In general, the research on creatine use for soccer has been favorable. Indeed, the researchers noted that among elite athletes, long-term creatine use is quite common. However, before this new research, only one of the studies on creatine use in soccer players lasted longer than a week.

Study Design

Fourteen elite Brazilian soccer players were studied over the course of their seven-week preseason training camp. Half of them took creatine during this time and the other half did not. Their preseason schedule was otherwise the same as usual. It included twice weekly resistance training sessions, with hypertrophy routines and plyometrics designed to improve leg power. Another four or five days per week, the soccer players did their soccer skill work. The program ramped up in intensity as the preseason camp went on.

The creatine supplementation included a week-long loading phase, during which the players consumed twenty grams of creatine daily. For the remaining six weeks, the subjects consumed five grams daily, which is a pretty standard recommendation. The other group consumed the same dose of dextrose (sugar) as a placebo.

Prior to and following the training, the athletes were tested on their jumping ability as the primary test of leg power. They performed eight jumps, which were averaged together, so there was also some endurance that factored into the results of the test.

Results

The results might be not quite what you’d expect. The program itself, being as rigorous as preseason training is, actually resulted in an overall decline in jumping power. The consumption of creatine mitigated this effect. The results were not particularly substantial for either the creatine or placebo, but the program by itself (the placebo condition) resulted in a “possible negative effect” and the creatine plus the preseason showed a “very likely trivial effect,” meaning that the creatine almost certainly boosted jumping power, just not by a lot.

These conclusions mean that in the offseason there may be a recovery of leg power after training sessions, but overly rigorous and focused aerobic power and skill workouts reduce this power. Nevertheless, even small improvements in leg power are important for soccer players, and thus creatine was effective.

Looking at the individual results, all but one of the creatine-taking soccer players improved performance over the offseason value, although the improvements were small. Only two of the players in the placebo group improved, while the rest experienced a small or sometimes substantial decline. Odds are, they would have seen a different result with creatine.

While creatine is not always considered appropriate for use in a sport like soccer, it still has a place in improving performance. Supplemental creatine is one way to assist in achieving goals for soccer players.

References:

1. Claudino et al. “Creatine monohydrate supplementation on lower-limb muscle power in Brazilian elite soccer players,” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2014, 11:32

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve most certainly noticed that it’s World Cup time. To some Americans the World Cup is cause for celebration, while to others it’s rather annoying or perhaps a trifle baffling.

While soccer, or football as its known on the rest of the planet, is the world’s most popular sport, it’s far from ours. In the United States, tackle football reigns supreme, with basketball and baseball as distant runners-up.

Soccer Is Gaining Momentum

While tackle football is in no immediate danger of being knocked off its pedestal in America, soccer is definitely picking up fandom and momentum here.

Major League Soccer (MLS), our professional soccer league, has a small but passionate fan base, and the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) boasts an ardent following and its own share of newfound success on the field.

In short, soccer is growing in the U.S. Through the first seventeen World Cup games broadcast on ESPN, ratings were up 26% over the last World Cup in 2010. Is soccer finally becoming relevant here in the United States?

The debate rages on, but for now the World Cup isn’t surpassing Super Bowl Sunday in American households any time soon. Here’s why we increasingly love soccer, and why we still don’t.

Why Americans Love Soccer: Passion and Pageantry

The only time I have ever been at a sporting event in the United States where spectators stood and chanted the entire event was at a soccer match.

I’ve been to NFL games, NBA finals, and World Series games – nothing matches the fan intensity and the pageantry and energy of a professional soccer fan.

With such passion off the field, comes an added element of intrigue and excitement in the game itself. It’s almost the opposite of a modern-day professional baseball game, which lacks the electricity and mystique that once made it America’s national pastime.

Nowadays going to a baseball game is about being entertained by the jumbotron and gimmicks. You get your snack, you watch a few innings, and you leave after the seventh inning stretch. Yawn.

I’m not yet willing to equate an MLS game to a big-time college football game. Then again, I wouldn’t equate college football to the English Premier League either. The bottom line is that fans matter, and soccer’s chanting and knowledgeable fans make the sport compelling.

Why Americans Love Soccer: Skill, Athleticism, and Fitness

Remember the superstar competitions they used to have on TV with different professional athletes competing against each other in skill and agility? The idea was to determine who were the best athletes in sport.

Of course, there never was a clear-cut answer. Water cooler talk seems to suggest that basketball players take the cake. Certainly for explosiveness and power, American football players are in the discussion. What about speed, agility, and fitness, though?

