Do you believe you have what it takes to play division one college soccer? Are you willing to put forth the time and the effort to get there? If you have the desire, the belief, and the willingness to work, I may have a proposal for you!

The first of the year, January 1, 2010, The Ultimate Internet Marketing, Training and Services Company and The Ultimate Athletic Training Company will offer The Ultimate Package! The Ultimate Package is designed for the best of the best…or those who see themselves in that light and are willing to commit the time and effort to get there. We are going to select a very small and exclusive group of soccer athletes, male and female, work with them mentally and physically, and then walk our clients, the best of the best, through the entire recruitment process, from first contact to signing day.

The Ultimate Package is just that, the ultimate program for the ultimate soccer athlete, and only serious athletes and serious inquiries will be considered. The ultimate package includes a soccer-specific, sex-specific strength and fitness program, a soccer-specific endurance program, a mental preparation program, including goal setting and time management, and a DI college and university soccer recruitment program.

The Ultimate Soccer Training and Recruitment Program, its actual name, will take you through the entire process and, if you follow our process to the letter, your chances of winning a soccer sholarship and playing DI college soccer will be enhanced many times over!

We feel we must focus on the younger soccer athletes because the reality is that by the junior year, and certainly by the senior year, most soccer athletes have already been identified and contacted. We hope to offset this by starting early and initiating contact with the goal schools.

We will go into greater detail once we establish an application pool and begin to interview prospective clients. I look forward to revealing more in the coming days and hope to see your application soon!

Happy Holidays!

Coach Z

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526 (home)
216-539-7412 (office and voicemail 24/7)
Skype: johnzajaros1
coachz@ultimatesoccertraining.com
excellencepaidforward@gmail.com (application email)

PS, I have been training top-tier amateur and professional athletes for 30 years. I will only consider totally committed athletes, as anything less than the ultimate commitment guarantees only one thing…failure! Get an application in and we will discuss what it will take to make it, and take it, to the next level!

Tags: college soccer, sex-specific soccer-specific strength and fitness training, soccer-specific fitness training, soccer-specific strength training, Soccer-Specific Training & Building a Champion, The Ultimate Package

Back Pain and Soccer-Athletes:
A Multi-Part Series on Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation

Significantly, it must be remembered that pain is a symptom and not the ultimate diagnosis. This is especially true when dealing with neck pain, back pain, and sciatica in athletes.

In most instances, the expression of pain, in any of its various manifestations (e.g., acute, dull, aching, chronic, etc.), is not an indication of a structural failure or abnormality. Most back pain and sciatica, particularly lower back pain (or low back pain), is a symptom of a chronic stress injury or of a self-limiting strain or sprain.

Generally, an athlete’s physical condition and high level of fitness level allows the spine of the soccer athlete to handle even the most demanding and extreme movements and tasks without incident or injury. However, back pain, and particularly low back pain, is one of the most common reasons why soccer athletes are lost for a practice, a single competitive event (i.e., game, match, tournament, etc.), or a season.

The type of sport and the competitive level of the athlete is one of the key determinants when it comes prevalence of the condition and whether or not an athlete will play through the pain, whether neck pain, back pain, sciatica or a combination of.

As stated, most athletes are affected by sprains or strains and low back pain is one of the primary reasons for lost training time, playing time, or both.

It was reported in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, the American Journal of Sports Medicine, Clinical Sports Medicine, and The Physician and Sports Medicine that low back pain was responsible for complaints leading to lost playing time in 30% of college football players, 38% of professional tennis players, male and female, and that a striking 90% of professional golfers tour injuries were related to neck pain and back pain, again principally low back pain.

As indicated in the disparity between college football players and professional golfers, low back pain and sciatica, is more common among certain athletes and in certain sports.

Interestingly, wrestlers seem to have the highest overall level of acute low back or lower back pain, reportedly as high as 54%, reported in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. In the same journal, low back pain complaints were lower among soccer athletes and tennis players, at 37% and 32%, respectively. In the American Journal of Sports Medicine it has been reported that 59% of wrestlers experienced chronic low back pain.

