Increase Upper body strength?

conor-mr2

Hey all,

Just looking on ur thoughts re my program.
age:26 weight :74kg
Ok my goal is increasing upper body strength for soccer purposes.

I split my weights into 2 days
Day 1
Front Raise
Shoulder Press
Lateral Raise
Upright Row
Bicep Curl
tricep extension
Tricep Kickback

Day 2
Dumbbell Fly
Bench Press
Bent-over Row
Shrug
Dumbell Side Bends
wrist curls
Reverse Wrist Curls

On both days Ill do crunches and press ups.
I usually aim for 12-15 rep set with shrugs and side bends higher at 20-30.

So Ill do day1 on a Monday, soccer training on Tuesday, day2 on a Wednesday, soccer training on Thurs, day1 again on Friday, day off saturday, match sunday. day2 on Monday....

Soccer training--hence the no legs related weight exercises in my weights.

Im taking EAS Whey Protein in Morning, One after weight set and casein before bed. Also take creatine after weight set.

Trying to keep tabs on diet. got crosstrainer program to do this. Easier said than done though with diet. Still find it hard to get the 40/40/20 ratio.

Any improvements/thoughts/changes would really help!?

Cheers

Prior Of Taize

Conor-Mr2 wrote:

Ok my goal is increasing upper body strength for soccer purposes.

I see your logic :rolleyes:

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

conor-mr2

Prior Of Taize wrote:

I see your logic :rolleyes:

I take that is sarcasm.
You obviously dont play soccer so dont bother replying to the thread.
Im interested in people's views and advice from anybody who can give it, not off the cuff useless remarks like that, that is obviously going to generate a reply like my one here! :rolleyes:

Farls

from what i can see...your training a lot with only one rest day a week.

also, dont do the same thing twice in the week, break down your schedule more and work the muscles harder once a week.

Farlz

joc_06

Prior Of Taize wrote:

I see your logic :rolleyes:

Well he has a very good point.

If you want to use weights to make you a better soccer player you are going about it exactly the WRONG way
I mean come on man. reverse wrist curls for soccer?? think about it for a second or two?? its the worst workout ive ever seen i think for a sport specific program.

Ok this is something ive been studying a long time so i'll go into what i've found.

---

Speed Endurance (ie maintaining top sprint sprint speed) is a quality that is not involved in the game. The athletes playing will almost all be past their top speed point by 40.

Speed (primarily acceleration) and aerobic endurance are what is required in soccer, these two qualities can be complimentary, as shown by Omega Wave testing. There is always a trade-off between Speed/Power and Speed Endurance. This must be carefully balanced in sprinting, but this is a balancing act that can be avoided entirely with Soccer. The balance between speed and tempo (aerobic work) volume is a ratio of about 20(speed)/80(tempo) for Soccer, compared to about 35/65 for Sprints. This lower speed volume is more than adequate if, and only if you concentrate on the needed area.



Nike published research which supports my ratio. 20% of the time is spent sprinting / running and 80% walking or jogging.


So now i wonder how do you test soccer athletes to see if they are fit to go
Before I explain my vision of soccer tests lets do a little bit of systematisation. Here are the different groups of tests:

- medical testing (involving blood, urin, manual muscle testing, EKG, morphology and antrophometry, etc... )
- psychological testing (personality test, motivation, stress-test etc )
- skill (technique and tactics ) testing (is there any test for this, or is the game the best test for everything and the coach subjective eye?)
- physical tests

Here we are interested in physical testing. They can be further split into non-specific (labaratory etc ) and specific (on the field testing ). To develop the best tests for soccer (game situation is the best test, but how to explain the results of training to "big brothers") we need to see what kind of activity is in soccer. There are shorts sprints (accelerations) 10-30m and of course some direction changing movement (agility, quickness or whatever is it) interchanged by some kind of rest (walking, jogging). Soccer player should be quick (great power for acceleration), shoud be able to change direction and to suddenly stop, but most important they should be able to do this for 90min, so they should have some kind of specific endurance. Is this specific endurance a speed endurance? I think not speed endurace, because speed endurance is involved in continuous maximal running where the maximal speed should be maintained for prolonged time (or some distance) without serious drop in metres per sec. But in soccer you dont even develop maximal speed nor you do you run continuously but in intervals. So this specific soccer endurance should be called interval acceleration endurance (should I put a trademark on this?)