While soccer players might not use their hands, they most certainly have speed, and their skill when it comes to agility is awe-inspiring. In terms of fitness, professional soccer players display a phenomenal level.

During the previous World Cup over 100 players averaged running six-plus miles during a match and some as high as seven or eight.

We’re not talking about a casual jog in the park either. We’re talking about anaerobic sprints for ninety-plus minutes. When it comes to skill, speed, and fitness, soccer is fantastic to watch.

Why Americans Love Soccer: Strategy

How hard can it be to put a ball in a net eight yards wide and eight feet tall? Apparently really hard. In the last World Cup, there were a paltry 1.56 goals per game scored on average.

While this World Cup is off to a torrid start with almost double that figure, three goals per game still doesn’t sound like a lot of scoring to me.

It’s tough to score in soccer. While this fact is maddening to the casual soccer observer, behind the scoring is a great deal of strategy and flow that’s happening on the pitch.

The nuance of that flow and how the pieces of a soccer match fit together holds intrigue. How the players move without the ball and create space to be in the right place is a thing of beauty to watch if you look closely enough.

The fact that it’s so difficult to score makes it all that more amazing when the rare scoring opportunity does occur. You can only capture the king once in chess, but that doesn’t make it any less of a game.

Why Americans Don’t Love Soccer: Taking Dives

Nothing drives me more insane than the absurd dives seen in soccer. A soccer player will writhe in agony and desperate “pain,” only to be back up playing two minutes later. This utter nonsense occurs for one reason and one reason only – sometimes flopping works.

Flops can create penalties and penalties can create goals. While you may be helping your team in flopping, nothing aggravates us Americans more.

First, it’s cheating. You want to win, put the ball in the net during the game, not during a penalty kick. Second, learn how to take a hit already. You’re a professional athlete for goodness’ sake.

We in America know how to take hits. Maybe in the minds of some this is the arrogance of the Ugly American, but I’d rather take a hit any day and pretend it didn’t hurt versus fake an injury that didn’t actually hurt. Durex has it right in their new ad campaign – stop faking it.

Why Americans Don’t Love Soccer: Penalty Kicks and Shootouts

In essence, a penalty kick is a goal. There really isn’t a point to taking a penalty shot, as the goalkeeper has no time to react. There simply isn’t time to react to a ball that is coming at speeds approaching 125mph.

According to The Science of Soccer Online, 85% of penalty kicks (from professional leagues, championships, and World Cup play) result in a goal. This puts simply way too much power in the hands of the referees. A foul in the box is essentially a goal.

In soccer, where so few goals are scored, there is far too much weight in such a penalty. Soccer needs to clean up its act and let the players play. I don’t go to an NBA game to watch refs and free throws. I go to see players make spectacular plays.

Why Americans Don’t Love Soccer: Ties

Ties are for bankers and lawyers, not sports. You may play for the love of sport, but lets be honest, you also play to win. Americans can’t stand ties. It makes us feel cheated – like the game was played for naught. America likes a winner, and will even root for a perennial loser. But what America won’t support is the concept of average.

Play the game until someone wins, already. Maybe the goal needs to be a touch wider or the field a bit shorter. Something, but nil-nil doesn’t get it done for us.

Why I’m Still Watching American Football

In the end, I think soccer is awesome, especially at the professional level. The electrifying atmosphere and the athleticism of these superb athletes is intoxicating to watch. More than anything, I love the pageantry and enthusiasm that surrounds professional and international soccer.

However, association football will never touch American football in my view until it toughens up on the nonsense and puts the result of the game in the hands of the players, not the refs. For now, when it comes to NFL on Sundays or soccer on Saturdays, the NFL still gets my vote.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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In the study, researchers compared pubertal (around twelve to thirteen years old) elite soccer players, who were divided into two groups. One group engaged in their normal soccer training, and the other spent two sessions per week training in plyometrics. They followed this regimen for sixteen weeks. The researchers tested numerous typical factors, including sprinting, agility, and jumping.

At the end of sixteen weeks, the plyometric group showed significant improvement in most of the tests, such as the twenty-meter sprint, agility test, and various jumping protocols. Each of these protocols were improved at different rates. For example, agility improved right away, but stopped getting better after twelve weeks.

Now, these results are hardly surprising or new. But the study design was the most interesting part, and it leaves some greater questions, which are even more fascinating than the results. The improvement created by plyometrics was measured by fitness tests. Soccer coaches commonly perform these assessments, but what matters most is whether the improvements actually made these children better soccer players. After all, that’s the whole point of bothering with training and testing, anyway.