Significantly, 23% of weightlifters, as in competitive powerlifters or Olympic weightlifters, expressed lower back pain in 23% of subjects surveyed. However, of competitive rowers, men and women, the numbers are 15% and 25%, respectively. Interestingly, as one might expect, gymnasts appear to be the most likely to report severe and ongoing neck pain, back pain, and sciatica, perhaps a consequence of both the nature of the sport and the average age of the participant.

Keep in mind when reviewing data from these studies that the sample sizes were relatively small.However, the data does seem suggestive and appears to be intuitively consistent with my own observations of competitive athletes, particularly athletes at the higher levels, either top-caliber amateurs or professionals.

For soccer players the numbers are somewhat ambiguous…somewhat!

This is primarily because there has been less research dedicated to understanding soccer-related back pain, at least in the US. The focus in the USA has been primarily focused on children, soccer, and back pain; and, the data seems to point to an issue concerning type and severity of the symptoms. With soccer athletes, particularly children, there seems to be a high degree of sprain and strain, as in most sports and among all age groups, but due to the age of the participants, adolescence, spondylolysis with spondylolisthesis is a common diagnosis causing low back pain, sciatica, and lost playing time, as it appears to be in gymnasts.

For this reason, low back pain complaints in adolescent soccer players should be taken very seriously and a sports medicine physician should be consulted immediately!

In the next article we will explore in greater detail the various conditions associated with neck pain, back pain, and sciatica in soccer athletes, with an emphasis on low back pain. We will attempt to understand etiology (cause), lost playing time and how to avoid it, and treatment, both prevention and rehabilitation…to avoid injury and to get the soccer athlete, in fact any athlete, back to playing shape as quickly as possible.

Coach Z

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526
866-835-2913 (toll free)
Skype: johnzajaros1
coachz@ultimatesoccertraining.com

PS, Specific soccer-related questions on all aspects of training, coaching, scholarship availability and how to compete for them, and all other inquiries: Send your questions to my personal email account and I will respond ASAP excellencepaidforward@gmail.com Please, serious questions only!

Tags: Neck Pain Back Pain and Sciatica in Soccer Players: Introduction, soccer, Soccer and Back Pain, Soccer and Low Back Pain, Soccer and Lower Back Pain, Soccer and Neck Pain, Soccer and Sciatica, Soccer Players and Low Back Pain, Soccer Players and Sciatica, Soccer Playing Time and Back Pain

The Lesson of Tom Blazina

Back in 1982 I was building one of my first businesses, a business dedicated to training top-caliber local athletes. I started the business with $50 and an idea, a story in and of itself, and before I knew it we were wall-to-wall athletes, budding young super stars wanting to make the team, not only to make the team but start, not only start but dominate, not only dominate but be noticed by the top universities in the country.

In other words, they wanted to make an impact on and in their sport…which is their community, the only one that matters to most of them.

You see, an athlete’s sport is the foundation of their identity, their performance defining who they are in every way that matters…to them.

Right or wrong, that is the perception of most top-caliber athletes…they are athletes first, everything else flows from that.

Enter Tom Blazina. Tommy to those who knew him…

Tommy was a young kid.

They all were really.

Tommy was from one of the less “known” high schools in the area. The town he was from considered a “cow town” or out in “the sticks” by most, a “hick town” by more than a few. It was certainly not a St. Ignatius or Cincinnati Moeller level program, even in 1982 two of the biggest high school programs in the state of Ohio; and, emerging as national powers…even back then.

The town Tom was from was barely a blip on the map compared to the bigger cities with their Division 1A programs, their top-tier athletes, fancy uniforms, ultra sophisticated training facilities…the whole shooting match!.

Let’s call Tommy’s hometown Homerville…it kind of fits with the stereotype back then.

Not now…but then!

So anyway, enter Tommy Blazina, a freckle-faced kid with red hair, no kidding, and a slight build. My manager and I took one look at Tom, scratched our heads, and wondered simultaneously where this kid had come from. Even back then, in the beginning, we were selective about the athletes we took on.

After all, we were building a “brand,” although we had no idea what a “brand” was back then…we just called it a reputation.

And we were selective about the kid of kids we took on so we would be able to point to the end product, a physical dynamo in their sport, and claim to have “done it all!”

We weren’t really that bad…but we were being careful and Tommy just didn’t fit the mold.

