As some of you may already know, in my spare time I train a few athletes (Strength and Conditioning) with the objective of improving performance in a particular sport. Let me just say I have never been inside Arsenal's training facilities or met the staff so this is all based on what I see watching Arsenal on the pitch. I've been of the opinion for several years now that we place too much on 'anaerobic' fitness and not enough on Strength. Players at Arsenal get shipped out as soon as they appear to be unable to maintain the same levels of performance. While the likes of United, Chelsea etc.. are willing to adapt their regimes to fit certain players needs. We're dogmatic and unbending in our approach in a time when sport science has come on leaps and bounds. Of course the players at Arsenal lift weights but its clear to me just from looking at the squad that anaerobic performance is valued a little too highly. Football is a contact sport afterall and as with all contact sports being stronger than your opposition can be a huge advantage. The transfer of Robin van Persie from Arsenal to Manchester United brought about a mixed reaction from the press. On one hand, in Van Persie United were buying a world class centre forward on the back of a hugely prolific season with the Gunners but given his injury problems, it seemed £24 million was a high price for an injury prone 29-year-old. Those doubts were quickly put to rest after a phenomenal start to the season from Van Persie and he claims that he is in the best condition of his life right now. He said: “I am on a streak of matches and goals that has never happened to me before and it is all down to my fitness. “My body weight used to be around 77 kilos. Now I weigh 81 kilos. That is a difference of more than eight pounds – and it is all pure muscle. “I haven’t been spending more time in the gym lifting weights. I have got myself super-fit and as a result I am both heavier and stronger. It means I am stronger in battles with defenders but I also feel like I am in the best condition of my life.” You can see the difference immediately when you look at him. He looks bigger, stronger and healthier. At the start of last Season Van Persie started hiring his own Strength and Conditioning coaches in a bid to make himself stronger. (And this was something he wanted Arsenal FC to pay for should he sign a new contract.) It seems at United they have welcomed this and he has put on muscle mass without loosing any real pace. In other words since hiring external S&C coaches RVP has hit the best form of his career and appears to be over his injury problems. It makes me wonder how Rosicky and Diaby would do with the same kind of approach. Strengthening the muscles, building flexibility and actually a little less time spent Running. These days Strength training is the final, logical step in a progression of rehabilitative exercise. Rehabilitation is all about breaking recovery down into “baby steps.” For the severely injured, the first step is the easiest of all possible exercises: simply moving. After that, mobilizing and stretching: slow, rhythmic, gentle tissue challenges. Then comes some endurance training: lower load, higher reps, just to get comfortable with loaded movements again. And — when you are almost completely recovered already — strength training is an ideal final step.. Also, contrary to the conventional wisdom, strength training is to some degree also a form of “cardio” or “aerobic” exercise. Fitness does not just equal a stronger heart — it’s primarily skeletal muscles that adapt to all kinds of exercise, get more metabolically efficient, do more with less oxygen and nutrients, and demand less from the heart So muscle substantially defines fitness, and therefore considerable fitness can be achieved with strength training alone — and without the drudgery of relentless cardio workouts, and without their injury and re-injury risks. Such workouts — especially running, cycling, and even swimming — are brutal on joints and tendons by nature. Like I already said I dont know how things work at Arsenal but it's clear to me something just is'nt right.
Bacary Sagna gave us the perfect example of how someone can adapt to a new position when their pace decreases a bit. He could benefit from strength training to make him an even better center back. More than a good right back, he was always a good defender. Hopefully we won't ship him out now he's lost some pace.
Some very interesting points raised Bear. I'd Rep you for it, but apparently I've already Rep'd you too much!! Of course anaerobic fitness is incredibly important in the PL - endurance wins matches, and late goals are a common occurance for the top teams who have that extra few %, but it must be balanced with strength for all positions. van Persie is a classic case of someone who seems to have been mis-managed by the club. Another is Diaby. Diaby apparently had his own personal fitness coach (Renaud Longuevre) during 2009, which coincidentally was his longest injury-free spell with the club (25 starts 09/09, 35 starts 09/10). He went back to him again this season, and so far he's appeared much more than during the last (12 starts so far, many more to come): http://video.lequipe.fr/video/football/foot-and-co-diaby-peut-on-croire-en-lui/?sig=b9c51839e5cs after 8 min mark. Basically, he said the following: - Diaby had massive muscular imbalance issues and the rehab at Arsenal was not done well (implied on second part). - Diaby had one leg that was a footballer's and another leg that was fit for a 10 year old (exact quote). - The last 3 months were spent to strengthen his injured areas and regain proper balance. - Also spent a lot of time working on getting the body to release the scar tissue from his injuries, which created irritation, and to reestablish proper flexibility in those areas. The way van Persie has picked up and thundered on in the last couple of seasons, and the way (possibly) Diaby is improving with his own coach suggests that there are flaws in the Arsenal Medical Team. It's very difficult for them to work with so many players so often and get everything right, but these are issues with individual players that have been going on for many years now.
