Injury Resiliance in Soccer

At all levels of football, especially local leagues, injuries are a common occurrence, but they don’t need to be. In any sport injury is always a risk and it’s part of the game but there is a reason professional footballers can back up day in day out and not succumb as easily to injuries. They train well in the gym and train themselves for the demands of the sport. A common misconception is they can do that because they are professional. I’m here to tell you that you are more than capable of giving yourself the best chance to stay injury free. Many players at the NPL (state) level do plenty of training on their own to make sure their body is in th best shape it can be. I played at the NPL level for years and every year I was getting 3-4 injuries that would put me out for a month on average each time. If you are anything like me, you likely don’t do enough training on your own to make sure your body can handle the demands of the sport. There’s many reasons injuries occur, and some are out of our control but a good place I always like to start with improving your ability to cope with the physical demands of the sport is in the gym doing resistance training. However, your training must vary and shouldn’t just target muscular strength. Other forms of training that are essential to improving your robustness as a footballer are plyometrics, change of direction drills, deep range of motion work, unilateral (single sided) training, training for the uncontrolled environment, & more. Many athletes don’t put in much work outside of the training grounds and getting in the gym to lift weight is usually a good first starting point for reducing risk of injuries. I know this from my own experience and my laziness with doing my own training throughout my playing time. The times where I did put the effort in, I felt great, my injury frequency reduced significantly, and I had the capacity to focus on the details improving my game even more. If you wish to bulletproof your body for match days, do your own sessions outside of the training grounds & be sure to train the varying components that the game requires, build strength, power, resilience in the body & in multiple ranges.

If you are injury free and are looking to reduce injury risk with resistance training, I like to focus on three different styles of training which you can mix within a session or across multiple sessions. The first is your standard compound lifts compound lifts training for strength & power. Jumping under a bar and smashing some squats out is always going to help. If you are injured, then go seek treatment & rehab!

Another group of exercises that I feel are a must are single sided or unilateral exercises. These type of exercises are my favourite and are usually transfer across to the game quite well. This is because we spend a lot of time pivoting off of a single side for kicking, passing, changing direction etc. Doing exercises like your single leg RDLs, walking lunges, & barbell step ups not only help to build up your baseline strength unilaterally but it also challenges you dynamically requiring large amounts of stabilisation through the movements.

The final type of exercises you’ll want to incorporate into your training are plyometric exercises like hopping, bounding, & jumping. These are so important as they help build tolerance under the high intensity periods of the match. Be sure to do these exercises in all planes, so forwards/backwards, sideways, & vertically. While the other types of training will help to condition your body, doing plyometric exercises help to condition you to the explosive nature of the sport and are very important to help minimise injuries throughout the season, especially as you get deep into the season & fatigue starts setting in.

Something extra to consider with your training is the time of year. During the season you don’t want to be doing heavy or high-volume training. During the season it’s all about maintaining what you have, doing what makes you feel good, aiding your body in recovery between matches & staying fit. When you hit off season this is when you want to be hitting your maximum training load in the gym to make the most improvements, build as much strength and power as you can, & condition yourself as much as possible. Coming into pre-season you want to taper your training a bit so you can handle the demands of your pre-season properly, but you can still look to make improvements with your training.

For any football players out there playing for the love of the game and getting constantly injured, dedicate a little extra time outside of the training ground and in the gym. You won’t regret it and you’ll probably find your injury woes start to reduce.