I made an excuse, went to the phone, and called the sales rep who had signed Tom up for our program. After he settled me down a bit, he explained that he had talked to his coach, his teammates, his parents, and to Tom…and Tom had “something.” None of them, including the rep, seemed to know what the “something” was…but they were certain he had it, it just took someone like us to bring it out of him.

“Someone like us?”

Heck, we were still figuring out just what “us” was!

And there were people out there assigning miracle worker status and abilities to “us” already?

Well, I agreed but with a stern warning to the rep to talk to me before he went out of a limb like that again with our reputation. And, I went on to say, if this comes back to bite us in the butt…it would be his head! I was a bit of a hard-charger back then. I guess I have mellowed some over the years but back then I was real quick with an opinion, particularly when I thought someone else’s opinion was in error and it would affect me and my business.

The ignorance of youth at its best!

My youth, not Tom’s!

Tom was a quiet, respectful young man who fit right in, never complained, and did exactly what I told him to do. In short order, Tommy did fit right in. He would come in, do his exercises, always give 110%, as my people were fond of saying, and left it all in the gym. When Tom Blazina finished a workout, there was nothing left for Tom to give until he recovered; and then, usually in corner of the gym for 20-30 minutes before being able to drive home.

48 hours later, Tommy would do the whole thing all over again.

Well, after a while Tom being Tom just kind of blended into the scenery. He neither stood out for being remarkable or for being a dud…he just merged into the program, did everything he was told to do to the best of his ability, and went home…to return 2 days later and merge again.

By the middle of August, it was time for the football players to go on to their respective programs, high school and college. We didn’t have any professionals that first summer, it was more or less our test season. The kids we trained were our test-cases, our guinea pigs, used to see if what we were advocating, our somewhat unorthodox training methods, worked.
One day, an off day when even the kids who were continuing until basketball and wrestling were off, I sat down with my team and we went over each athlete, their initial test scores on day one, their final evaluations, and our expectations for them for the upcoming season.

Interestingly, when we came to Tommy Blazina we all kind of shook our heads…we just didn’t know!

Tom had come and gone with barely a ripple, and yet he had done everything we told him to do and more. Tom was, quite literally, the kind of kid who would, if you demanded it of him, go out into the parking lot at high noon and bark at the moon…just because he was told to! Tom Blazina put himself completely in our hands, trusting us to do the right thing by and for him.

Why did Tom do it all with such blind faith and obedience? Well, part of it was just his nature. And the rest of it was the realization that he didn’t know what to do to get where he wanted to go, combined with, and here is what none of us got (his coach, friends, teammates, parents, and even Tom got it, but we missed it), Tom Blazina had a white hot desire to be “the” guy! Tom wanted to matter, he wanted to be the king of his world, but he didn’t know how to get there…and he felt we did!

So, Tom left us, we all worried and wondered how he would do…and we waited.

It didn’t take long!

The headlines started in week one:

“Senior Phenom Comes Off Bench and Leads Homerville to Victory”

“Blazina is the Real Thing!”

“Real deal” wasn’t used much back then…but would have been, if someone had thought of it.

By the midpoint of the season, they were talking about Tommy for All-State honors and there was a mention that some of the Big 10 schools were starting to notice this kid from “the sticks.”

By the end of the season, Tom Blazina was one of our poster-athletes, and we had quite a few….dozens!

Tom had quietly put himself in our hands, quietly went about the task of becoming who he envisioned himself to be all along, and then made his statement on the field. Tom Blazina remained a quiet and unassuming young man throughout the season and beyond. Tom was humble and a pleasure to be around. But Tom Balzina had also become the person he envisioned himself to be, quietly and with purpose! Tom had kept that to himself the whole time but he must have had that white hot desire burning in his chest…because he succeeded in a manner none of us, even those who worked with him every day, day in and day out, imagined.

The lesson? Well, there were many!

All the apparent ones:

• Desire…Burning Desire!
• Vision
• The power of envisioning a future outcome or event
• Goal setting
• A mastermind group

Those were all there and worked for him, helping him to achieve his goal.

But he also used us, in a good way, to get what he wanted. He put himself in the hands of a coach, a mentor, and a trainer…sometimes all in one, and did exactly what was asked of him…demanded of him…until he made it! He never argued, he never once said

“Yeah…but!”

