The Physical Demands of Football (Soccer) - Part I

I probably will cop a bit of flack for persisting to describe the round ball game as football whilst living in Australia. Heck, our national team is called the SOCCERoos. Yet I can't help myself. It just makes sense. Of all the footballs, it is the one in which you use your foot most.

Nomenclature nitpicking aside, I said I'd write about the physical demands of the game, so this leads off my two part series which will look at the physical demands of football. This first part will discuss the energy system demands of the game, as well as a suggestion on training for it, whilst the second part will discuss the motor skills required to make it big, or just make an impact at your local ground.

Analysis of World Cup play showed that players on average covered a distance of 10 km in a game, yet over 51% of the high intensity action lasted only 20 seconds or less. Actual sprinting occurred even less, at only 5.8% of the time spent running, Gambetta (2002).

Other analysis shows a total breakdown of movement as follows: It was found that during the 90 minutes players spent 17% (15 min.) standing, 42% (38 min.) walking, 16% (14 min.) jogging, 25% (22 min.) running with less than 2 minutes of this sprinting, dos Remedios (2010).

What does this mean though?

Well, before I read this, and before I knew much about physiology, I would have said soccer is an aerobic dominant sport. Yet now I realise that although it appears to be an aerobic sport, the game is played with a constantly elevated heart rate, with peaks and troughs as effort goes up and down. There are bursts of effort (anaerobic), and recovering from those bursts (aerobic).

With the breakdown of movement, you can see that the game is almost like a multi-directional, reactive, series of sub-maximal high intensity intervals, that last 90 minutes. So hopefully it is a bit clearer that football is much more anaerobic than it appears, and as such, training should be planned accordingly.

It was interesting to hear Sir Alex Ferguson comment on Manchester United's pre season training this summer. He mentioned how in years gone by, the players would perform longer distance running, which included 400 m runs, 800 m runs and often higher. This season he said most of the work was 200 m runs. This is is the change in thought process that parallels his comments I blogged about relating to improvements in sports science.

So ideally, an interval form of training would be used, that taxes high intensity efforts, moderate intensity efforts and low intensity recovery. Multi directional movement is well suited, as it mimics the game, as does incorporating both reactive and proactive ball work into the intervals - it is no good to have a player that can run all game, but can't control the ball when fatigued.

So a sample program could be:

Warm Up:

- Full Body Mobility Circuit (Rocking ankle mobilisations, split stance adductor mobilisations, squat to stand, high knee walks, forearm wall slides, lateral lunge walks)

- Some easy jumping drills

Intervals:

- Box to box runs (from 18 yd line to 18 yd line, at a high, but not flat out pace), perform 10 runs, resting as long as it takes to perform the run

- Multi directional ball drill (groups of 6, with 5 forming a circle holding balls and one in th middle, for 20 seconds, the player in the middle runs to whoever calls his name, and returns a pass played to him, at the end of the 20 seconds, the next player in the circle goes. Repeat 6 times)

- Set up cones/players in a zig-zagging fashion for about 30 metres. Players run from cone to cone and rest 4 times as long as it took them for a total of 5 rounds

- Suicide runs with a ball (From end line to 18 yd line jog, from 18 yd line to halfway line run, from halfway line to 18 yd line walk/very slow jog, sprint the last 18 yds and repeat. Begin at 6 minutes and add 30 seconds each time until 10 total minutes).

Now this isn't a perfect program by any stretch, but it emphasises high intensity repeated efforts alternated with recovery periods, in multiple directions, with and without the ball and in a reactive and proactive manner - just like in a game. Keep that in mind, and you will be well on your way to your best season yet.

References:

Gambetta, V., (2002), Gambetta Method - A Common Sense Guide to Functional Training for Athletic Performance, 2nd Ed., Gambetta Sports Training Systems, Sarasota, FL

dos Remedios, R., (2010), Soccer is an aerobic sport, isn't it?, accessed here

Nick Efthimiou is a Personal Trainer and Masters student of Osteopathy at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He is interested in science, philosophy and psychology as it applies to health, fitness and sports performance. His blog can be found at http://nickefthimiou.blogspot.com

The Physical Demands of Football (Soccer) - Part II

After discussing the energy system demands of football and how to condition for the game in Part I, I will now focus on the motor system demands.

