

Hitting your eight-plus hours, targeting calories and protein are the key principles in recovery. However, nothing trumps high-quality sleep and nutrition. Active recovery, especially on a recumbent bike, for tired legs is a great aid in flushing fresh blood and nutrients around the working muscles. ‘For example, ice baths have been and still are very popular amongst athletes, but research shows they can be detrimental for muscle size and strength. ‘ Recovery is key for all athletes and we see a number of high-tech and old-school techniques that are implemented among the modern footballer,’ says Varnavas. Luckily, as Varnavas explains, recovering well is easy to achieve. It's all well and good having the perfect football gym workout and the perfect warm-up, but that won't stop you from limping around the office on Monday morning because you didn't get your recovery right.

#Muscular endurance exercises for soccer how to#
Although the focus shouldn’t be on muscle mass it should be on performance (strength, speed, power, agility etc) and each player is different so the amount of mass an individual should have is player dependent as players will have a peak weight where they feel they are at their sharpest.’ How to Recover After Football ‘Another benefit to increase muscle mass is the fact it will help absorb force around your joints and tendons, which in turn will decrease your potential for injury when landing or colliding with other players. The higher muscle mass, the more potential for greater force output which yields power. For example, if we look at Adama Traoré’s physique, he has a very muscular physique but is very explosive. It is an old school mentality that big muscles make you slow. ‘The first benefit is that it increases your power output. ‘ Muscle mass can help attribute to football performance,’ says Varnavas. However, as Varnavas explains, it's an old-school mentality that muscular men are automatically slow and laboured. This is a legitimate question to ask in a sport where agility, pace and swiftness are so desired. This could be in the form of explosive plyometric movements to excite the nervous system ready for quick changes in direction and acceleration.’Ī good warm-up could include dynamic exercises like:įollow these up with plyometric exercises like: Another tip is to add power exercises to your warm up. Avoid static stretching before training or matches as this can decrease performance, especially if the muscle is cold. ‘To warm up football,’ says Varnavas, ‘athletes should ensure they are performing dynamic exercises. So you need a good football workout to do in between matches, but what about the exercises you should do right before the game? A good warm-up can be the difference between a man-of-the-match performance and being subbed off at half time, so take the advice of Chris Varnavas, Premier League performance consultant and director of Athletic Development Club, seriously.

Next explode through the concentric (shortening of the muscle and lifting) part of the exercise, before pausing at the top and beginning again. The eccentric, or lowering, should be done slowly before you pause at the bottom of the movement. To do this, split each exercise into four parts.

Fazakerley wants you to pay attention to the eccentric part (lowering and stretching) of each movement. So you're able to do the same, Fazakerley has put together a basic lower-body training programme that will help you build a solid foundation of strength endurance and stability.īut before you begin, football is all about tempo and so is this workout. They do it to improve their performances on the field. Top footballers work with top strength and conditioning coaches for a reason, and it's not just to carve mirror muscles or so their FIFA avatars are bestowed with 99 strength values. ‘However, one other important area that is quite often overlooked is the importance of strength training, to not only improve your physical performance but also to help reduce your risk of injury.’ ‘Football is a highly skilled sport which involves a lot of running so the priorities of your training sessions should be focused on the technical aspects of the game while also improving your cardio levels,’ says head coach of Holos Performance, Loui Fazakerley. But before Saturday comes, you also need to be putting in the hard yards away from the field, which is where our football gym workout comes in. We won't lie to you, to be known as a great 'baller you're going to have to provide the goods on the pitch.
