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Laying a Foundation and Setting the Pace: Brian’s Introduction to Strength and Fitness Training for Soccer Athletes

The night before had been a difficult one for both of us and I wasn’t sure whether Brian would be up for his testing. The testing for soccer-specific strength and fitness training is not really that different from testing for any other sport, it is demanding and takes the athlete to the limits of his or her strength, fitness, and endurance. Soccer-specific testing, many would argue, should be based more on the lower extremities because soccer is played primarily with the legs, ankles, and feet; this is, unfortunately, the prevailing mindset.

Prevailing? Yes!

Correct and proper? No!

For one thing, anyone who thinks soccer is only played from the waist down hasn’t watched too much soccer. Additionally, there is a secret to working out and getting optimal results.

The secret? No, not the new-age “Secret!” Although this secret is perhaps as revolutionary or at least as controversial, particularly among those less-informed. The secret I am referring to is something discovered years ago by bodybuilders. Yes, those heavily muscled hulks, male and female, who work out for hours and pose in front of the mirror a lot. Another stereotype!

Am I going to get cards and letters, phone calls and emails, IMs and smoke-signals about that one!

Anyway, back to the secret. The common perception regarding working out is that if you work out a particular body part more than any other part of the body it will continue to grow and develop until you look something like Popeye (forearms) or Tom Platz (thighs).

Platz? Google him! My age, actually, and an absolutely dominant force on the bodybuilding stage in the late 1970s to mid 1980s. Platz was known for incredible, some argued too incredible leg development. Google him and you judge. He competed with guys you may remember. Arnold? Lou (speaking of Hulks!)?

Back to the thought behind Brian’s soccer-specific strength and fitness test.

The secret? If you don’t find a balance, a proper ratio in the focus of your workouts, upper body to lower, your development and your progress will not be to the levels possible with a well-balanced routine. Hence, Brian’s testing, and subsequent workout programs, were an overall, holistic approach to development focusing as much on the upper body as the lower.

Now that the theory is behind us, only one more thing must be noted before we continue. No one, and I mean no one, who isn’t experienced working with young athletes should ever go any where near them in the context of a strength and fitness coach. Let me say that again in a slightly different way: Do not attempt to train an athlete, particularly a young athlete, particularly a prepubescent adolescent, unless you have extensive, and I mean extensive, knowledge and experience working with kids!

Brian Arrives!

Brian walked in to the facility at a little after 10am EST on an unseasonably cool morning for Northern Ohio, it was mid-May. Funny thing? Mom, Dad, and Sis…still giggling… were right behind him. Mom and Dad thought they’d stay and watch, just to make sure Brian worked hard and did his best. Not on a good day!

Something I learned almost day one in training athletes: loved ones stay home, especially parents! Why? There are a thousand reasons and, believe me, they are all valid. Two stand heads and tails above the rest. One, I tend to get very intense when I work with athletes and, while another coach or athlete will understand this and handle it properly, moms definitely do not! Two, they are a distraction! Moms, dads, wives, and especially girl or boyfriends are strictly forbidden, they are the kiss of death when it comes to intensity. Case closed! So, Mom, Dad, and even Sis were sent packing. I told them to be back in an hour. Mom looked a bit perturbed. Dad was grinning, I think he had an idea why I sent them away and he wasn’t arguing. Sis was oblivious but somewhat disappointed that she wasn’t going to get to see her little brother get worked out…and over!

Brian by this time had returned from the locker room with his gym shorts, t-shirt (no tank tops/muscle shirts), white socks, a clean pair of Adidas, and two towels. He was also instructed to bring two more towels and not to eat anything for two hours prior to his strength and fitness testing.

It’s funny how big a young soccer athlete looks when on the pitch, challenging for a ball or diving for a save. When with their peers, in uniform and competing, even a young boy or girl looks somehow bigger. However, on this particular day, standing in front of me, towels, fitness survey, and doctor’s release in hand Brian looked all of ten years old…and scared to death!

