Strength and Conditioning in Soccer (Training Guide)

I have been wanting to talk about this topic for a long time as I am currently living in the pain of my own negligence. Yes, you guessed it, I am injured. From a torn ACL, chronic shoulders, weak and aching joints. You name it I got it. These injures didn’t occur over night, It’s the high volumes of stress I put on my body throughout my years as a player and not taking care of myself with a proper workout routine. What’s exactly to blame? Well, for one, the lack of strengthening, stretching and well you know, the simple things. As we jump into this topic it’s important for me to share my shortcomings as a player, so others don’t make the same mistake. My lack of preparing my muscles has taken its course. Now, after years of experience as coach, months of research, studies, courses and spending countless hours in the gym with one of the best strengths and conditioning coaches I have ever known last summer (Rich Bihl-Roma Fitness). I have accumulated some vital information to guide soccer players to glory on this neglected topic at the youth level.

Despite being one of the most popular sports in the world, strength and conditioning programs for soccer are often neglected or outdated. Except at the professional level, many athletes and coaches still focus only on skill development and endurance training (i.e.- running), and ignore other important elements of fitness such as:

1. Strength and strength endurance
2. Speed and power
3. Flexibility
4. Agility
5. Nutrition

 Athletes of other popular sports such as basketball or American football typically understand the importance of a complementary strength and conditioning training (especially off-season) to improve their performance, but it seems that some soccer players don’t believe that elements such as strength or power development are necessary for their sport.  This couldn’t be further from the truth. In this article I will take a closer look at the different components of fitness involved in the sport of soccer, and then suggest a simple way to organize your high-performance training program.  I will not be discussing skill development in this article. We are lucky enough to be living in an era where coaches are starting to categorize themselves. For example: skills trainer like myself, speed & agility trainer, technical trainer etc.….

Endurance in Soccer

Your soccer fitness training should be built around developing a good aerobic base.  Several studies into the physiological demands of soccer have shown that field players can travel up to 13 km or 8 miles during a 90-minute game.   This places a significant demand on the athlete’s cardiovascular system and muscular endurance.  Having said that, I believe this is one aspect of training that is already over-emphasized in this sport.  

It’s not uncommon to hear of soccer players running for at least an hour at a time several days per week to improve their performance on the field.  However, if you start to analyze the “sport-specific‟ requirements of the athletes, you will realize that they are actually engaging in various intensities of activity for different durations while playing, including: walking, jogging, running, and sprinting, and in various directions.  Incorporating interval training into your program, that involves high and low intensities of activity, will provide better results than long duration, low intensity jogging alone.

Strength in Soccer

Strength is an important component of fitness that can benefit athletes in any sport, although it is often viewed as having little importance in soccer. However, strength forms the basis for power and speed. Soccer players also need strength to hold off challenges from opponents. Other benefits of strength training include:

1. Injury Resistance
2. Leaner Body Composition
3. Faster Metabolism
4. More Energy
5. Greater Explosiveness
6. Improved Balance, Stability, And Agility
7. Faster Recovery
8. Greater Bone Density

 High level soccer players don't need to have the same absolute strength as American football players or rugby players, but a properly designed strength training program will improve your in performance!  Relative strength is more important in soccer than absolute strength. Relative strength is simply your absolute strength in relation to your body weight. 

Your strength training should focus on compound, functional exercises (such as lunges, squats, step ups, push-ups, dips, chin-ups), and consider balancing the strength of opposing muscle groups (i.e.- quadriceps vs. hamstrings). Don’t waste your time training solely on machines, and avoid useless, non-functional exercises such as leg extensions. Most of your exercises should be ground-based, using body-weight or free weights as resistance, and should involve movement of your full body. Train all the major muscle groups, with emphasis on your lower body and core. 

Speed & Agility in Soccer

Another significant component of a soccer training is speed and agility. The speed of play in today's game is quicker than ever. While endurance and strength are very important to improving your performance, faster players have a definite competitive advantage.  You may have better endurance than the next guy, but if he makes it to the ball first it won’t matter that you can run marathons!

A simple speed test is a sprint over 30 yards from a standing start. You can try this yourself and have someone else time you. A sprint time under 5.0 seconds is good. Professional players average around 4.0 seconds.

Power is the combination of strength and speed. A more powerful player is a more intimidating player.  To improve your speed and explosiveness you should include power movements in your training, such as jump squats, high pulls, power cleans, and push presses, as well as plyometric drills such as box jumps, alternate push-offs, lateral shuffle, and split lunge jumps.  

Because it is important to have speed endurance, I recommend incorporating these exercises into a circuit training with high intensity intervals. A typical workout would alternate between power movements for lower body and upper body, with plyometric exercises as intervals. You can conclude your training session with sprint drills and agility work (such as the “ladder drills‟).

Flexibility in Soccer

Another important aspect of fitness is flexibility (stretching). Maintaining a healthy range of motion can be very beneficial, however, few players like my past self, didn’t  understand the most effective methods of stretching or when to use them. Many athletes still do passive stretching before their workout or practice, when this can diminish performance and increase risk of injury!  The safest and most productive way to integrate flexibility training into your routine, is to do a dynamic warm up (walking lunges, body-weight squats, high knees, butt kicks, arm circles, etc.) before a workout, practice or game, and then spend some time stretching at the end.  Also, a better alternative to static passive stretching is static “active‟ stretching (using your own muscular effort to hold the position).

Nutrition for Soccer

I won’t get too deeply into the subject of sports nutrition here… that’s a whole other article.  Suffice it to say that what you eat will directly affect your energy levels, recovery, performance, and health.  Here are some basic tips to consider regarding your diet:

1. Drink A LOT more water.
2. Eat 4-6 smaller meals / snacks each day.
3. Eat after exercise, not directly before.
4. Each meal should include protein (fish, chicken, eggs, lean meat, poultry, protein shakes, some dairy, etc.), and fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grains.
5. Starchy carbs (i.e.: pasta, potatoes, rice, bread, grains, etc.) should be eaten after exercise, or the night before a big game, but otherwise reduced in your diet.
6. No sugars, pastries, junk food, pop, chips, alcohol, tobacco, etc.
7. Don't eat before sleep.
8. Take fish oil daily.

Here is a simple way to organize your training, on and off the field: 

Your off-season weekly gym program should include two strength training days (superset opposing muscle groups using functional exercises) and a speed / power day (explosive weightlifting movements in a circuit, with plyometrics as intervals),  in addition to your athletic skill training / practices on the field.  Do some agility work and sprint starts at the end of your speed / power-circuit. Then include 2 to 3 endurance / cardiovascular training sessions each week as well, running for about 20 minutes with short sprint intervals and hill running... not just long endurance runs.  

 For in season training, just reduce your training volume and cut back to only one strength workout and one speed / power workout per week.  You can adjust the number of endurance training sessions as well, depending on the number of practices or games you have each week.

Conclusion & Recommendations

The end all to this article, is to simply make awareness to this problem in soccer and guide players and coaches like myself in a direction of good health and  better performances. Take care of your body if your serious about your development because injuries will plague your career. To all my skill trainers out here if you're reading this listen up! If you have players focusing on their skill building everyday of the week that’s all find but make sure you get them into a program that also better their body’s. The stronger and more explosive they are I bet you will see even more improvements on their skills.

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING PROGRAM TO FOLLOW, HERE ARE A FEW OF MY RECOMMENDATIONS THAT I HAVE USED TO GAIN SOME OF THE KNOWLEDGE I KNOW TODAY:

1. The Show & Go System
2. Ultimate Speed Development
   
3. Physique Finishers