Advice for anyone who wants to improve athleticism.

[Orana_Spur]

Hi guys, This is my first post but ive been lurking around here for a while. I stumbled upon this forum a few years ago when I was looking for some advice to improve myself as a soccer player, As I had not been playing for a few years and was serverly out of shape. Sadley there seems to be a lack of quality advice on developing my body to compete at a high level. So I continued my quest to find more information.

First site worth looking at is Joe Defrancos, hes a strength coach from America and focuses mainly on NFL players but alot of the information on his site can appply to most athletes.

http://www.defrancostraining.com/articl ... letes.html

Second site worth looking at is t-nation.com, Its a bodybuilding website but there is a lot of good information for athletes is the article archives.

From all the hours I have researched I have come to the conclusion that:

1: Most soccer players are generally weak
2: Have developed muscular imbalances
3: Generally have poor flexablily

Since I have started developing real strength and correcting imbalances ,my speed, composure at speed and ability to hold off defenders has improved beyond what I thought I could acheive.

Most soccer players have over developed quads compared to there hamstring. We do alot of kicking with stimulates the quad but we generally do not balance out the stimulation to the other muscles in the lower body. This does two this, leaves other muscle groups prone to injury e.g. strained groin, pulled hamstring, And as the quad become the strongest muscle in the lower body it tends to take over task such as sprinting and jumping.

Poor flexability can limit your range of motion and increase your risk of injury.

Exercises that have helped me include:

Box Squat

Dead lift

Glute-Ham raise

Split squats

Lunges

Side Lunges

Seated Calf raise

Standing Calf raise

I hope I can help at least one person with this post as its taken me the better part of a year to research all this information but it has sure been worth it.

[soccerjj]

i agree. Big shout out to defranco, im sure if anyone did what he said they would make great gains. ( as long as they kept up their technical work)

Good post im sure you will have helped a few people at least.

[Rome_Leader]

Good points! Definitely a help to others. I agree with you on the flexibility thing. I did a lot of Judo, and even gymnastics when I was younger (and a LOT shorter :p), and it really helped me in soccer as there are few people who have my range of motion due to my flexibility. Definitely an asset to train those small muscles for balance and bending as well as big ones for power. Good stuff.

[Orana_Spur]

Another Site I forgot to add is Kelly Baggets,

http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/articles.html

There is ALOT of good info on there if you have the patience to read through his articles.