The typical training program for athletes in many high schools often reflects the historical preference of the football coaches and team. Heavy and slow exercises like squats and deadlifts tend to dominate the programming sheet. Sometimes, sets till failure – thought to help promote muscle growth – are included. Understandably, athletes in many sports are wary of this approach. Does it actually make me a better soccer player or am I just improving my numbers in the weight room? Often, the program is designed to lift heavier and gain muscle mass but not intended to increase speed, cutting ability, and explosiveness.
Sports performance training for soccer should be designed to improve soccer performance and as we put together a program we have to keep this goal in mind throughout the process. To improve performance on the field, athletes need to become faster, more explosive and agile, and stronger. Strength is a difficult term to define here and largely to blame for the disconnect between gym training and game performance. A weight lifter that can squat 500lbs is strong, yet so is a soccer athlete sprinting at nearly 20 miles per hour while fending off an opponent. The weight lifter is producing a lot of force at a very slow velocity. The soccer player is producing less force but at incredibly fast speeds. Both are exhibiting strength but at different velocities. There are other differences too like joint angles and the endurance required but the basic point here is that strength varies based on how it needs to be produced. And since strength can be produced at many different velocities, there are many different ways to be “strong.” What soccer players need to do is develop strength that translates to improved on-field performance.
To do this, soccer players need to both lift weights and incorporate sprint training, plyometrics, core work, and agility training. We want to increase how much force we can produce and we want to improve our ability to produce that increased force at soccer-specific speeds! Think of strength training as upgrading the athlete’s motor and speed training as teaching the athlete how to lay the pedal down and use the newly added capacity.
In practice, what should soccer performance training look like? In the gym, a soccer player should be doing single leg exercises like lunges and step ups, core stability and rotational exercises, and upper body work. In particular for lower body exercises, the athlete should be explosive when lifting the weight and controlled when descending to the starting position of the exercise. Beyond the gym, athletes should sprint (with and without resistance), jump, and perform agility drills and deceleration exercises. A good soccer training program should also be intentionally designed to lower injury risk. This concept is incredibly important and I will dive into it more fully in a subsequent article.
To summarize, a good soccer training program utilizes a diverse set of training modalities that ensure the athlete is increasing their force production capabilities and their ability to produce this force at sport specific velocities.