He simply enrolled, turned himself over, trusted, and acted!

I think there are several lessons here, and it is my hope you will take from this what you will. Tom’s story is not unusual but it is unique. Think about that one for a while! I have coached a number of Tom Blazina’s over the years and most of them are successful even today, in business and in life. Some are business people, some are coaches themselves, and most are amazing men and women who know the value of a white hot desire combined with the right coach and/or mentor. That combination, along with the willingness to take action, will turn desire into reality every time! Tommy Blazina learned it. I learned it over and over again from the Tommy Blazinas who came across my path and elbowed their way into my life forever…and so can you.

It is never too late!

CoachZ

John P. J. Zajaros, Sr., PhD
216-712-6526
Skype: johnzajaros1
coachz@ultimatesoccertraining.com

Tags: Inspiration, Inspiration and Athletics, Inspiration and Motivation, Inspirational Stories, Motivation, Motivation and Athletics, Motivational Stories, sports motivation

I have built many sport-specific strength and fitness training programs for top-caliber athletes over the years…I hope this works for you.

Remember, you need to vary your workouts to match the intensity of your other training. Cross-training is difficult but vital to your success. The main issue with sport-specific strength and fitness training at any level, but particularly when first starting to train, is overtraining. Overtraining can derail the whole effort. You can run into problems with connective tissue, illness, excess weight loss, and malaise…all related back to overtraining, simply doing too much, too soon, and not in the right balance.

That being said, your goal must amazing, it must excite you…the hurdles are immense but not insurmountable, you simply must have a plan.

The first part of any sport-specific strength and fitness program is the evaluation. You must have an honest, heart-to-heart with yourself and with your team to access where you are now and where you want to end up, relative to fitness. You also need to establish incremental goals along the way, as well as the ultimate goal. In other words, you need to know where you are and where you are going…where you want to end up! That being said, you must do it the proper manner, progressing in just the right way, and timing it all just so…so you peak at just the right moment.

You are about to embark upon the journey of a lifetime and the program, the timing, and the overall coaching is crucial. One component ignored or mishandled will result in a less-that-desired effect. As in business and in life, planning and timing are everything. You are basically embarking upon a launch, a product launch, and you are the product…or will be!

So, here’s what you do:

1) Physical assessment. Know exactly where you stand on a variety of tests, all sport-specific. Test and measure everything, just as in business!

2) Have an honest discussion with your trainers after the testing to assess weakness and strengths.

3) Develop a plan of attack, and here is the most important aspect, trust your coaches with your development…completely! Even Michael Jordan has a coach. You must turn yourself over to your coach and if he says “S*#t bagels in the parking lot!” You say, “How many and how big!” He’ll tell you for how long…until he says stop!

4) Get started!

5) Assess often but not too often, as that may be counter-productive. Some gains will come fast and others will need constant attention and prodding for you to get ultimate results.

OK!

Now, how do you work out?

Based on the tests, the assessment, the discussion, and keeping the ultimate goal in mind, the training should be varied and should follow an adaptable and forward-thinking plan.

1) You need to vary eccentric and concentric (negative-based and positive-based) activities. The negative will allow you to get to muscle fibers and to a degree impossible with a concentric only or a concentric-based routine. But you must vary the attack, one day concentric, two days later eccentric. And so on! Too much of one or the other will lead to minimal gains, no gains or, worse possible scenario…you will go backwards and lose strength and muscle, finally getting sick.

Balance in sport-specific training is everything!

2) You must have a cross-training, anaerobic/aerobic fitness approach…always pushing the boundaries of what is anaerobic and what is aerobic. As your fitness level increases and improves you will find what was once anaerobic is not aerobic…then you push again!

Always push the boundaries!

3) The balance between circuit training and conventional weight training is crucial. You need to push the aerobic/anaerobic envelope by increasing the intensity of the circuit, while balancing weights and machines.

Once again, the proper balance is everything!

Penn State, many years ago (late 70s and early 80s) had an awesome football program, in large measure because of Papa Joe Paterno…but also because of their strength and fitness program. However, as with human beings everywhere, they were looking for ’something better!” Enter Nautilus! Penn State changed over their entire system to accommodate this new fitness machine, all the rage at the time. They almost completely eliminated the free-weight, power aspect of their training in favor of Arthur Jones’s new claims that a 30 minute workout was all anyone needed…that…

“To do more was like tenderizing hamburger!”

