minutes so I always have to take him off around the 70 minute mark.

Basically my question is about how to play someone like this? Is there a way to make him still be affective on the wing but maybe get him to be more resourceful with his runs or workrate?

Natural fitness affects recovery time. Stamina is the stat for lasting in games.

Natural fitness affects recovery time. Stamina is the stat for lasting in games.

Maybe be more cautious in your usage of them when below condition or be more prepared to take them off whenever they pick up a knock. Your physios will be able to tell if they're also injury prone or not, which could impact how you use them.

Could also change their role so maybe they have to do less defending/closing down to preserve condition.

Alternatively, they might be very useful as an impact sub.

Ah...is that so? Well his stamina is pretty low too. Can I train him heavily on Fitness and boost this?

Chances are his natural fitness will probably not improve much (if at all) and with that he might be prone to overexertion when it comes to physical training. If he's got low injury proneness and is professional, determined and ambitious then maybe you could see some good progress.

Only one way to find out for sure - get him on a more physical-intensive schedule ("strength" trains stamina) and see how he progresses.

In my country a manager weekly fined unhealthy overweight players for every extra kilogram they weighted. And many of them improved their fitness! I don't think you can do anything similar in FM to improve player's natural fitness, but you can adequate your training schedule with more strength exercises.