Well, the World Cup starts in just a couple of days! I’m incredibly excited because this year, the U.S. just might make it past the group stage. For a few days, the world will be focused on The Beautiful Game, the most popular sport in the world.

These world-class athletes are in phenomenal shape. They can run nearly non-stop for 90 minutes. The average midfield player covers anywhere from 10-14 kilometers every game (about 6-8.5 miles), with a mixture of low speed running, high speed running and all-out sprinting. But they aren’t just in great running shape.

They have to be strong enough to hold other players off of the ball and make strong challenges. This incorporates total-body strength and fitness. They also have very low body fat percentages, with a lean, densely-muscled look. Follow these training tips to get a rocking body that not only looks good, but performs even better.

We’ll be integrating a lot of plyometrics drills. You may or may not be familiar with that term. What IS plyometrics, exactly? Well, it’s any kind of movement that involves rapid contraction and expansion of a muscle in order to create maximum power. We’ll be developing your sprinting power, jumping power, and even explosive upper body power. These exercises can be done on their own, or integrated into an existing weight and cardio training program. When combined with a heavy weight, low rep program, the results will be absolutely fantastic.

Wouldn’t you like to have the balance, speed, and coordination of Xavi, in addition to all the wonderful skills?

Warm-Up

A proper warm-up is an essential part of every workout. You need to prepare your body to do work. I’ll re-post the warm-up to my Sprint Routine, as it’s a great warm-up that really loosens you up. Yes, it takes a bit of time to do, but it’s worth it, both from a performance standpoint and an injury-prevention standpoint.

Start out with a light jog. Do about 800m, or half a mile. While jogging, do some of the following movements:

High knees – Bring your knees up to at least parallel with your hips. This helps stretch out the hamstrings and glutes while activating the quads.

Heel-to-glutes – Kick your heels up to your butt to help stretch out your hip flexors and quads while activating the hamstrings.

Carioca - You don’t have to do this as fast as the guy in the video. Just nice and loose to get the feet moving and the hips warmed up.

Skip - Yes, you probably haven’t done this since you were a small child, but skipping will help loosen you up and get the muscles used to firing for some power.

Jumps - The same concept as skipping, but every few meters, jump into the air off of one foot. Alternate feet for the jumps.

Once you’re done with that, you’re going to do some light body-weight exercises to finish up your warm-up.

Do 2 sets, at a moderate clip. Don’t force yourself to go all-out. It’s just a warm-up. But make sure that you’re not taking forever to do these.

20 jumping jacks
15 pushups
20 lunges
20 mountain climbers
10 spiderman pushups (If you can’t do these, regular push-ups are fine)
30 seconds of “chair”
30 seconds of plank

U.S. Women's Soccer player Natasha Kai knows how to craft a great body

Day 1:

• Jump Rope – 2 minutes, 3 sets, 1 minute rest
• Box Jumps – 2 sets, 10 reps, 2 minutes rest
• Clapping Push-ups – 2 sets, 20 reps, 2 minutes rest

If you’re a beginner, just jump rope in the standard way, as quickly as possible. Advanced people might want to consider alternating feet, or doing a combination of standard jumps and alternating jumps.

The box jumps can be adjusted to your particular fitness levels. If you’re a beginner, start with a low box or platform. Jump up as high as you can, landing on the box, hence the name. Incredibly creative name, I know. As you advance, you can add height to the box to make it more difficult and further improve your explosive leg power.

Clapping push-ups are simply a standard push-up done in an explosive way. Push up as hard and fast as you can to propel your body off of the ground, and clap your hands together before coming back down. As you come back down into push-up position, allow your chest to fall very close to the ground to really get a good stretch in the chest muscles. If you cannot perform a clapping push-up, simply do the push-ups as explosively and quickly as you can.

We need to follow this up with some high-intensity cardio. This will help burn fat, as well as improve your speed. If you’re not doing your own cardio program, at this point, I recommend my Sprint Routine. Beginners do parts 1 and 3 only. If you’re advanced, do all four parts.

Day 2:

After the warm-up, we’re going to work on your medium-distance endurance and speed. Run a mile as fast as you can. Ideally, you want to be under 6 minutes. If you’re nowhere close to that, don’t worry. All the speed work and other distance training you’ll be doing will really help lower your time. Plus, you’ll be doing this test every week so long as you’re following this program, so you’ll get plenty of practice time.

After you’re done with this run, you’re going to be pretty tired, so take 5-7 minutes of rest. But, don’t just do nothing. Keep walking. You may stop and stretch for a bit, but don’t spend more than half of this rest time stretching. Never, never sit! Don’t let your muscles cool down and tense back up. Keep them moving and the blood flowing. Then, do the following:

• Backward Overhead Throw – 2 sets, 10 reps, 1 minute rest
• Squat Push Press – 2 sets, 10 reps, 2 minutes rest

For these two things, you’ll need something heavy, like a medicine ball. It doesn’t have to be a medicine ball, but it’s preferable. If you absolutely cannot get one, just get something relatively heavy, in the 8-10 lbs range that won’t break when it hits the ground from a high fall, and won’t severely injure you if you try to catch it and fail.

The squat push press is very similar to the backward throw. Start from a low position, then push the ball straight up overhead as you jump up. Catch it as you come down, back into the starting low squat position.

Day 3:

• Alternating Lunge Jumps – 3 sets, 12 reps per side, 2 minutes rest
• Box Drops – 2 sets, 10 reps, 2 minutes rest
• Squat Jump – 2 sets, 24 reps, 2 minutes rest

The alternating lunge jumps are exactly what they sound like. Don’t do these on a Bosu ball, though. The ground works just fine.

Box drops are the opposite of box jumps. You’re going to start up on the platform, then drop down onto the ground and explode back up onto the box or platform.

Squat jumps are what they sound like, also. Start in a low squat position, then explode into the air as high as you can.

Again, we need to do some high intensity cardio after that. Again, I recommend my Sprint Routine. Beginners do parts 2 and 4 only, advanced do all four parts.

Day 4:

I told you we’d be getting to some longer-distance stuff. This time, it’s a 2 Mile Run. Again, as fast as you can. Ideal time is under 12 minutes, but don’t worry if you don’t make that time. That’s a very good time. But, aim high, I say. Same rest period strategy as the 1 mile run. Stretch, but mainly walk around and keep moving. Don’t sit.

• Forward Overhead Throw – 2 sets, 10 reps, 1 minute rest
• Clapping Push-ups – 3 sets, 15 reps, 2 minutes rest

Forward Overhead Throw is the opposite of the Backward Overhead Throw. Shocking, isn’t it? I know. You should already know how to do the clapping push-ups, because you were paying attention earlier.

Day 5:

Today, we’re going to do a more generalized workout. It comes from Craig Ballantyne, author of the Turbulence Training program. It sounds simple, but it’s very difficult. Do 2-3 rounds, with minimal rest in between.

Afterward, go for a distance run. You don’t have to run as hard as possible, but try to push yourself a bit on distance. The goal here is simply to increase the maximum distance you can run. Each time you do this, you want to try and go farther than you did the last time. Try to keep the intensity at a 65-75% level. High, but you should still have enough energy that you could take off at a sprint at any time.

The other two days, you can do whatever you want! I recommend taking this time to rest or work on some sport-specific skills. If you don’t have a sport, doing a day of yoga would be a great way to finish off the week. But you definitely need one day off, for sure, to let your body heal and recover and prepare for the next week. Just doing this program for a short 4 weeks (of course, you can go longer, but I wouldn’t do it for more than 12 weeks without a significant break) will put you well on the way to creating the body of an elite athlete.

-Drew

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