I took the forms, made sure they had been signed and notarized, and set them aside. I asked Brian if he had any last requests. I laughed! He didn’t. I then took one of his towels and set it on a flat bench half way through the circuit of machines set up specifically for testing, the other I wrapped around my neck. I looked at Brian and nodded towards the Lifecycle…he followed.

I take on a slightly different persona when training an athlete. Before and after the training session I am relaxed, even jovial in tone and temperament. My intentions? Simply put, they are to put the athlete at ease. During the session, testing or training, it is all about the work, the challenge, getting the athlete to step up and even out of him or herself…to strive for something greater than anything they have done before. That’s not to say we don’t have fun, we do, but there is a fire just below the surface, a sort of slow, intense burn, and it is that burn I tap into for 30 seconds to a minute, fifteen to thirty times during the test.

The test is intense, Intense, INTENSE!

After Brian did his 20 minutes of LSD (long-slow-distance), he hopped off the Lifecycle and I could tell what he was thinking. He told me later I was right! Brian was thinking, “This isn’t going to be so bad, I can handle this…no problem!” I have been training athletes for thirty years and you can see it on their faces every time; they all have that same look after the Lifecycle. He was even beginning to get a bit of that strut back in his step, in his talk, his manner.

After the Lifecycle we stretched for another ten minutes. I was beginning to see it on his face, that look they all get, the “When are we going to lift!” look. Brian was getting bored, even a bit aggravated…it was all over his face. After all, he was thinking, it’s been thirty minutes and my Mom and Dad will be back in a half an hour. We haven’t even started lifting yet. He kept looking towards the back of the facility where some of the high school football players were putting each other through the paces. That’s where he wanted to be, with the jocks, not up here with me and all of these sissy machines. Stretching!

Brian’s Soccer-Specific Strength and Fitness Training Test Begins

It was exactly 10:34am EST when I nodded toward the first machine, the Kaiser Cam II leg extension machine. Brian looked at me and the look said it all. He hesitated and then asked, “where are the weights?” I smiled and told him not to worry about it and to hop on. Brian looked at me, still not convinced, took a seat and I turned the knob. Immediately, there was a hissing sound, something like a snake…or a ticked-off Brown fan…a compressor in the back kicked on. I told Brian what I wanted him to do, “We are going to go from machine to machine, as quickly as possible with occasional detours to that flat bench where your towel is resting” He nodded and we started.

I pushed Brian from the leg extension to the leg-biceps (hamstring) curl, to the leg press, then over to the bench in about 4 minutes. Brian was a nice rosy shade, somewhere between pink and fire engine red, breathing heavily, sweating, and a little unsteady. I told him to lie on his belly and to bring his left leg up to his buttocks, now he was really looking at me funny!

A couple of the veterans (12 & 15 years old), they had been through the test the week before so they knew it all, had gathered. The veterans, knowing exactly what was going to happen next, were all grins.

Failure the Ultimate Soccer Training Strength and Fitness Way!

I took the towel and wrapped it around Brian’s right ankle and told him to resist, to not let me pull his leg down. Brian did so. I found him to be remarkably strong for his age. Resist down and then pull the leg back up against my resistance on a six count. We did that until he couldn’t lift his leg on his own. Then we switched to the left leg and did the same thing…to failure! As soon as both legs had been fully exercised, we immediately moved (I moved, Brian kind of shuffled) to the machines for the back, three of them, then on to the machines for the chest, two more, all the time returning to the bench to take the muscle group to failure with nothing more than my hands or a towel.

Finally, we got to the bench for the triceps, it was 10:48am EST or 14 minutes into the actual test, and that was it. Brian was done! Or that’s what he thought! Quite red from the exertion and almost totally out of breath in 14 minutes. Brian bolted to the locker room and made it just in time! It seems Brian figured he would eat anyway. After all, he was in shape, he thought. He’d eaten before practices all the time. Besides, Mom said it was OK, he needed his energy! So, Brian had only himself, and his mother, to blame. He confessed after the test and promised to never, ever eat before a workout again. I didn’t say a word!