But on what physiological mechanism does speed endurance (SE) depend and interval acceleration endurance (IAE)? I think that SE depend on ATP/CP contents in muscle and some abitily of CNS to sustain maximal voluntary activity (which of them is higher priority I dont know yet). But during soccer action or a single play you dont totally deplete ATP/CP from muscle, so IAC should depend on ability to fast resistensize ATP/CP from aerobic sources and not to use anaerobic-lactace sources. So my conclusion is that IAC greatly depends on aerobic capacity (Vomax, OBLA). There should be some research on corelation betwean OBLA and IAC and SE and IAC. But how do we test IAC? Maybe NASE40 or that Yo Yo test , but, to conclude, my opinion on testing in soccer should be:

non-specific tests
• Concony test and Astrand on tredmill to find VO2max and anaerobic treshold (OBLA) or running 5km for aerobic capacity
• Clean, jerk, squat, DL (really neccesary ?)
• standing jump, triple jump, high jump for explosiveness
• sprint testing

specific test
• T-test (whit and withoud ball)
• 10-30m accelarations
• Zig-Zag poligons etc
• and for IAE you should do all the above specific test in interval manner with rest interval of about 10-20sec for about 10-15 times and to calculate some kind of index that show drop in performance.

Ofcourse, for testing different soccer players (age, position) you should changes the ratio of poligon distances and rest intervals and number of reps.


OK! Now I'll try to explain a test I proposed in more detail....
You set 2 markers with 30m space on the field. The athlete should run maximaly from one point to another, but not just run, he should stop suddenly. When he do this he rest for about 20sec (or some other time, according to the his age or pozition in game). He should repeat this procedure for about 3-5min (or more, if can) to allow him to enter some kind of a dynamical steady state. This time lag is needed because inetria of cardio-respiratory system to adapt (this is another issue, maybe I will post this problem). On each run you measure his running time.

Suppose you have two athletes, A and B. These are their results (on each run, in seconds). The number are symbolic time, because I didnt do this test.

Run # Athlete A Athlete B
1. 3.0 3.3
2. 3.0 3.3
3. 3.1 3.4
4. 3.2 3.4
5. 3.3 3.4
6. 3.4 3.4
7. 3.5 3.4
8. 3.5 3.4
9. 3.6 3.5
10. 3.7 3.5
11. 3.8 3.5
12. 3.9 3.5
13. 4.0 3.5
14. 4.1 3.5
15. 4.2 3.5

*This results are hypotethics, it is just an idea! dont forget that!

You see athele A is quicker than B but he started fatiguing and his running time continue to increase (he didnt enter steady state – he cannot recover during pause). On the other hand athlete B is slower but during the test he enters steady state (he dont accumulate LA because his aerobic capacity is power enough to resintensize ATP/CP neccesary for run).

If we calcutate some variables we could get:

Athlete A Athlete B
Best time 3.0 3.3

Worst time 4.2 3.5

Mean Time 3.51 3.43
during the test

IAE index 0.71 0.94
(best/worst)

Steadsy state n/a after 3min
starts at

So, you see, athlete A is faster but he cannot be fast during the 90min of game. He should be playing a position where he can rest longer (lets say, attack ), but player B is slower but more endurant than athlete A and he could play in mid field... So you can use this test for selection.

You can use this test to evaluate training program and to plan your training. If you see that your athlete is quick but he cannot sustain bursts of activity without droping in performance, he should concentrate on IAE development. If athlete is slow but endurant he should develop quickness and speed, explosivenes etc.

