Are you looking to improve your game in-between training and matches? You've come to the right place. I've written programmes for Premier League players both recovering from injury and just looking to improve their performance. As part of my work with Grippy Sports, I'm giving away this workout for football, completely for free! You can download the PDF version, print it or just keep it on your phone.
The programme is broken down into 3 sections:
- Upper body workout for football
- Lower body workout for football
- Core workout for football
You'll notice there isn't a cardio section. That's because a really important aspect of programming football workouts during the season is juggling extra sessions, football training and matches. You will usually get enough cardio during football training and on match day, to not have to worry about specific "cardio" sessions. Although this does depend on how often you train. If you're playing football 3 days a week, you definitely don't need to do any additional sessions. If you're training once and play one game, you might want to add a light run in between.
But the sessions are broken into 4. So you'll do 2 x upper body workouts for football and 2 x lower body workouts for football. The majority will be low repetition, high velocity exercises aiming to both increase power and prepare your body for match day, to help reduce the risk of injury.
Upper body workout for football
Although football is obviously predominantly a sport played with the lower half of your body, upper body strength is also important. The physical demands of the game do differ between positions but an holistic approach of training to be a well rounded athlete is beneficial to most players.
Having good upper body strength means you are able to hold off the opposition's players more easily. When shoulder to shoulder with another player, having good levels of core strength and upper body strength make this easier.
Working on upper body strength also has benefits in terms of injury prevention. Footballers often either fall on the ground, slide for tackles or use their upper half to shield the ball. Completing an upper body workout for football can help strengthen the structures around your joints, reducing the risk of injury.
The position most beneficial to an upper body workout for football would be a goalkeeper. They use their upper half more than any other position on the pitch both for throwing and catching, and for saving shots etc. Good strength can help during corners when jumping to reach and collect the ball as it comes in the box.
Our free workout for football download includes powerful compound movements to develop a rounded approach to strength, rather that just completing isolation movements like bicep curls and lateral shoulder raises that will not really benefit your football performance.
Lower Body Workout for Football
Obviously as mentioned above, football is played with your legs. This includes when you're in and out of possession. An old colleague of mine once said to a young player that did not like gym workouts for footballers, "if you can't run without the ball, you can't run with the ball" and it stuck ever since.
It's a basic concept but something so true and even more relevant during those gruelling pre-season training sessions which are 90% running and 10% football.
All training should be targeted towards an end goal and in the case of football, it's to improve your football performance. Even if a whole week's training improves your performance just 1%... think of the compound effects of turning up and doing that every single week. By doing the training other's aren't willing to do, you're going to make improvements other's aren't willing to earn.
Again as I touched on earlier, it's a fine balance between working hard enough to make improvements to your game without pushing it too hard, overtraining and causing injury. So a lot of our exercises will be low reps performance at a reasonable resistance but performed explosively to replicate movements you would perform in a game.
The nature of this kind of training will naturally increase your cardio too, so that will also benefit your football performance.
Core workout for football
Similar to the upper body workout for football, core strength is essential for any footballer. It is one of the most important factors that stops you getting pushed off the ball, as well as having a number of benefits in terms of reducing your injury risk, keeping your posture in good condition and also has a role to play in your hip position, which obviously directly affects running, jumping and striking a ball.
The core workout sessions will be add-on's to the upper body workout for football and the lower body workout for football. They are a short circuit of exercises to finish off your session.
Download your Workout For Football
Now you know what it involves, click the download button below to be taken to our download page where you can see our free workout guide for football.
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1 comment
Hello very good informacion