A few minutes later Brian emerged from the locker room and you could tell by the look on his face, color almost back to normal, that he thought he was done.

Wrong!

I pointed to the Lifecycle and he groaned. That’s right, he actually groaned! It seems someone had told him about the last part of the test. He figured because he had broken the rules and gotten sick as a result that I would feel sorry for him and let him slide. I told him that almost everyone gets sick the first time, mainly because no one is in the kind of shape they should be in, I don’t care if they run fifteen miles during a match!

Brian hopped up on the Lifecycle; a crowd had formed by then and all of them started cheering and clapping! I told him to start pedaling, that no matter how hard it got to never stop pushing those pedals! Pedal as if your life depends on it, and he did…for 12 seconds at level 10 manual! If you know anything about Lifecycles, level 10 manual is a bit like cycling up Mount Everest, particularly after a strenuous leg workout, even one that only lasted all of 6 minutes, with the “failure bench.”

Brian slid off the bike to rousing cheers and applause…he had made it, he was one of the Ultimate crowd now. Brian had passed, he hadn’t quit, he had lost his breakfast; and, he was on his way to becoming a real champion, he just didn’t know it yet. I, on the other hand, did!

Brian’s Mom, Dad, and Sis walked in just as Brian was pulling himself up off the floor. Mom looked at Dad, who was laughing now, and just shook her head. Brian, color almost back once again, stumbled over to his parents, gave them a big hug, and thanked them “for the best gift” he’d ever received. He loved it!

Next? Soccer-Specific Sex-Specific Strength and Fitness Training: Brian Begins the Ultimate Program and Defines the Word Champion!

NOTE: The testing techniques I use have been developed by watching, learning, and employing the techniques of the very best in the world for more than three decades. I was at the gym working out the day the first Nautilus machine was delivered (1976), and then the entire circuit. I watched and read as Penn State went from almost completely focusing on Nautilus when it first came out to moving back to a mix of machines and free weights. The following year they were NCAA National Champions and everyone in Happy Valley was Papa Joe Paterno’s fan, buddy, and pal! I had the pleasure of having one of Penn State’s best training with us at our facility that summer, 1982, just before the championship season. I have never, and I am including professionals I’ve had the pleasure to work with, ever witnessed anyone work harder than that young man. Ohio State told him that at 6′5″ and 265 pounds he was too small for their program! So he went to play for Joe Paterno, became a national champion, and played in the Senior Bowl. Bravo! And go figure!

ON TRAINING AND FAILURE: When I take an athlete to failure I am aware of several things. I won’t go into all of the conditions here are two: One, he or she is already a conditioned athlete and we are not starting from scratch; Two, I am taking them to failure not with a machine or free weights but with my hands or a towel. In doing so, taking them to failure in such a way, I am in total sync with how their body is reacting and how they are dealing with the stress every step of the way.
One more thing! I never take an adolescent to failure with heavy weights and low repetitions, machines or free weights.

NEVER! Workouts for soccer athletes vary and can range from fast-paced circuit training to high repetition, machine and free weight training; and, occasionally, heavier training is employed with older, mature, and seasoned athletes. The program and the intensity varies from athlete to athlete and situation to situation.

The ULTIMATE result of Ultimate Soccer Training, the Soccer-Specific Sex-Specific Strength and Fitness Testing and Training, is an athlete who is faster, quicker, more powerful, more self-confident, and, probably most important of all, more INJURY RESISTANT than ever before! This can be particularly important when training female athletes, given their increased susceptibility to knee injuries. I have never, I will say that again, NEVER, had a female athlete suffer a knee injury requiring surgery after training with me for a significant period of time! Strength and fitness training is not only appropriate, it is essential for today’s soccer athlete, male or female!

See You in the Championship Circle!

CoachZ
216-712-6526
coachz@ultimatesoccertraining.com

Tags: boy's soccer, boy's soccer training, boys soccer fitness training, boys soccer strength training, boys strength and fitness training, Brian's Soccer-Specific Strength and Fitness Training: Day One Fitness test, girls soccer training, soccer, soccer injury prevention, soccer strength and fitness training and injury prevention, training, Ultimate Soccer Training, Youth Soccer, youth soccer training, youth strength and fitness training, youth strength training

Brian Begins, Quits, and Begins Again: Soccer Strength and Fitness Training Begins!

