I have trained hundreds of soccer players over the years ranging in age from age 8 to the ranks\u00a0of MLS professionals.\u00a0 The sport has taught me such an acute appreciation for body control and field agility.<\/p>\n
For years, I have focused my lower body training on ground based movements such as lunges, squats, and multiplanar reaching progressions with great success.\u00a0 To me, the lunge has always made great sense in terms of the apparent functional carry over or at the very least the related muscle activation pattern with sprinting, cutting and changing direction, not to mention acceleration.<\/p>\n
A recent study in the May Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research<\/em> looked at how walking forward lunges and jumping forward lunges impacted delayed onset muscle soreness, hamstring strength and sprinting performance.<\/p>\n Interestingly enough, after 6 weeks of training, the group doing walking lunges showed a 35% increase in concentric hamstring strength, while the jumping group had improved sprint running performance.\u00a0\u00a0In\u00a0past studies of 10 weeks of training\u00a0using Nordic\u00a0hamstring exercises, soccer players typically showed an 11% increase in eccentric hamstring strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, neither group expereinced an increase in quadriceps strength, but the \u00a0control group actually saw a 7% reduction in quadriceps strength.\u00a0 This would lend credence to my belief that while all the running in soccer is quad dominant, running itself does not increase quad strength per se.<\/p>\n Now, in regard to muscle soreness, there were no significant differences between groups per se, but delayed onset muscle soreness as measured 2 days after exercise did negatively impact running and jumping, but not strength.\u00a0 No real surprise here.<\/p>\n The takeaways for coaches is that incorporating lunge walks and jumping lunges in training may bring about dual benefits.\u00a0 Improved sprint performance is desirable as\u00a0well as\u00a0better hamstring strength for the prevention of muscle and knee injuries.\u00a0 Increasing hamstring strength obviously is helpful in balancing Quad\/Ham ratios for the reduction of ACL injuries as well as hopefully\u00a0decreasing the likelihood of hamstring strains at ground impact through mid stance in running.\u00a0 On the latter point, I favor deeper or reaching lunges to provide a greater stretch or elongation of the proximall hamstring fibers as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n I also like to employ a walking lunge with trunk rotation as part of my dynamic warm-up with my soccer players.\u00a0 I ask them to rotate the trunk to the side of the lead leg which helps encourage hip abduction thereby activating the gluteus medius and reducing the internal rotation and valgus moment at the knee.\u00a0 So, if you coach\u00a0or train young soccer players, be sure to consider adding these body weight lunge exercises to your program 1-2x\/week in the off-season and pre-season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have trained hundreds of soccer players over the years ranging in age from age 8 to the ranks\u00a0of MLS professionals.\u00a0 The sport has taught me such an acute appreciation for body control and field agility. For years, I have focused my lower body training on ground based movements such as lunges, squats, and multiplanar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,31,35,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-injury-prevention","category-knee","category-soccer","category-sports-performance"],"yoast_head":"\n