But how to develop IAE (interval acceleration endurance )? He could pay more attention on developing aerobic capacity using continuous running, intervals and activities like this test (ofcourse). But what is the relation between quickness and IAE? I personaly think that there is a trade-off so the coach must think of it. If he pushes aerobic activities that can be dentrimental on quickness and vice versa....

joc_06

So now: You have two types of energy sources: aerobic and anaerobic. Anaerobic sources can be further divided into ATP/CP (alactat) and glicolitic (lactate), and aerobic can be dived into CHO (carbs) and fat sources (maybe proteins have their role). Each one of these types have 3 different qualities: power, capacity and economy. The ATP/CP are the most powerful but they are expended after 8-10sec during maximal activity(low capacity). Fats are the lowest power source (energy/sec) but their cpacity is huge (infinite lets say). Anaerobic glicolysis have great power but the byproduct is lactic acid which is detrimental for enzymes and CNS causing fatigue, and they are less economic (minimal ATP per mass of CHO). Aerobic glycolisis huge depends on your aerobic ability and vice versa. The main goal of aerobic training is to improve aerobic power (enery/sec from aerobic sources). This depends on central (lunges, heart) and peripheral factors (mitochodria, capilarization etc) but I think that mitochondrias are the most important for aerobic power and that is why there is trade off between endurance and quickness, speed etc.
So If you do short burst of maximal running (10-30m) you dominantly use ATP/CP energy system. But after some time you will spend it. Agree? So during rest you should resintensize ATP/CP from other two sources. If you use anaerobic glicolysis you have LA as byporduct wich is detrimental, and after some time your performance drops. This also happen until you get into stabile state (3-5min) where aerobic sources takes their dominant role (if intensity is below OBLA). So our goal is to improve resisntesizement (creation of ATP) from aerobic sources during recovery periods and to avoid LA accumulation. To do that you should have powerful aerobic sources and fast adaptability of heart and lunges to shorten inertial time.
During aerobic activities, after you enter stabile state (where oxygen uptake is the same as oxygen need) you use anaerobic (yes anaerobic) sources because CHO are anaerobicaly transformed into pyruvic acid, and after that they enter Crebs cycle (oxydative) and you convert them into energy so there is no LA accumulation. If the intesity is too intense, oxidative sources cannot cope with anaerobic because their power is less and this is called OBLA (deflection point) when you transform pyruvic acid into LA and they start accumulating. I hope this helps. If I could show you a diagram it would be quite easy

There will not be a lot of lactate buildup in soccer imo. But, this is not because there is a lot of aerobic activity, but rather because the predominant energy system is the ATP-CP system. Lactate is not produced at this level of activity. Measure the VO2 max and lactate threshold for any elite/world class athlete and it will most likely be high.

So now some actual specifics of the game:
Chelsea studied the average activity of their soccer players in a game the following is a breakdown of the amount of each activity in the game:

Average during 90 min. game
-1200 changes of direcion (on average every 4 seconds)
- Standing 18%
- Walking forwards and backwards 40%
- Jogging 18%
- Low speed running 15%
- Moderate speed running 8%
- High speed running 2%
- Full out sprint 1%

From this information, and the fact that most soccer players have about 7-8 weeks for an off-season, there is almost no need for aerobic training (ie long runs). In these cases, aerobic training even predisposes these athletes to injury.


Certainly athletes who do 15x30 will get more, and more fatigued until LA floods their eyes (anaerobic training), and never come into steady state. But (there is always but) the higher the aerobic capacity, the less is the speed of LA accumulation, agree? So soccer players should be aerobicaly prepared, but how much is enough? Im not sure yet


The only issue here would be weather there is a need for a lot of lactate tolerance in soccer. IMHO the players that really to go into the lactate zone would be guys like Edgar Davids or Patric Viera that cover a lot of ground sprinting at 80-100%. I doubt that real strikers ever go into that zone they are almost always pure sprinters (Sevcenko comes into mind or ronaldo - pure sprinters)