Well, Penn State and Papa Joe bit and changed their program. In one year their program tanked! Joe Paterno is no dumby, and he certainly didn’t have to be hit over the head to know he’d been wrong, the next year the reintegrated the weights and two years late they were national champions!

Enough said!

The balance was everything, that and working out in a sport-specific manner.

You see, it is not just “muscle-heads” in the gym pumping up for a Friday night date, what I used to call the PPP or pre-party pump. You can’t train like a bodybuilder preparing for a bodybuilding contest or powerlifter preparing for a powerlifting competition.

The workouts I use for my clients, the ones Penn State uses, and used back them, are sport-specific…in this case football-specific in nature.

The right ratio of machine to free weight workout is essential. Significantly, it is also very important which machines are used and which free weight exercises are applied to your sport-specific strength and fitness program.

I tell my students, particularly the football athletes I train, because they all thought you just “had” to bench, just like you may believe a certain nutritional supplement is the best, that the first time they put a bench on the 50-yard line I would let them bench. Of course, I used the same analogy for every athlete, in every sport I trained.

The message is the same, sport-specific exercises, integrating the proper motions and/or movements is of greater significance than how much one can bench.

Interestingly, we have all been taught that you exercise in a certain way, and that certain exercises should be integrated into any workout program. That sort of thinking is, quite simply, wrong!

Additionally, machines in and of themselves are just as bad. Again, there must be a balance between machines and free weights in any exercise program.

Now, make sure that at least one day a week your exercise program, at least the sport-specific weight training portion is a negative or eccentric workout. The eccentric or negative workout should be a high intensity, heavy, free weight workout.

Additionally, one workout should be what I refer to as a “coning” workout, meaning that you work from the heavy to light and finally to complete failure.

A third workout, and each one of these workouts should be a same body part workout, should be a “pyramid” workout, and should go from light to heavy.

The same body part or combination of body parts are worked 3 times a week.

As in:

Monday morning: Upper body “coning to failure” (chest, shoulders, triceps, abs, calves, forearms)
Monday late afternoon: Upper body “coning to failure” (back and biceps, abs, calves, forearms)

Tuesday morning: Legs “coning to failure” (Quads, glutes, abductors and adductors, calves, abs, forearms)
Tuesday late afternoon: Legs “coning to failure” (Hamstrings*, calves, abs, forearms)

Wednesday morning: Monday morning body parts “pyramiding to failure”
Wednesday late afternoon: Monday late afternoon body parts “pyramiding to failure”

Thursday morning: Tuesday morning body parts “pyramiding to failure”
Thursday later afternoon: Tuesday late afternoon body parts “pyramiding to failure”

Friday morning: Monday morning body parts “negative”
Friday late afternoon: Monday late afternoon body parts “negative”

Saturday morning: Total leg blowout! “negative”

Sunday: The Day of Rest from all things!

*Hamstrings, leg biceps or biceps femoris, are the muscles at the back of the leg. Significantly, as you may already be aware, it is one of the most neglected muscles in the body. The proper strength ratio, quadraceps to hamstrings, can make a huge difference in your success as an athlete and also may play a big role in whether or not you have a hamstring injury at some point in your training. The hamstrings are also a key component in power and quickness…and well as in explosiveness (related to power) and speed!

Every workout, you need to do abdominal work, lower back exercises, obliques, calves, and forearms (alternating exercises and intensity)

Every morning your need to be doing very specific neck exercises, most being exercises your trainer can with you with a towel and their hands! Nothing is ever needed beyond that, at least in the early stages, as your neck just isn’t that strong…but needs to be!

As Woody Hayes once told me, “As the neck goes, so goes the body! Work the neck constantly!”

There are a number of exercises I use with my clients that would help but the key is to use the right balance! Additionally, dumbbells OVER barbells, and machines in concert with free weights is key. The free weights offer real world, synergistic benefits machines alone cannot. Dumbbells and single-side exercises are more effective than barbell exercises for sport-specific training…and for competitive results.

I have a lot more I can go into, if you would like me to. I am going to post this generically on one of my blogs, minus your name and all, but if you would like me to expand on this, let me know.