Just to be clear, when I talk about motor system demands, I'm talking about everything that is controlled by the motor cortex and associated areas in the brain. I'm well aware that the only true motor quality is strength, and that without sensory information, such as proprioception, this would be an uncoordinated mess, but for simplicity's sake I will group everything from strength and agility to balance under the heading of motor system demands.

Strength is the foundation of every other motor quality. Charles Staley has likened maximal strength to the top rung of a ladder, where if you improve it, all the other motor qualities below it are improved as well.

Footballers are traditionally notorious for shying away from the weight room. Whilst this may have changed at the high end of the game, many recreational players still avoid the iron for a myriad of (mythological) reasons ranging from tradition to fear of becoming 'muscle bound' and immobile.

It is now common knowledge that such claims are ludicrous, and that strength training should be part of every athlete's regime.

Footballer players should focus on increasing strength in the big lifts, in decreasing order of importance: squats, pulls (O-lift variations, rows and chins) and presses. There isn't much demand in the game to move external loads, so loading so progress from bodyweight, to weighted vest and finally to barbell. This progression will teach the body to become more efficient at moving, which is one of the goals of strength training.

A sample, and very basic program could look like:

DAY 1

1a - Dynamic Warm Up

2a - Power Exercise (Jump, O-lift variation)

3a - Squat Variation (Back, front, overhead, weighted vest)

3b - Upper Body Pull (Closed chain variations such as inverted rows and pull ups)

3c - Upper Body Push (Closed chain variations such as push ups and dips)

4a - Core Exercise (Planks, Anti-rotations, Roll-outs)

Depending on the player's needs and muscle balance, a second lower body exercise focusing on the posterior chain could also be included.

The point to emphasise is that most players have such undeveloped strength that a basic program is all they will ever need. Remember, the aim of training is supposed to complement the performance in the game, not be the focus itself.

Power training, such as jumps to a high box, broad jumps, med ball throws teach the body to generate force as quickly as possible. Important for striking the ball, where you only have a split second to generate the force to kick the ball - the more force you can generate, the harder you can kick.

Another important part of the game is the ability to rapidly decelerate and change direction. Think of a winger marauding down the flank, only to suddenly cut the ball back to whip in a cross. To train the body to better decelerate, plyometric exercises, such as depth drops, where the object is to absorb force, and depth jumps, where the object is to rapidly go from eccentric to concentric contraction - working on the stretch-shortening, or elastic part of muscle contraction.

From a training economy point of view, I favour the O-Lift variations. Although they can have a longer learning curve than jumps and throws, the investment is well worth it. They involve applying force against the ground rapidly, then rapidly absorbing that force. Even basic variations such as squat jumps and jump shrugs are great!

So far all I have talked about is strength and power, which are the foundations of any solid program. We also have to address balance and agility. Nothing will trump actually playing the game in this regard. Including single leg lifts - once some decent strength has been achieved on the bilateral squats - can definitely help the area of balance (I use the term balance to describe maintaining posture - especially in a single leg stance and/or whilst being interrupted by external forces - like a player bumping another who is shielding the ball).

However, as far as specificity goes, playing and training will trump just about anything. With solid conditioning, as outline in part I, a good foundation of strength, agility will be achieved with playing and training. Small sided games, cone drills and reactive change of direction drills will be the basis here. Performed with a ball they can improve skills at the same time.

Off season, when you have more time, you can have sessions dedicated to strength/power, conditioning, agility and skills. In season you could combine the conditioning and agility training, possibly even the skills training at times. A decreased strength/power training schedule will leave more time for tactical sessions and recovery.

By no means do I suggest this is an exhaustive manual on how to train for the physical demands of football, but hopefully this helps give you another piece to the puzzle.

Nick Efthimiou is a Personal Trainer and Masters student of Osteopathy at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He is interested in science, philosophy and psychology as it applies to health, fitness and sports performance. His blog can be found at http://nickefthimiou.blogspot.com