You’ve got to be impressed by the endurance of the players in the FIFA World Cup.
Average games go for 90 minutes, with a potential to extend to 120 minutes with extra time, and then longer if the game comes down to penalties. Not to mention that a player will usually run 10 – 14 kilometres in a game, with much of it sprinting! All things considered, those players have got to be fit.
With the World Cup Finals a week away I thought I’d take a look at what it takes to achieve World Cup standard fitness.
World Cup Training
Most elite teams have access to some of the best sports scientists, nutritionists, coaches and trainers around. Dawn Scott is the US Soccer women’s national team strength and conditioning coach, and consequently has been training high level athletes in exercise science and sports nutrition for years. She explained that players need to be in peak physical condition for the World Cup.
“Players are continually changing pace and direction, as well as jumping, turning, tackling and completing soccer actions, and they all put more stress and physical load on the body than if the players just ran at one pace and in one direction for 90 minutes.”
As a result their training needs to prepare them to handle high intensity, complex movements. Usually, the players develop these skills in two different stages:
Stage 1: Strength
Most players focus on strength during their off season as it builds muscle so that they can be more explosive, improve their endurance, and also reduce their chance of injury. Weighted squats, dead lifts and bench presses are the bread and butter of strength training because they are so effective.
Scott explained that elite football players will begin with lower weights and higher reps and sets during the beginning of their strength training, and then progress to heavier weights with lower sets and reps. Athletes also commonly use kettlebells, medicine balls, bands and battling ropes to improve their strength.
Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, the 22 year old striker who carries the heavy expectation of leading Brazil to glory, spoke to Red Bull last year. He explained that when he joined Barcelona the team built a training regime for him that was designed for him to bulk up, and encouraged him to add more carbohydrate into his diet to aid this.
Stage 2: Explosive Power & Endurance
High level football is all about explosive power and endurance because the athletes need to keep moving for a long period of time, often in the form of short bursts as they sprint for the ball, intercept, and tackle. Plyometrics are one of the best ways to train for these actions, which involves your muscles exerting maximum force in the minimum time frame.
One of the fastest footballers in the World Cup is Argentina’s Lionel Messi, nicknamed The Flea for his extraordinary speed and agility (and the fact that he’s only 169cm tall). Craig Friedman is the performance innovation team director at Athletes' Performance, a company specializing in the enhancement of athletic performance, and he was also the performance specialist for the German National Soccer Team when they finished third at the 2006 World Cup. According to Friedman, to be as fast as Messi “You have to be explosive and powerful. Then, you have to be stable enough through your ankles, hips and torso to be able to deliver that power efficiently into the ground. And finally, you have to deliver the power into the ground in the right direction, and that's where technique comes in.”
Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior’s training regime focused on explosive exercises also. Common exercises he did in his workouts were squat jumps, hopping hurdles, skipping, short sprints, lunges and pillar skips (a style of running where you lift your knees high). Doing short sprints is a simple way to build this explosive power. You could try out ‘suicide sprints’, where you run 6 metres, turn around and run 6 metres again, then turn around and run 12 metres and back. All of the running should be in sprints, as hard and fast as possible. To make it more difficult you can start by lying on your stomach and then jumping up into the sprint. This is an example of high intensity interval training, which is essential for building explosive power and endurance.
Stage 3: Technique
During the actual season players don’t have a lot of time to work on their strength, power and endurance, as they’re busy preparing for games and then recovering from them. As a result, a lot of their training is centred around technique and tactics to hone their skills while avoiding injuries. This may include playing games with different emphasis on attack and defence, as well as simple passing, dribbling, and shooting drills.
A World Cup Worthy Workout
If all this talk of football training has got you inspired, then try out this field or gym workout to develop a little of the explosive power you see from the pros. It’s best to start with sets of 10, with 2 or 3 reps depending on your fitness level. However it must be noted that the workout is designed for a person with an established high level of fitness. For those that are new to fitness, it is recommended that you get a doctor’s clearance first and gradually build up to such a session.
After a warm-up jog and a dynamic stretch, complete the following:
1. Pillar skips for 10 metres per set
2. Set of box jumps
3. Set of lunges
4. Set of squat jumps
5. Mountain climbers
And if you’ve got any energy left after those, burn it off with some 10 metre hill sprints if you’re out on a field, otherwise treadmill or bike sprints work well too.
