If you’ve watched the World Cup, you may have marveled at the physical fitness and skill of these elite players.
How can they run and run and run for so long? What makes them so good at quick changes of direction? Is there a certain body type biomechanically that is perfect for football?
Of course, much of the brilliant playing is due to natural talent combined with years of very hard training and practice. But there are certainly a number of physical attributes that help enormously to be able to play football at this level.
Different functions for different positions
There is no one perfect body type for this sport; a lot depends on what position you play.
For example, a central defender may benefit from some extra height so that he can defend against airballs in the penalty area.
Midfielders, on the other hand, head the ball less often, but need a lot of agility and must be able to cover amazing distances in the game. That’s where having a lighter body mass really helps, and that means not being too tall. If you’re tall – even if you’re skinny – you weigh more, so being very tall can be a disadvantage for these players.
And being shorter means our center of gravity is lower, so we have more stability and better balance. That makes technical skills with the ball easier to execute and it also makes it easier to change direction quickly.
There is one fairly consistent physical attribute of soccer players, which appears to be similar between male and female players: the ability to run and run.
They must have a large engine, so they are physiologically strong in terms of heart and lungs. In a running test, these players show up with very high VO₂ max (a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise). They will also have a high lactate threshold, which means their bodies can handle sustained, high-intensity exercise.
All this adds up to what we call good repeated sprinting ability. That means they can run, then recover, then run, then recover, and so on and so forth. Remember, they spend some time standing or walking, so it’s the repetitive effort of going from low intensity to maximum intensity over and over that necessitates this big engine.
Lighter upper body, strong lower body
Football players are generally not stocky like rugby players. But while the upper body is quite light (which saves mass and helps with speed), they generally have quite large, strong legs.
That’s because changing direction quickly – and accelerating and decelerating almost instantly – takes quite a bit of force. You need muscular legs for that.
On the other hand, having a large upper body would be mostly a disadvantage with little advantage. There is no significant requirement for upper body strength in this sport, so if you want to increase speed and endurance you need to maintain a lighter upper body mass. They don’t train to get really big in the upper body.
They also generally have a very low body fat content because they need a lighter body mass to run, jump and accelerate.
What about the goalkeeper?
A position that does benefit a lot from height is the goalkeeper. Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer put his 6-foot frame to good use. And most elite goalkeepers are taller than six feet.
The goalkeeper’s job is to jump vertically and laterally. Having long legs can help the keeper to jump higher and further as he can push off over a greater distance during the jump. And having long arms helps with reaching to tip or catch the ball. So being tall can be a real advantage.
All in all, these players are well built to deliver elite performance at the highest level of the game. While years of hard training certainly contributed to their success, they may also thank their parents for the genes they inherited.
Anthony Blazevich, Professor of Biomechanics, Edith Cowan University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
If you’ve watched the World Cup, you may have marveled at the physical fitness and skill of these elite players.
How can they run and run and run for so long? What makes them so good at quick changes of direction? Is there a certain body type biomechanically that is perfect for football?
Of course, much of the brilliant playing is due to natural talent combined with years of very hard training and practice. But there are certainly a number of physical attributes that help enormously to be able to play football at this level.
Different functions for different positions
There is no one perfect body type for this sport; a lot depends on what position you play.
For example, a central defender may benefit from some extra height so that he can defend against airballs in the penalty area.
Midfielders, on the other hand, head the ball less often, but need a lot of agility and must be able to cover amazing distances in the game. That’s where having a lighter body mass really helps, and that means not being too tall. If you’re tall – even if you’re skinny – you weigh more, so being very tall can be a disadvantage for these players.
And being shorter means our center of gravity is lower, so we have more stability and better balance. That makes technical skills with the ball easier to execute and it also makes it easier to change direction quickly.
There is one fairly consistent physical attribute of soccer players, which appears to be similar between male and female players: the ability to run and run.
They must have a large engine, so they are physiologically strong in terms of heart and lungs. In a running test, these players show up with very high VO₂ max (a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise). They will also have a high lactate threshold, which means their bodies can handle sustained, high-intensity exercise.
All this adds up to what we call good repeated sprinting ability. That means they can run, then recover, then run, then recover, and so on and so forth. Remember, they spend some time standing or walking, so it’s the repetitive effort of going from low intensity to maximum intensity over and over that necessitates this big engine.
Lighter upper body, strong lower body
Football players are generally not stocky like rugby players. But while the upper body is quite light (which saves mass and helps with speed), they generally have quite large, strong legs.
That’s because changing direction quickly – and accelerating and decelerating almost instantly – takes quite a bit of force. You need muscular legs for that.
On the other hand, having a large upper body would be mostly a disadvantage with little advantage. There is no significant requirement for upper body strength in this sport, so if you want to increase speed and endurance you need to maintain a lighter upper body mass. They don’t train to get really big in the upper body.
They also generally have a very low body fat content because they need a lighter body mass to run, jump and accelerate.
What about the goalkeeper?
A position that does benefit a lot from height is the goalkeeper. Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer put his 6-foot frame to good use. And most elite goalkeepers are taller than six feet.
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The goalkeeper’s job is to jump vertically and laterally. Having long legs can help the keeper to jump higher and further as he can push off over a greater distance during the jump. And having long arms helps with reaching to tip or catch the ball. So being tall can be a real advantage.
All in all, these players are well built to deliver elite performance at the highest level of the game. While years of hard training certainly contributed to their success, they may also thank their parents for the genes they inherited.
Anthony Blazevich, Professor of Biomechanics, Edith Cowan University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Read also | FIFA World Cup 2022: Round of 16 matches, scheduled for today, December 3