The first thing I do, I’ve always done, with all of my clients, and Brian was no exception, is to sit down for an hour or so and just talk about soccer, his team, his coach, about school, about life, his goals, and about his family. There are a number of issues I wish to get clear during my initial conversation with a prospective client. And yes, at this point Brian was still a prospective client. First and foremost, I need to find out, one-on-one and without parents present, if the athlete really wants to be there, I mean in that situation and facing a training program that will be both demanding and time consuming. I can’t stress this point this enough during the first visit because it sets the template and establishes the tempo for everything that follows. The soccer-specific strength training and soccer fitness training I’ve developed is different from any other kind of progressive resistance exercise that I know of and, for that reason, the athlete, and his or her parents, must be on-board 110%! If any one person in that dynamic is not totally committed, the enterprise is almost certainly doomed to fail, regardless of how much I know or how hard the athlete trains.

I want to be clear about this, I am not a sports psychologist, although I have been able to get athletes to do things most coaches, teammates, and even parents just shake their heads in amazement over. I’ll tell you why that is in tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow! I am certainly not a priest, a reverend or a minister, although everything, and I mean everything, a client says to me stays with me! No exceptions, ever!

I did have one borderline incident, not with Brian. A young lady I was training, a swimmer, had just lost her mother and there was a sense that her life might be in jeopardy. I had to step forward. Thank goodness nothing happened and she never knew I had spoken up to protect her! Even in such a situation, it is tough to regain a child’s trust after “telling on them.”

Anyway.

Brian and I spoke for almost two hours! We talked about almost everything. I say almost everything because every athlete I’ve ever trained has held something back, initially. The final barriers come down but they come down slowly with time, trust, and mutual respect. Kids, in particular, while easy to win over if you show you respect them and their space (literally and figuratively), are absolutely unforgiving if you violate that trust, ever!

So, after two hours Brian and I decided to give it a shot, there was something about this kid, I didn’t know what it was, but he seemed to have a fire inside, just out of sight and well guarded…but there. My challenge? Get Brian to believe in me, so I could help him to believe in himself! Once that seemingly simple task is accomplished, everything else falls into place. Strength and fitness training is the easy part, it’s the head game that takes time and effort.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy with Brian, not at all. Frankly, it never is!

After the initial consultation, I sat down with the family…even his sister who giggled and rolled her eyes a lot, she was all of 8 (and a future client!). The purpose of the final meeting was to clear up any last minute questions or concerns and to lay the groundwork for the first stage in the process of developing, what I always hope will be, a champion. Soccer, football (American), basketball, track and field, triathletes, marathon runners, male, female, young, not-so-young, amateur, semi-professional, and/or professional, they all begin the same way…with a written statement describing, in detail, their immediate (day, week, month, season), intermediate (1 to 3 year goals), and long-term (3 to 5 years) goals. I realize 5 years isn’t long-term in terms of life-events…but in terms of an athlete’s career, it’s definitely up there.

In the personal statement, I try to get the athlete to be as specific as possible and to really spell it all out, nothing is out of bounds and nothing is discouraged. I want them to think, to dream, and eventually to focus! The written statement was our first step, after getting to know each other during the interview phase, in building a plan that would take shape over the first 90 days and carry us for as long as Brian, or anyone else for that matter, stayed with me. Soccer training had always been about the ball and running for Brian. Over the next few months Brian was going to find out that in order to be a true champion he had to gain control of his body as well.