So to sum up:
Soccer is a game that requires short bursts of max or near max activity spread throughout the 90 minutes. They are not performing aerobic work as you can see from the information in my previous few lines about Chelsea. Since they require explosive strength, aerobic training would be counterproductive near the season. Since many soccer teams only have about 7-8 weeks of off-season, there is no time for GPP (coincidentaly a great time to perform aerobic training). Cyclic low to moderate intensity activities such as aerobic training inhibit explosive abilities. Non-specific cyclical activities often lead to overuse injuries. Also, if the RFD abilities of the muscle have decreased, when the athlete tries to perform a strong explosive action, antagonist muscles (such as the hamstrings) cannot handle the increased stress and often tear.

The strength coach that I got the Chelsea information from (second hand) was asked to train a soccer team in England. He agreed on the condition that all strength and conditioning matters where left to him. The head football coach was one that loved to make his athletes do distance training, but they had injury problems the previous season. The S&C coach used absolutely no aerobic training. Through the first 2-3 months into the season there wasn't a single player that missed playing time due to injury. After the first loss of the season, the coach punished the team with a distance run. The S&C coach refused to return to continue training the team because of this, so the team went back to aerobic training under the head coach. Within the next 3 weeks, there where numerous injuries that prevented players from playing.

Soccer is just not an aerobic sport. Would a 100m sprinter ever do 5 miles straight for an in-season workout?





Here is some more infor from Bompa "periodisation book" about energy sources for football
ATP/CP 60-80%
LA 20%
O2 0-10%
I dont know how he get this results (and this result is strongly dependent on player position).

Now these are my findings from a lot of research and thanks to a lot of other contributers. Im glad i finally got the time to piece it all together.

pwd

There is a lot of information already on this forum if you search about effective techniques of building muscle.
You would be better off doing fewer reps, particularly if you want strength more than mass. 6 reps per set would probably be good.
How many sets do you do? I think 5 is good.
I would suggest you include deadlifts, and also that you practice the technique before doing them with heavy weights. Deadlifts are excellent for strengthening the back.
You also seem to be neglecting your lats? Doing chinups is a good exercise to develop these.
How do you take the protein and creatine? Do you mix it with glucose? Doing so causes insulin to be released in your blood and makes it be delivered more efficiently to your muscles. Also note that creatine must be drunk within 15 minutes of dissolving or it becomes creatinine, which is useless to your body and will be excreted.
The most useful thing about creatine is that it enables you to train harder. Therefore it is more useful to have it in your muscles during your workout, rather than afterwards. I think the logic in taking it after your workout is to top up the levels when people are taking a maximum dose. 5 grams twice a day is probably the best dosage for creatine.

joc_06

Now i really could stay typing on this all night but the key to speed is contained in the equation. speed = stride length x stride frequency x strength/mass (not 100% accurate yet)

basically you want to get as strong as possible and as light as possible and superb technique.
So the program id have you on would involve of deadlifts, hang cleans, snatches, squats, lat pulldown, chins with heavy weight and low reps to keep the hypertrophy low and avoid needless mass. Basically everything you are doing is crap. Can it and do the above exercises. maybe even follow WS4SB2 by defranco. google it

joc_06

Here's what i propose. I focused on making the entire workout efficient so that it would take minimum time and require minimal equipment yet accomplish the goal of large strength increase with minimal weight gain. All strength work should be done in the weight room. This should improve efficiency. I've founds lads only go half ar$ed on the pitch re strebgth. So unlees you bring strongman eguipment which is another study altogether its just not worth it.

Here is the basic plan, based on strength training sessions on 3 days:

1. Dynamic stretch before each session, static stretch after each session
2. Deadlift every session, 2-3 sets of 2-3 reps @ 85-95% 1RM, TIMED
1. Plyometrics at the end of each set, within 1 minute of set completion
1. Usually depth jumps from varying heights but occasionally used stand triple jump or long jump, generally 6 jumps or less. The focus is on delivering maximum strength in minimum time.
3. One of the following at each session, 2-3 sets of 2-3 reps, TIMED
1. Push Press
2. Bench Press
3. Push-ups or Box Push-ups
4. One of the following at each session, 2-3 sets of 2-3 reps, TIMED
1. Power Clean
2. Clean and Jerk (this would replace #3 above for the session)
5. Abdominal exercises each session, 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps.
1. Always isometric and always timed
6. No Lifts To Failure!!


