How To Train Like A FootBaller For A World Cup Body

If you haven’t been hiding under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you may have heard about a little something called the World Cup! Its that time again, where the beautiful game unites the whole world in some healthy competition but more importantly we can all come together as one to for one goal. All cheesy lines aside, football (or soccer, depending on which side of the pond you are on) is the most watched sport. And just to prove that here’s are a couple of stats“26.29 billion cumulative World Cup views – comfortably enough for everyone on the planet to have watched more than three matches. The vast majority of these were in-home, at 24.2 billion.”

This stat alone shows just how worldwide the sport is! As always I am rooting for Ghana and England, but as I write now, England have been kicked out while Ghana is playing in the semi-finals versus Uruguay at one apiece! Exciting stuff! Watching all of this you can’t help but notice the extraordinary fitness levels these players must have in order to compete at such a high level. In this post, I will talk about how one can incorporate some training methods to achieve World Cup Fitness!
Ghana and Portsmouth FC Striker, Kevin BoatengAccording to the training principle of specificity, one must adapt training sessions to mimic, or be specific, to the actual movement i.e. training must be functional. To train like a top football player, you have to prepare for the unique demands of the game.Right from the start, players have to make sure everything they do is to prepare them for the match. The warm-up for football, must also be specific to the demands. To this day, I still see players relying on solely on static stretching to help prepare them for a match or workout. To explain, why static stretches are not as effective on theirown,

I will paste an excerpt from my post on how to warm-up properly:

Consider that static stretches consist of pulling tissue or muscles in a certain position and then holding it for a period. This actually renders the muscle slightly ineffective—- if you see our muscle as a rubber band, stretching and holding a rubber band in an elongated position puts it in a vulnerable position and is even easier to break. When we view it like this, we realise static stretching actually isn’t the best way to prepare muscles for exercise.A study in April in turkey on a group of 3 groups 26 footballers, showed that between three groups using jogging, static stretching and dynamic stretching as a warm-up, the group that used dynamic stretching had a better performance.Here is a link to a thorough warm-up from fellow fitness blogger and friend, Drew from FitExcellence.

Technological advancements nowadays means that player movement is easier to measure now than in years past.For instance, now we can tell that during a 90 minute match, a player will spend on average 59 minutes walking or standing, 7 minutes sprinting and 25 minutes jogging.Video technology studies show that an average footballer makes 60-100 quick sprints of 2-3 seconds covering 10-20 meters per sprint in an average match. Therefore, it is safe to say fitness is not defined by one’s endurance per se, but the ability of the player to maintain speed during these sprints.There are several tests that can be used to check where a players fitness levels are. One of them can be done on a treadmill or on a track. Run at the fastest pace you can maintain for 4 minutes; note your distance. Jog slowly for 3 minutes. Do this a total of three times. The average distance you cover at your fastest is your score. Your goal is for a average mileage of at least 4. For the best improvements in “repeated sprint ability”, intervals are the best way to go. Intervals are the best way to achieve effective fat loss in conjunction with a decent diet.

A sample routine includes starting out with five 15-second, 110-meter sprints with 30 seconds active recovery(jogging or walking but do not stop completely), twice a week. As you become fitter, gradually increase the number of reps and the length of the sprint, and reduce the recovery time appropriately.Strength For strength it is best to aim for full body workouts at least 2-3 times a week, and the aim here is strength, not mass. We want to avoid excess mass as this could be detrimental to performance. You want to use compound movements to hit the major muscle groups so that would mean squats and dead-lifts as well as lunges to strengthen your quads and activate your glutes, hamstrings, calves, and core. 3 sets of 5 reps at 85 percent of your 1-rep max, with 90 seconds of rest between sets should do the trick. It is also a great idea to use Olympic lifts to help develop full body strength as well as power such exercises as Cleans, Jerks and Snatches once a week. This is a great way to compliment the strength component as increased strength means increased potential for explosiveness.

(Video Intermission: What better to help you relax than football and Shakira!)
Extra Time!I have spoken about how athletes train their core in a previous post. Athletes need to  train their core the right way by building foundations of stability frst and then going from there. Obviously, for an athlete it is more appropriate to go through all planes of movement in their training including core training to acclimatize them to what they will face on pitch.Therefore some exercises which may be attempted by athletes, but may be avoided by people looking just to stay in shape. But by all means, if you feel capable of attempting these, then go for it!
The following exercises can be performed on the pitch after training, or as a part of your strength training program. Some of the videos will be using a medicine ball, but feel free to replace with a foot(soccer)-ball.