Conditioning - Soccer Power

Soccer Power – Introduction

I can see why a lot of people confuse power with strength in soccer: in many other fields, power equals strength and vice versa, but in soccer strength is simply an ingredient of power.

There are basically three types of "power" in soccer: header power, shot power and throw power. Let's take a look and see how you can increase each of these powers.

Soccer Power – Heading

A good header is both accurate and powerful. Whereas accuracy can be worked out by constantly improving your technique of striking the ball with your head, the power with which you do so will be less of a variable, mainly because it depends on the power of the incoming ball.

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Try this simple test: ask a teammate or friend to lob the ball at you with his hands and head it towards a target. The ball won't move with a lot of speed towards you, so you won't be able to imprint a lot more power on top of it.

However, if your teammate throws it directly to you as hard as possible and you simply use that power to produce the header, you'll get a pretty strong shot.

In a match scenario however, you'll have to deal with both of these types of headers and improving your soccer power becomes crucial. As an attacker for example, heading a powerful cross to goal is mainly about accuracy, but heading a lobbed cross to goal or redirecting it to a teammate requires your own body power.

And this is achieved by working out your abs and lower back, since these two areas are the ones that give a header its power (combined with good body mechanics of course).

Defenders need to increase their soccer power as well, since they'll often be required to clear the ball as further away as possible with their heads, or pass it on to a distant player directly from the jump.

Soccer Power – Shooting

Just like with headers, shot power is a simply formula that adds up strength and striking technique. The muscles that are essential in producing a shot are the femoral biceps, quadriceps, abs and lower back. Depending on the type of the shot (instep, outside of foot, inside, etc) each of these muscles gains more importance, but it's usually a good idea if you work all four muscle groups at the gym. But that's only the strength half in a shot's power, now let's take a look at striking technique.

The striking technique differs depending on the type of the shot, but the most powerful shot is the one done with the instep. Of all parts of your foot, the instep can cover most of the ball and striking it with your instep also allows for a wider movement of your leg, "charging up" the shot. So as you can see, the striking technique can be further broken down into leg movement mechanics and ball surface striking.

Soccer Power – Throwing

Throwing power can refer to either a goalkeeper's throws, or a field player executing a throw-in set piece. Most of the power of a throw relies on the strength of your back and arm muscles so working them out at a gym is a good idea. Since your throwing technique is restricted (ball over your head, legs close together, etc) it's best if you work on throwing correctly first, then improving your throw's power.

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