Science Makes Its Way into the World of Soccer
Soccer is a high-intensity sport: on average, soccer players cover 8 to 12 km during a 90-minute match, with their heart rate remaining at 80–90% of their maximum.
Stéphane Perrey, University of Montpellier
Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash, CC BY-SA
In addition to the specific endurance required to meet the physiological demands of the game, soccer players face another challenge: they must sprint more often and faster within specific time and space constraints to perform at their best!
In this context, the Association of Professional Soccer Fitness Coaches—represented by its President, Sébastien Lopez-Guia, a professional fitness coach certified by the FFF and recognized for bringing together the majority of soccer specialists in the French professional and amateur leagues—has partnered with the University of Montpellier (Laurent Mortel and Stéphane Perrey) to create a unique program: the University Diploma in Soccer Performance Optimization. Through this partnership, various approaches to athletic training for soccer players are being developed within professional clubs. This program addresses a growing demand for a highly specialized degree that provides targeted scientific expertise combined with practical field skills, as currently applied in all top-level clubs. With the help of human movement sciences, it is now possible to identify motor signatures in soccer.
Force in motion: a "useful" force for soccer players
The ability to generate both force quickly and high levels of muscle power is considered one of the most important physical performance characteristics, particularly in activities that involve repeated jumping, changes of direction, and/or changes in speed.
This is true of soccer, which involves numerous sequences of movements that require the ability to perform “explosive” actions such as sudden accelerations or decelerations, sprints, and jumps, depending on the player’s position on the field.
Statistics show that players cover an average sprint distance (≥ 24 km/h) of 250 meters per game, with some players reaching peak speeds of around 32 km/h. Soccer players are also required to perform approximately 60 sprint sequences per game while executing multiple changes of direction and jumping movements. What these types of movement have in common is the need to generate large amounts of force in relatively short bursts.
How can you build strength to move better?
Strength training is often equated with—or even reduced to—the increase in muscle mass. While this is partly true, the reality is that strength encompasses other aspects, such as “explosive” strength, strength endurance, and speed strength, each of which corresponds to different muscular qualities that can be specifically trained in soccer.
Stephane Perrey, Author provided
One area of modern physical conditioning that is experiencing a resurgence is so-called functional training. This approach aims to incorporate the demands and constraints of the sport into the training environment in order to improve training effectiveness. In other words, functional training designed to develop “explosive” strength and power should be viewed as a form of training in which the exercises and movements are integrated, multidirectional, and appropriately varied.
In practice, functional training involves a range of movements based on kinetic chain exercises (involving a group of muscles), ballistic movements such as throwing weighted balls, and dynamic balance activities that engage proprioception and core stability.
It’s important to remember that the principle is to engage the entire muscular system by targeting major physiological and neuromuscular systems. Unlike more traditional, so-called “analytical” strength training, which focuses on one or more muscles by isolating them, functional training takes into account the entire muscular system and the joints. The upper and lower body work together rather than in isolation.
Gone are the days of repetitive barbell lifts; instead, we focus on full-body exercises that range from simple to complex explosive movements, tailored to each individual’s creativity. Functional training can take the form of workshops (such as circuit training), bodyweight exercises (exercises without equipment), or exercises using various accessories (resistance bands, unstable surfaces, weights, straps, etc.) and specialized machines.
Movements that are well-controlled
The goal of functional training is to replicate game situations as closely as possible during training sessions. However, cognitive demands are often overlooked in the context of strength training when considered in isolation. Successful performance requires physiological and cognitive abilities that are interdependent or interconnected. Achieving neuromuscular adaptations specific to the movement patterns of soccer players requires control over two types of effort: physical effort and mental effort. Once again, functional training can address this issue.
An important aspect of the principle of training specificity is the intention underlying muscular action and the nature of the effort. A key training stimulus is the nature of the motor command and the resulting patterns of motor unit activation associated with high-speed movements.
These central motor commands activate muscles in a manner consistent with the intended action and, furthermore, promote specific physiological adaptations. The nature of the mental effort directly influences the quality and quantity of movement and, consequently, all physiological adaptations and , ultimately, final performance.
This could lead to more effective patterns of muscle coordination and contraction because we don’t just train the muscles—we train the movement itself! For example, the intention should be to spring forward during a jump, and jumping becomes a means to achieve that goal, not the goal itself. Applied to the context of training, we learn to better perceive the effectiveness of a movement when we discover solutions ourselves through the free exploration of the repertoire of movements at our disposal: this is the added value offered by functional training, whether or not it is assisted by external resistance.
The functional training approach described here is designed to enhance the specificity of the physiological adaptations underlying the types of movements to be performed, rather than to improve perceptual and cognitive abilities. Functional training is not exclusive. Other methods of strength development are necessary to achieve other goals in terms of muscular adaptations, such as increasing muscle size, which are components of functional performance. The various markers of a soccer player’s movement (cognitive, physiological, neuromuscular, sensorimotor) would thus constitute a behavioral map contributing to the accuracy of diagnostic predictors of performance. However, it may be more than just a small step to conclude that a player’s game intelligence is reflected in the patterns of their movement.
Stéphane Perrey, University Professor, Associate Director of the EuroMov Laboratory, University of Montpellier
The original version of this article was published on The Conversation.