Brian’s personal statement was a real piece of work. I still have it around the house, all ten pages of it, somewhere. I don’t need it, though, I can see it in my head. Brian wanted to make his Bayview’s travel squad, he said he was tired of playing with a bunch of kids that really didn’t care about the game, he knew he wanted to be a great soccer player and the first step was to get off of that “little kids’ team.” “Then,” Brian continued, “I want to make my high school’s varsity team as a freshman!” This was quite a goal because up until that time, no player had ever played soccer on the Bayview varsity squad as a freshman…there was even an unwritten rule to that affect! Those were his short-term and intermediate goals, along with wanting to play with his friend Paul’s premier club team. Paul was two years older and played Under-11 for the Westside Cobras Premier Soccer Club. Brian wanted to be just like Paul, wear that cool black and red uniform with the cobra, and all! That’s how he described it, too. “I want to have a uniform just like Paul’s…cool.”

Finally, Brian stated for his long-term soccer goal, and it was a doozy! Brian wanted to play college soccer and go to school on a “full-ride,” so “my parents won’t have to spend their money to send me to college.” The final goal told me what kind of a young man Brian was, and, as I remember, it brought a tear to my eye at the time! Brian, it seemed, was a very thoughtful young man.

Well, we had Brian’s goals pretty much mapped out, and now it was time to get down to business. Soccer-specific strength and fitness testing…into the whirlwind! It was the night before the test and I was asleep, tomorrow would be the day. Out of a dead sleep I heard the phone ring, at first I thought I was dreaming. I remember it like it was yesterday. Heck, I remember most things about my experience with Brian that way. You’ll understand why as time goes on.

Soccer Strength and Fitness Training Begins…except….

Anyway, I thought, “Who the heck is calling me here at this hour!”

I was actually more than a bit aggravated and it must have come across in the tone of my voice because whoever it was hung up as soon as I said hello…more like yelled hello! Well, I hung up the receiver, tuned over, and put my head back on the pillow. No sooner had I gotten comfortable, and halfway back to sleep, the phone rang again! This time it was Brian, he sounded upset. I looked at the clock radio next to the bed, I was living at the training facility at the time, trying to put everything I could back into the business, and sleeping on a fold-out couch in the office.

It was 1982 and it was 1:00am! Of at least those two things I was sure. Oh yeah, I remembered my name, too!

After my mind cleared, I asked Brian what was up. He said he was sorry for calling so late, and I said not to worry about it. Then, and I’ll never forget this, he said “Coach Z, I found out how much money my parents are spending for this program and I can’t let them do it. I’m going to have to quit.” Then, he hung up before I could say a word.

While I was still trying to figure out what had just happened, trying to clear my head so I could think about what just happened, the phone rang again. Yup! It was Brian. The phone went dead for a moment and I thought he had hung up again. Then, faintly, I thought I could make out what sounded like sobs and sniffles. Yes, I could hear him clearly now, he was crying. I waited until he was ready and we started to talk. It took a while but he finally settled down a bit. I could tell he was holding something back but didn’t want to push it. Besides, this was a discussion beyond his years, one that should have been between his parents and me. But Brian wasn’t going to let this drop and I could tell he had more on his mind, that money wasn’t the whole story, so I pushed a bit.

I said, “Brian, your Mom and Dad only want the best for you and this is the best program available in this area right now. Besides Brian, they’ve already paid me.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, then a moment turned into a minute; and, finally, after what seemed like an eternity he said, “Well, you’ll have to refund their money because I am not going to do it! I can’t!” The receiver went dead again and this time Brian had hung up on me. He was finished talking..or at least I thought so.

By this time it was close to 3:00am and it was clear that sleep was out of the question, my mind was racing, going in a thousand different directions at once. So I got up, put the sofa bed back together, and headed for the showers. Oh well, we’d be opening in a couple of hours and I could get my work out in beforehand. I was just drying off after working out and showering, it was almost 5:00am, when the phone rang again. I knew who it was, so I wrapped a towel around me and ran for the office, getting there just as he was about to hang up (I found out later). I must have picked it up on ring fifteen or twenty! Clearly, Brian wanted to talk.

