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27/07/2020Zlatan Ibrahimovic – 38 years old, 1m96 height – still can play with great mobility with a bulky body like in this photo.
This is just one of an example when Zlatan showed his incredibly physical capacity. And it also shows a huge different between bodybuilding and athleticism, especially for a football player.
These two concepts are often misconceived, even in professional sport environment. That’s why today we would like to share with you 4 key things to understand and develop your physical strength capacity.
1/ MOBILITY should be the priority
Mobility includes muscle flexibility and factors that affects the amplitude of joint motion.
Ibrahimovic in a FMS test in LA Galaxy
To success in any sports, you need skills. And to practice those skills, you need mobility. Hence, mobility is the most important factor that you need to maintain or improve while training. Only when you master the skill, should you think about how to improve your strength to optimize that skill.
Mobility allows you to practice your skill properly and reduce risk of injury when the body is put into a challenging position.
On the other hand, mobility helps in injury prevention with muscle flexibility and the amplitude of joint motion when the body is put into a challenging position.
This can be considered as a challenging position. Players could be injured if they don’t have good mobility.
To maintain good mobility, you should:
• Regularly stretching
o Dynamic stretching before training
o Static stretching after training
• Foam Roller can be used for stretching if necessity
• In your strength training, at least choose one exercise with challenging movement which requires good mobility, such as: Front Squat, Overhead Walking Lunges, Overhead Squat…
Notice: Front Squat and Overhead Squat are 2 of the most difficult exercises in term of movement which require great mobility of all body. That’s why besides the purpose of training, these two exercises also can be used for testing your mobility. It will show immediately your weak point area so you can try to find a way to improve it.
Toby Alderweireld (Tottenham Hotspur) performs Overhead Squat in pre-season FMS test.
2/ Focus on the ECCENTRIC and CONCENTRIC of muscle
The meaning of strength training for physical capacity improvement is the development of eccentric and concentric strength but not the hypertrophy as in bodybuilding.
In fact, a nice body is just an extra reward after you have a good physical capacity with great mobility. If you look at the training way, these two types of training seem similar but the nature of them are different.
Let’s take a look at top athletes in the world such as Ronaldo, Zlatan, McGregor, LeBron James… They don’t have brawny muscle like bodybuilders but their bodies are like a real machine with strength, speed, mobility and explosive power.
Didier Drogba “The Elephant”
So you should understand your body mechanism and try not to gain unnecessary muscle. Too much muscle without other strength factors will make you heavy and reduce your mobility. Focus on your strength and power, based on a good mobility, then you can do whatever you want. A nice body will be a bonus reward for your efforts.
3/ Learn how to apply the force as much as possible INTO THE GROUND
With any kind of sport which requires you to perform the skill or movement on the ground, you should train and develop the ability to apply the force as much as possible into the ground.
This is the key for you to run faster, jump higher and be more balance on the ground. You cannot move your body without anything to push, unless you’re the superman. To most of sports, even in football, the ground is where players can make the push.
The more you push, the stronger the force react so that you can jump far or stay balance.
Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: F = –F
That’s why you should choose exercises that allow you to use the ground to push and think in your head that you need to push as much as possible to perform the exercise. Some basic exercise such as Squat, Deadlift, Sled Push… can help you!
Trap Bar Deadlift: the technique is not difficult and it’s really helpful if you want to learn how to apply force into the ground to lift the bar..
Some exercise will never teach you how to apply force such as leg extension, leg curl… or even some exercise on bosu ball (people often call it functional training).
PR image like this could make terrible misleading ideas
4/ Use bodyweight exercise for developing RELATIVE STRENGTH
Relative strength is the amount of strength to body mass. This is really important as the relative strength will help you control your body easier and more effective.
There’s no meaning if you can lift 100-200kg of weight but cannot lift your own body easily in pull up, push up, single leg squat…
If you cannot control your body, cannot lift your own body, so what’s the point of training?
Cristiano Ronaldo performs pull up
If you gain weight, gain muscle but deduce on your pull up repetition, there’s something wrong. You can have a nice body but your movement ability may not improve (bigger doesn’t mean stronger).
So, don’t ever forget to use bodyweight exercises as a basic way to maintain your relative strength – to control your own bodyweight.
- Lê Cao Cường/PVF