A short word from the editor

Hope you enjoy our latest column at SerieAWeekly on fitness and training. Each week you’ll find a new piece from experts in their field on proper athletic health and conditioning, something all us couch potatoes could profit from.

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guest writer Derek Salvador (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist)

Soccer is a sport that requires movement; all movements begin from an “athletic stance”. When beginning a training program it is important that we start with a strong foundation. Having a solid foundation will provide the athlete with the fundamental key to strength and movement.

Having a good athletic stance means being in a perfect point of balance. Being in a perfect point of balance has its benefits. It allows for better joint reactivity which can help prevent injuries and improve performance by making muscles more responsive. It improves transitional balance, which is the balance position between starting and stopping. This is important as it allows the athlete to make the transition between accelerating and braking more efficiently, thus improving quickness.

The athletic stance is the basis for strength and power. It provides the perfect position to apply explosive power. The perfect position for power is the perfect position for balance. By staying low and wide, one’s center of gravity lowers, and the player has a stronger base of support, making a player more stable (balanced) and stronger. This will make players tougher to knock off the ball, and make them quicker to either get away from their marker or react faster when defending.

Staying low is especially important for our female players, who tend to play their sports in a more upright position. In this upright position females tend to bend their knees instead of getting their butts back and down. This upright position is a contributing factor to a higher incidence of knee injuries in female soccer players.

A “strong” athletic stance consists of the following:

• Head: Looking straight ahead. Where the eyes look, the body will follow. If you look down, your back will round and create poor posture
• Chest: Up
• Shoulders: Square, drawn back but not shrugged, and should be over your knees
• Arms & Hands: In front of the body
• Hips: Back. Body becomes glute dominant (“butt back”)
• Knees: Bent comfortably and pointing straight ahead. Knees are in line with your hips
• Ankles: Bent
• Feet: Shoulder width apart with weight on the balls of your feet

The pictures below show what a good athletic stance looks like. As an exercise, try getting into your athletic stance and hold it for 25 seconds. Repeat 5 times.

Exercises

1. Quick Drops

Standing tall, drop down into your athletic stance as quick as you can. Hold for 3 seconds then repeat. Perform 2 sets for 10 reps. As a progression, a coach can call out “drop” and the athlete then executes the exercise; this makes the drill more reactive.

2. Single Leg Quick Drop

Standing tall on your right leg, drop down into you athletic stance as quick as you can. Hold for 3 seconds then repeat. Perform 2 sets for 8 reps on each leg. Perform an extra set on the weaker leg. Symmetry (right vs. left) is important for athletic development.

3. BOSU Quick Drops

Once the Quick Drops and Single Leg Quick Drops become easier, you can progress them to an unstable surface. A BOSU is a great tool for this. Perform each exercise for the same prescribed number of sets and reps as previous exercise.

Stay tuned for future articles and videos where we will go more in depth on topics relating to strength and conditioning for soccer.

Derek Salvador is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). He has completed multiple courses in the field of athletic movement and human performance. Derek’s experience includes training various sports teams as well as athletes of all ages and abilities. Derek currently works as a Strength Coach at Twist Sports Conditioning located in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.