Once again, I waited for Brian to begin speaking. After what seemed an eternity, Brian told me he was afraid his father would be laid off and they wouldn’t be able to live there any more, the only home Brian had ever known. You see, Brian had listened in on his parent’s conversation about how they were going to make ends meet, put him through my program, and still keep the house if there were any more lay-offs at the steel mill. You see, between 1980 and 1984 almost everyone was laid off at one time or another at US Steel or the Ford plant where a lot of his soccer teammates’ dads worked. The same was true across the rust-belt but Bayview had been hit particularly hard.

A Child’s Solution.

Brian, hearing this and wise beyond his years, took it all in and decided, entirely on his own, that he would step in and fix things for his Mom and Dad. Brian was going to give up his soccer strength and fitness program and, to his way of thinking, his dream of playing soccer beyond his community recreation league team.

Of course Brian’s thinking wasn’t informed and it wasn’t based in fact, at least not all of them. It was, however, based on Brian’s love for his family and his tremendous sense of obligation, unless I could make him understand that things would be OK, he was lost to the program. Trying to think and open the business up for the early birds, I knew what I had to do. I told Brian things would be fine. After a moment to work things out in my head, sell a Gatorade and a PowerBar, and give someone a spot, I promised Brian I would work things out with his Mom and Dad so that if his Dad was ever laid off, and couldn’t afford the program for Brian, I would indeed refund all of his fees and continue to train him, as well.

At first, nothing. I mean not a sound! And then, he started to whoop and holler and cheer and yell! Now, keep in mind that it’s 5:00am on a Saturday morning and his parents have been asleep through this whole thing! I can only imagine, I now know, what Brian’s Mom and Dad thought as they jumped out of bed to see who or what was attacking their son.

Me? I couldn’t stop laughing! Out of joy? A sense of doing the right thing? Relief? Lack of sleep? All of the above? People all over the gym are looked at me like I had a screw loose or something. In the span of about 60 seconds, the tension broke, the problem evaporated, and I convinced a champion, because in every sense of the word he was one, that people do care for each other and he could achieve his goals, if he worked for them. It was all up to him.

Brian had, through his sense of responsibility and duty to his family, shown me, his coach for the next few years, what a true champion is made of long before his next match was ever played. The soccer specific strength and fitness training would contribute to his play, even to his confidence, but Brian’s championship character was cast in granite and formed long before we ever met. What happened next was amazing and….

Next: Brian’s Soccer-Specific Strength and Fitness Physical Test…and a new rule. No more eating before work outs!

See you on the pitch!

CoachZ
216-712-6526
coachz@ultimatesoccertraining.com

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

Brian and Motivation: To Believe in One’s Self!

When working in the area of sports motivation, a coach is presented with myriad challenges almost at once! This is particularly true when done in concert with, and in the context of, sport-specific, sex-specific strength and fitness training. In this case, I was working with a young boy, Brian, who was 10 years of age when we started working together. In Brian’s case it was crucial to develop a motivational climate that was both positive and encouraging in nature. The challenge when dealing with high-performance, top-caliber athletes, even at Brian’s age (or perhaps even more so!) is to balance positive feedback with constructive suggestions meant to develop the athlete physically and psychologically. The coach must strive to encourage and develop an environment, a relationship, more carrot than stick.

Just entering adolescence, and puberty, Brian had a particular constellation of challenges that only an experienced fitness instructor/strength coach should have gone anywhere near! Fortunately for both of us, some of my most difficult clients ended up as my finest students and life-long friends! This would be the case with Brian, a diamond in the rough, a jewel to be treasured years into the future. His children have been my clients, and now, Brian is talking about his grandchildren, when he has some, becoming part of a legacy that started with a quiet, shy, even nervous young kid. A young boy who would become a champion. A champion in every sense of the word!

But that part of the story begins later today….

Tomorrow: Brian Begins, Quits, and Begins again!

Until later today? YUP!

See You in the Cheap Seats!

CoachZ
216-712-6526
coachz@ultimatesoccertraining.com

Tags: attitude, boy's soccer training, boys soccer strength coach, changing focus, coaching, coaching soccer, coaching youth soccer, perception, perpsective, relationships, soccer fitness, Sport-specific strength training, Sports, sports participation, sports success, US Youth Soccer, USYSA, Youth Soccer