I wish you all the best! I too am a wrestler, a very spiritual family man, as you seem to be, and a husband, father, and grandfather. And I am TuffGuy’s buddy! They say dogs are good judges of character….

Go Figure!

I have trained athletes at every level, I know what I am doing, I hope you will incorporate my ideas, they will help you achieve your goals. If not, I still wish you every good thing, and a place on the team to boot!

Coach Z

John Zajaros
216-712-6526
Skype: johnzajaros1

PS, Need help making the team? Just getting back into shape?
Contact me via the numbers above or at excellencepaidforward@gmail.com (my personal email address)

Tags: soccer-specific fitness training, Soccer-Specific Strength and Fitness Training Program, soccer-specific strength training, Soccer-Specific Training & Building a Champion, Sport-specific strength training

The first article in this series on off-season, soccer-specific strength and fitness training dealt with nutrition and diet. The focus was on just how important these two factors are, nutrition and diet. The two are inextricably linked to each other as well as to the overall success of the program. The second article in the series dealt with warm up, stretching, and flexibility. The proper soccer-specific warm up, followed by a comprehensive, individualized stretching program, can make or break not only a single workout but the overall effectiveness of the program and competitive match play, as well. Once the above-mentioned components are in place and their importance understood, it is time to begin the actual soccer-specific workout regimen.

The actual first workout series should begin with a holistic aerobic/anaerobic focus, the soccer-athlete attempting to push himself, and I am using himself in a generic sense, this applies to both male and female soccer-athletes, to the edge of aerobic efficiency and beyond. The goal of such a program is to extend endurance, along with overall fitness and muscle development. The first few workouts should be largest to smallest muscle group based, high intensity circuit training in practice. The entire workout should last no longer than 75 minutes, and that includes warm up and stretching which we have already established as taking no more than 35 minutes. In fact, the actual duration of the workout will be much shorter, particularly if the workout is done as prescribed below. As stated above, the first session on day one will be high intensity circuit training with almost no rest in between exercises. The idea is to push the soccer–athlete beyond his or her current capacity, while at the same time taxing the various muscles involved and forcing them to recover and rebuild.

Before we move on, the concentric and eccentric contractions must be fully understood. The success or failure of your soccer-specific strength and fitness training program is dependent on understanding and implementing the program in the proper manner; and, that means understanding the motions involved in the individual exercises. Proper form is crucial for good results and to avoid injuries. Heavier is not always better! I have watched more muscle-heads train themselves right into stress and trauma-related injuries because of what I call the “bigger, heavier, better syndrome.” Proper form, meaning an emphasis on using the correct technique, often makes or breaks a strength and fitness regimen. In order to implement proper form, seat positioning and the actual motion used during the exercises themselves must be understood. Concentric and eccentric motions are crucial and must be used properly to fully engage the musculature, as well as the associated connective tissue, in just the right way.

The concentric contraction occurs when a muscle shortens in length, thus developing tension. The concentric or positive accomplished when the leg is raised in a leg extension exercise or a bar is brought from mid-thigh to the upper chest in a barbell curl. The eccentric motion and contraction involves tension while the muscle is being lengthened during the downward motion of the leg extension or the downward motion of the bar during the barbell curl. There has been a lot of research done on concentric and eccentric motions, the benefits of each and precisely what muscle fibers are recruited during each motion. Recent research seems to suggest that the eccentric motion actually activates more fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Plyometric exercises are particularly useful eccentric exercises, particularly ones involving a maximum high-force eccentric motion like step jump or box jump exercises. However, jumping exercises, and stair climbing, should not be added to a training program until the soccer-athlete is in the advanced stages, as knee injuries are a reality for inexperienced or unprepared athletes.

The concentric movement is generally the first portion of the exercise and the eccentric the second. The count is usually concentric or positive in two seconds and the eccentric or negative down in four. Or in the case of a lat pulldown, down in two seconds and back out in four. The thing to remember is that the eccentric or negative portion of the exercise is the most effective overall. While the data is somewhat ambiguous, it has been shown in recent research, and anecdotally in over 30 years of training athletes, that the negative or eccentric motion is where the majority of the work is done and where most of the benefit is derived. Eccentric or negative-only exercise routines are very effective but can be very risky. However, if the concentric and eccentric movements are incorporated into an overall program, integrated into a balanced strength and fitness program, the results can be impressive in a short period of time.