Yeah interesting stuff. Diaby is a good example. That whole Muscular imbalance issue is another sign his injuries have not been managed correctly. In fact it suggest he was'nt doing any strength training at all!! A guy with his frame and his talent could be an absolute beast for us.
Wilshere too. Wenger kept relaying what the medical staff were saying about Wilshere (back in September; back in October, back at Christmas, etc) and they were always wrong. The main issue with our staff is an ability to get our players to recover from injuries.
Excellent post Bear and probably some truth in what you say. I've said it for a while that some of our players are lighweight, Walcott has spent plenty of time on the slab and although Wilshere gives us plenty of bite I wonder whether the likes of Arteta would be better if they carried a little more condition ? Could Cesc have avoided some of his injuries over the years ? Who knows, Denilson may have been a decent player with an extra stone of muscle....
Wenger has said publicly that he is quite skeptical about weight lifting for footballers and was a bit surprised. There was some misundestanding many many years ago with some coaches claiming that bigger muscle body mass slows an athlete down. That was proved wrong long ago. Even Olympic sprinters have high muscle mass these days. Arsene also said that Diaby inherited very thin muscle fibres that make him prone to injuries and there is nothing he can do about it. Correct me if I am wrong, but pumping iron makes fibres times thicker very fast. A man is born with certain amount of fibres in his biceps, triceps etc. When he does weights etc he does not change the number of fibres, he just makes eachfibre much thicker. That Wenger remark surprised me a lot, I wondered how much he actually knew about it... It would be interesting to know what The Bear thinks about Mertesaker - would he benefit from strength programme? Everyone says well, Mert is too tall he is bound to be slow , but look at Kobe Bryant and all those NBA guys of Mert hight... they are all rockets
Merts needs a good bout of plyometrics, same type of training sprinters & basketball players do to give them that explosive start. It would make him quicker off the mark & help his turning too.
Absolutely, when you take a look at the big NBA guys all of them are on some form of strength routines. The key with these bigger guys is to ensure there's no loss of flexibility. Weight training is the best way for athletes to develop muscles and body strength before, during and after the season. Building lean muscle helps with the explosive moves and physical toughness that sports like Football and Basketball requires. During the season, it's important to not overwork muscles. Lifting 2-3 times per week. (Focus on compound movement like Squats.). Many people seem to think that lifting weights is lifting weights is lifting weights. That's not the case. There are lots of different weightlifting protocols and due to popularity of Bodybuilding (particularly in the 80's) most people are still stuck with a rather misinformed view of weight training.
I think weight training is a love it or hate it thing. There is no doubt that, for the "Short burst" sports weight training is the best way to improve performance fitness wise. The question is not whether weight training is better than no training for endurance events, because obviously it is, but whether for endurance events lifting weights is better than running, or cycling, or rowing etc. I think that for football, I think it is a bit of a wash. I certainly wouldn't say that weight training was useless, but there are so many dangers with it that could lead to putting on too much bulk, working the wrong muscles, and so forth, that might be very difficult to correct. A little weight training thrown in to a universal fitness regime probably wouldn't hurt, but I don't think that it should form the core of a football fitness program.
Good thread, mate. Promoted to an article, so it can appear on Arsenal NewsNow. http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Sport/Football/Premier League/Arsenal/All Sources It's on 14:59 on the timeline.
As a former dancer (that's right!) in Ballet, HipHop & Bboying, weight training was very important in what we did. Not just because it improved strength, but because it made performing moves that would exert you to your max much easier if you were stronger than that move required. If all you do is play football, you'll get the muscles to play football, and that's it. By weight training, you have more muscle than you require, and so everything you do becomes easier - running, sprinting, power etc. You clearly don't want to overload yourself with muscle mass, but weight training is a vital element of fitness for all high-level athletes.
Interesting thread, thanks for your thoughts. I think the largest picture is that the field of athletic physiology is evolving rapidly, and that there is still a great deal to learn. The best guides may be the athletes themselves, if they take an active interest in their training. Whatever else is true about RVP's training, the simplest rule is that if you think it's helping you, than it is. My piece of idle speculation is to wonder if injury prone athletes of all stripes shouldn't put on 5-10 pounds. When body fat crosses a certain (low) threshhold, more injuries may ensue.
I used to go out with a half Iranian Ballet dancer. She was gorgeous, but she was also as feisty as ****. I don't mind sharing that she used to ****ing wear me out in bed and then she'd get all up in my grill when I wanted to go to sleep