The above question was highlighted in this study because the players replaced a portion of their soccer training with plyometric training. The two plyometric training sessions each week actually replaced two of their soccer sessions. Although a few tests of athleticism were improved in the plyometric group, actual soccer skills and other sport-specific factors, like individual soccer performance or teamwork, were not tested.

The strength of this study is that it raised these questions and also confirmed the benefits of plyometrics for general physical preparedness (GPP). While skill training is indeed essential for every athlete, time must also be set aside to develop basic athleticism. As a conditioning coach myself, I find more and more soccer coaches and players on board with this principle, especially when practice time is limited.

The question of whether or not the tested athletic variables translate to sport is an ongoing one that won’t be resolved anytime soon. As far as the soccer athletes in this study are concerned, they probably improved their sport performance as well, even if they did sacrifice some practice time to work on basic athletic components.

References:

1. Quirin Söhnlein, et. al., “The effect of 16 weeks plyometric training on explosive actions in early to mid-puberty elite soccer players,” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000387

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While that may sound like an okay model, a recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning disagrees. In the study, researchers looked at soccer players, but the lessons learned apply to all sports and the vast majority of all athletes and teams.

The major take home point from the study is that practicing the activity itself, even with vigor, is not always sufficient to develop the physical attributes needed for success in that very sport. That might be a shocking revelation to some coaches, but it’s true. For a simple example, there comes a point in developing your ability to do reps of pushups where the exercise itself is no longer good at developing strength, even though strength is still required for the greatest improvement.

While pushups may be a far cry from soccer, the researchers found the same results. Playing a full season of soccer where all the training variables were measured and separated into various categories of intensity, only some of the attributes necessary for soccer were improved. The big one that was not improved however, was aerobic capacity.

Yes, perhaps the most substantial athletic factor for success in soccer was not developed even after a full season of playing and practicing soccer itself. The researchers reasoned that this was due to an increasing intensity of exercise needed to increase the VO2 max any further than the soccer players were maintaining. They noted even that one such session per week, which the athletes typically did, was insufficient to improve their aerobic capacity.

What researchers offered as a solution is something I’d like all coaches to learn. This will take a lot of effort, which is why I think – and the researchers echo this assumption – that many coaches don’t already do this. You need to be able to measure the athlete’s activity levels and then adjust their skill training time appropriately. This adjustment might be different for every sport and even for every athlete, but if you have a firm grasp on the effort put forth by athletes and you determine what they need to improve further, then you have attained the recipe for success.

Note that I said there is a need to determine what is best. I didn’t say assume, but rather determine. Much like in this study, the researchers assumed that the aerobic ability of the soccer players would increase, and it did not. This result was surprising to them, and to me. No matter your experience, the answers might lie behind a different door than the one you’ve been walking through. Take some careful measurements and examine the path of your athletes at every turn and they will surely succeed.

References:

1. Zbigniew Jastrzebski, et. al., “Effects of Applied Training Loads on the Aerobic Capacity of Young Soccer Players During a Soccer Season,” J Strength Cond Res 27(4), 2013

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post You Need to Do More Than Play Your Sport to Be Better at Your Sport appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It’s a great thing to witness the birth of a sport. When it changes so dramatically in such a short period of time, it gives you a new perspective on all sports. Perhaps every sport you watch or play should be longer. Perhaps it should be shorter. It’s hard to say until you take a hard look at the effects that changing sport periods has on the game itself. A recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning covered one aspect of that topic.

In the study, researchers looked at variable lengths of play for soccer. In many ball sports, not only are periods of a given length but players can also be swapped out when needed. This adds an extra dynamic to which coaches need to pay close attention. However, in this study, the soccer players were made to remain in their test games for the entirety of each period. They did a single 16-minute period, two periods of 8 minutes with a 2-minute rest, and four periods of 4 minutes with a 1-minute rest. The researchers looked at several variables influencing athleticism during the game play.

Now, I have no doubt you can guess the results. The players were faster in the beginning of each test, and the players with shorter intervals were faster, even at the end, than players who had only one period. What’s important here is how to use these results to further our sporting endeavors.

Just because athleticism increases as period length decreases, this doesn’t mean all sports should have very short periods. An athlete needs sufficient time to get the job done, so there’s a balance that needs to be achieved to create the greatest experience for both athlete and fan. As mentioned prior, in many ball sports this consideration can be made immediately. A coach can have at least some control over how long a player is on the field, and should allow players to rest when possible to improve their performance.

For many other relatively new sports, or new organizations controlling more traditional sports, we can try to keep this facet of athletics in mind and strive for an optimal period length. There was, and for some people still is, resistance to the idea of changing round length in MMA. Many purists believe there should be no time limit, even though adding rounds greatly improved the sport. And I say that understanding the appeal of no time limits, but let’s be honest, MMA is better with rounds for everyone – athletes and spectators.