Now that the proper movement is understood and the importance of warm up and stretching has been reviewed and is understood, it is time to begin the actual workout. After completing the warm-up and stretching routine, the soccer-athlete proceeds immediately to the leg extension machine. Leg extensions are important because they work the quadriceps, solid quad development is crucial for optimal performance, and also because leg extensions warm up and work the knee and the supporting muscles, tendons, and ligaments associated with the knee joint.

Proper seat positioning in the leg extension exercise is crucial. The seat should be snug against the buttocks and the back of the knees also snug at the front of the seat. Once the seating is correct, lean back, relax your upper body, loosely grasp the handles, and lift your legs. The concentric or positive motion should be up in 2 seconds and the eccentric or negative down in 4 seconds. The eccentric is the negative motion, down, and the concentric is the positive, up. The negative motion is the most important motion overall, and it is the portion of the exercise most people neglect. The exercise should be done to failure, to the point where the legs cannot perform another repetition, between 8 and 12. If 12 repetitions can be completed in good form, it is time to increase the weight. Conversely, if 6-8 repetitions cannot be completed in good form, the weight should be lessened until such time as 6-8 repetitions can be completed efficiently and correctly.

Once the leg extensions are completed, the athlete moves immediately to the leg biceps or hamstring curl, machines will either allow standing or lying on the stomach. The soccer-athlete lies face down on the machine with the buttocks remaining down (do not lift them!), the stomach flattened against the machine pad. Note: the tendency is for the buttocks to lift up which stresses the lower back.

• The legs curl up in 2 seconds, the pad touching the buttocks on the way up
• The weight down in 4 seconds. As soon as the weight almost touches the stack, the weight is lifted back up to the buttocks
• Repeat up in 2 seconds
• Down in 4 seconds

Always, always keep the stomach flush against the machine…and the buttocks down. Continue the exercise until you cannot do another one…or until you reach 12 repetitions. If you get to 12 reps, move the weight up the next session. Always shoot for between 8 and 12 reps, constantly pushing to increase the weight and the repetitions.

Next, move immediately to the leg press machine. Leg presses are a key component to an overall program of soccer-specific strength and fitness. While leg presses are a common exercise, most athletes use the leg press improperly…as do most trainers. The angle of the knee should never exceed 90°! Additionally, the exercise should be performed in a 2 second concentric and 4 second eccentric manner, meaning pushing out or pressing the weight out in 2 seconds and bringing the weight back so that the knees are at 90° in 4 seconds. Once again, this should be done for 8 to 12 repetitions, always pushing for 12 reps and then moving the weight up accordingly. It is advisable, particularly when first starting, to have a workout partner or spotter to ensure safety.

The leg extensions, leg bicep curls, and leg presses are the three most common, and most important exercises for the legs. The exercises should be done in rapid succession, one set for each exercise, particularly when first starting a soccer-specific strength and fitness program, and until failure (the athlete cannot do another rep safely). After a few weeks, additional exercises, sets, and even repetitions can be added to the program for increased intensity and variety. The upper body should always be left relaxed, there should be little to no tension in the upper body while working the legs. Additionally, breathing should be deep and controlled, at no time should the athlete hold his or her breath! Breathing should be out, exhaling during the concentric or positive motion and in, inhaling during the eccentric or negative phase.

Many believe soccer is played with the legs and feet alone. We have already discussed just how wrong that line of thinking is. The leg workout is just as important as the upper body work, perhaps even more so, but not for the reasons many believe. The additional attention the legs receive has as much to do with injury prevention and the development of power, particularly for kicking and for defensive stance, as they do for overall strength and quickness. In the next article we will discuss two more leg exercises, ones that can be added to the above program in time, and two variations of exercises for the calves. The calves are often neglected and must be worked hard and often. I will get into the reasons why. Once again, all leg exercises should be done at peak intensity, and in rapid succession…but with proper form. Once we discuss the additional exercises for the legs and the calves, we will move on the upper body, to include the core muscles…and even the forearms.

CoachZ
Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526
Skype: johnzajaros1
coachz@ultimatesoccertraining.com