Still More on Soccer Fitness

Now that we’ve learned how to look like a soccer player and how to eat like a soccer player, it’s time to discover how to perform like a soccer player. For this, we turn to the Washington Post’s Moving Crew, who directs us to the advice of John Philbin, a former Olympic coach and owner of Philbin’s Family Fitness in Rockville, Maryland. Philbin has four words for us: speed, strength, core and agility. Here’s what the Moving Crew says about each:
Speed Grab your energy gel, striker: It’s interval training time.”You
want to get your heart rate up to 80 to 85 percent of maximum, keep it
there for 30 to 60 seconds, then back down for a minute or so,” Philbin
explains. “Repeat that 10 to 20 times.” (No heart rate monitor? Just
alternate sprints of different lengths with jogs.) Gradually increase
interval time, then boost the number of intervals. “This gives you the
ability [like soccer players] to exert hard, then recover, then exert
again.” This type of (brutal) training burns more fat and boosts
stamina more than keeping a steady pace.For those pursuing this
advanced state of fitness, Philbin suggests three interval days per
week, augmented by two days of easier runs of 25 to 50 minutes.
Strength For sinewy strength without
that post-spinach Popeye look, do single-set strength training
sessions, targeting each muscle group with 10 to 15 reps (to near
failure). “Go slow,” Philbin says. “Three seconds up, pause, four
seconds down.”
Single sets are less likely to produce bulk than
multi-set pump-ups. Choose 10 to 14 exercises targeting different
muscle groups to spread the strength body-wide. Mix up the order to
keep your body from getting used to the routine.
Core
Resist nouveau-cool tricks — standing on a bosu ball on one leg while
while juggling three dumbbells, say — and focus on heavy-duty
abdominal and lower-back exercises, says Philbin. Yup: crunches,
planks, back extensions and other unpleasantries.
Agility
Embrace the basics of sports training: side shuffles, crossovers (left
foot over right for 10 yards, then reverse), cone-weaving runs and a
dance-like move called carioca. (Look it up on the Web, Ronaldo.)
Troublesome joints? Proceed with care, if at all.