Soccer players at the recreational level often rely on the game itself to stay in shape, playing anywhere from once to four times a week in leagues and pickup games. They might look askance at gym time, fearful of getting bulked up and slower on the field, but beginning with youth travel teams and high school and college programs and continuing up to professional soccer, the weights area of the gym becomes a mecca for those seeking a performance edge in competition.
Case Study
For a player with size and physical gifts like U.S. forward Abby Wambach, gym-augmented strength provides a tool for better balance, improved jumping and injury prevention. For example, the side pillar bridge, in which you lie on one side, hips lifted as you balance on your forearm, strengthens your ability to resist a rotational force, notes Anthony Slater of Athletes' Performance Los Angeles, which provided Wambach with advanced training. Similarly, gym time spent on medicine ball exercises and single-leg squats or kettlebell lifts can improve balance, essential to success on the soccer field.
Counterviews
The current devotion to gym time for elite soccer athletes such as Wambach was not always the case. In 1998, top-level Dutch coach Raymond Verheijen scoffed at the emphasis on strength work. In his book "Complete Handbook of Conditioning for Soccer," Verheijen stated flatly that "a soccer player's proper place is on the pitch and not in a gym." He noted a few exceptions. Small players, who might be pushed off the ball too easily or not be competitive on winning balls in the air, could benefit from strength work, he stated. He also wrote that strength conditioning could help players who lacked speed and those recovering from an injury.
Expert Insight
Donald Kirkendall, a member of FIFA's Medical Assessment and Research Centre and a sports scientist at the University of North Carolina, acknowledges that pockets of resistance remain to strength work in the gym. The soccer community has long viewed supplemental strength training with skepticism, given the prevalence of youth soccer coaches with either little familiarity with the sport overall or a belief that work on the ball is all that is required to excel. Recreational and amateur players might thus be in for a shock when they try to move up to the next level "when they discover how far behind they are and realize just how much catching up is necessary," Kirkendall observes. To get around such resistance, Kirkendall in his book "Soccer Anatomy" describes strength exercises that can be performed in some cases on the field and with a ball.
Application
Leading soccer conditioning authority Greg Gatz, who trains soccer athletes at UNC, notes the payoff for coaches who come around to strength work. The German men's soccer team, for example, acquired a fitness coach for its 2006 World Cup run who helped bring the team to the a third-place finish. UNC's soccer athletes spend their gym sessions working on strength, agility and explosiveness, which helps them withstand the physical collisions of the sport and kick and accelerate with more power, Gatz writes in "Complete Conditioning for Soccer."
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