How about for the sports you like to watch or play? Are the periods, rounds, halves, etc. the right length or should they change?

References:

1. David Casamichana, et. al., “Influence of Different Training Regimes on Physical and Physiological Demands During Small-Sided Soccer Games: Continuous vs. Intermittent Format,” Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 27(3): 690–697, 2013

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post How Length of Round, Period, or Play Can Change a Sport appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Soccer, or football, as it is called most places outside of the United States, is the most popular sport in the world. Soccer is quite physically demanding, and this study on soccer and heart health indicates it could possibly be the best way for people who suffer from hypertension (high blood pressure) to improve their fitness, normalize their blood pressure, and reduce the risk of stroke. New research compiled from the Universities of Exeter and Copenhagen and Gentofte University in Denmark suggest that soccer training prevents cardiovascular disease in middle-aged men with hypertension, and is actually more effective than the advice currently prescribed by doctors.

The study consisted of 33 men who were between the ages of 33 and 54. Each of these men suffered from mild to moderate hypertension. Each subject was randomly placed into one of two groups: one group participated in two 1-hour soccer training sessions each week, whereas the other group (the control group) simply received the usual care from their physician, which included advice about diet and physical activity. The effects on exercise capacity, maximal oxygen uptake, body fat and blood pressure were monitored after three months, and at the end of the trial which lasted for six months.¹

The results of the study revealed that the soccer group experienced a greater reduction in average mean blood pressure than the control group – 10 mmHG reduction compared to 5 mmHG reduction. The soccer group also saw significant improvements in maximal oxygen uptake, maximal exercise capacity, resting heart rate, and body fat mass. There were no significant changes in these measures for those who were in the control group. Additionally, the men who were in the soccer group were found to be less physically strained during moderate intensity exercise and had distinctively lower heart rates and elevated fat burning in activities such as cycling.²

Lead researcher Peter Krustrup said: “Playing soccer scores a hat trick for men with hypertension: it reduces blood pressure, improves fitness and burns fat. Only two hour-long football training sessions a week for six months caused a remarkable 13/8 mmHg in arterial blood pressure, with three out of four participants normalizing their blood pressure during the study period. Other researchers on the project pointed to possible benefits in regards to decreased risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, and death. There are also plans to test the benefits of soccer on women with hypertension.³

The findings in this study make a convincing case for soccer as a means for not only improving physical fitness but also as a way to control blood pressure. Soccer, rather than medication, could be an effective and natural approach to help alleviate the symptoms of hypertension. Combining the advice from your doctor along with a soccer regimen could result in better health and more fun.

The post Science Says: Soccer Is Good For Your Heart appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The participants of the study were ten elite athletes – eight male and two female. The athletes were required to complete five separate testing sessions, which included three performance trials and two training sessions (one on sand, one on grass). The training session used was designed to mimic the movement patterns that are most common to team sports, including acceleration, agility, and common game simulation drills. The sand training session was conducted on soft, dry beach sand on a level area of beach removed from the water’s edge. The grass session was conducted on a well-maintained sporting ground of Kikuyu grass. Athletes were barefoot during the sand trial, compared to the grass trial where they wore shoes. The same training session was completed on both sand and grass surfaces, and 24 hours later, each session was proceeded by a performance trial consisting of vertical jump, repeated sprint ability test, and a 3 kilometer running time trial. These measures were then compared to baseline measures acquired prior to the study.¹

Both physiological and perceptual variables such as blood lactate, heart rate, and ratings of perceived exertion were measured during each session. Additionally, throughout the 24 hour post-exercise period, measures such as muscle damage, inflammation, and hemolysis (the breakdown of red blood cells) were measured. GPS units were used to monitor sport-specific conditioning sessions, and distance and speed were calculated from the data collected on the units. Blood samples were taken pre-, post-, and 24 hours after exercise.²

The results of the research showed a significantly higher heart rate and rating of perceived exertion in the sand training sessions. There were no differences in 24-hour post-exercise performance, no indications of muscle damage, and rates of inflammation and hemolysis were similar between each surface. These results suggest that performing a sport-specific conditioning session on sand as opposed to grass can result in a greater physiological response, without inflicting any additional damage to next day performance.³

Based on this research, athletes can use sand surfaces to improve performance without worrying about recovery or performance issues. Sand training requires less stability and energy returned during exercise, which results in a greater workload for the muscles to achieve the same output. The fact that it won’t affect recovery is promising, since it can be an effective training method.⁴

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