Strength Speed and injury prevention

[STP Fitness]

Last week I had the opportunity to watch several of the Missouri Cup games at SLYSA. In talking with some of the parents and onlookers I was amazed at the types of injuries some of these young men and women were experiencing.

It appears to me that soccer is a sport that does not utilize strength and conditioning as a means of injury prevention at all. Most of the prep work for games is done by either running or some type of agility and/or ball work.

Agility work without the addition of resistance training is a recipe for tendon and ligament injury. Without providing a method to strengthen the tendons and ligament they become stressed, get inflamed and ultimately can become damaged.

With the amount of directional running involved in soccer, measures need to be taken to protect the lower body joints. I feel soccer has really missed the boat in this regard by utilizing all of its practice time with agility and zero strength work.

I've signed several teams to work with in this regard. They will experience the benefits that every other sport does in terms of injury prevention through strength training. Doing constant agility work without strengthening the parts of the body required for directional running again is a recipe for injury.

Like I tell people who do only agility work, if you're training consists of ladder runs, cone drills, and hopping you're going to become efficient at those movements but have done nothing to become stronger or faster, and most importantly done nothing to prevent injury.

If you'd like more information on how to get the edge over other soccer teams, become healthier/injury free and faster/stronger contact me.

[STP Fitness]

Just a note. We work with entire teams at our facility and if the coaches of these teams make an effort to include this type of training as part of their practice week then strength, speed and conditioning (injury prevention) could be addressed by our staff and ball work and sport specific training/practice could be addressed at group practices.

Just a thought as I would like to address the large number of pre high school (and high school) knee injuries that area soccer players seem to be having.

Thanks,
Bill