No needless muscle pumping here, just an efficient, effective workout without excessive body weight gain and geared to deliver maximum force in minimum time; a perfect fit for Weyand’s study. And, all done with a simple set of barbells and some boxes.

The key to this workout’s effectiveness? TIME.

What is to be timed? The rest period between sets is exactly 5 minutes allowing up to 90% or more ATP regeneration. The benefit is much more rapid strength gain. By keeping sets and reps low, timed and without lifts to failure, lactic acid was minimal or non-existent. The benefit was that the athletes felt exhilarated and ready for a full event workout after lifting.


If you want to be a bodybuilder then train like one. if you want to be a strength/power athlete then train similiar to this way

joc_06

stupid formatting got lost in reply but you can see sections 1-6. section 2 has 2 subsections, 3 has 3, 4 has 2 etc.
Thats a good program there. Lots of research has gone into it. You could maybe add in some chin up variants

conor-mr2

Excellent JOC. Lots of reading there. Its my first attempt at a program so Id expected mistakes but didnt think I was that far wrong :eek:
Ill look to modify mine to reflect this. Thanks for that.

I do my weight lifting at home as I purchased weights and a bench.

@PWD Thanks for the info also.
I take the protein with low fat milk after the workout and also take the creatine with water afterwards aswell but Ill admit Ive read lots about taking it before a workout alright and am planning on doing that.

Transform

Congratulations Joc 6 possibly your best post ever!!!!

Great advice and very similar to what i have one of my clients doing - Plays for Longford town FC but currently on loan to Kilkenny.

No training to failure is a massive point and doing proper plyometrics. Concentrate on the big lifts and its all about the recovery

Excellent program and if i see one more rugby player in the gym doing bloody cable crossovers (badly i might add) - i think i might just go and eat a chocolate bar to calm me down.

poobum

Transform wrote:

Congratulations Joc 6 possibly your best post ever!!!!

Great advice and very similar to what i have one of my clients doing - Plays for Longford town FC but currently on loan to Kilkenny.

No training to failure is a massive point and doing proper plyometrics. Concentrate on the big lifts and its all about the recovery

Excellent program and if i see one more rugby player in the gym doing bloody cable crossovers (badly i might add) - i think i might just go and eat a chocolate bar to calm me down.

what are cable cross overs?

pwd

Here's an interesting link about isometric training.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/kelly4.htm

pwd

http://www.elitefitness.co.nz/index.cfm/Training%20&%20Advice/Exercise%20Technique/Anaerobic/Muscle%20Groups/Chest/Chest/Cable%20Crossovers

link explaining cable crossovers.
I think it is primarily a body building exercise. It is supposed to be good for developing stirations across your chest.

poobum

oh i know them...didnt know their name they have 2 of them machines in carlisle...they are crap for rugby!!

Prior Of Taize

joc_06 wrote:

Well he has a very good point.

If you want to use weights to make you a better soccer player you are going about it exactly the WRONG way
I mean come on man. reverse wrist curls for soccer?? think about it for a second or two?? its the worst workout ive ever seen i think for a sport specific program.

thank you. you said what i was thinking. only i didnt feel bothered to type it all out.

conor-mr2

Prior Of Taize wrote:

thank you. you said what i was thinking. only i didnt feel bothered to type it all out.

Ok point taken. But why didnt you offer some advice as I was requesting?
anyway doesnt matter now. JOCs stuff is pretty comprehensive and good

Prior Of Taize

sorry man i didnt mean to be a tool about it. my only suggestion would be use the swiss ball for calesthetics (spelling?) or something. dunno if that fits in with the mighty JOC's plan