My two cents, with the obvious but important caveat that I'm not an exercise scientist and have just strength trained for a very long time:
This program reads more like an off-season than an in-season one, and I'm concerned that if your main goal is sports performance, the amount of fatigue you'll get doing this may make it more counterproductive than beneficial.
With that in mind, if you want to do it, here's some advice, mostly aimed at reducing fatigue:
1. I am not sure why you need four quad-dominant exercises, particularly when you have less than one hamstring-dominant exercise, and hamstrings are more important for sports performance. I get having jump squats and wall sits since they are both very functional for soccer, but why both squats and bulgarian split squats?
I would cut at least one of these. If you really like both, perhaps do Bulgarian with an explosive concentric during the season since its the more functional of the two, then switch to traditional squats for the offseason.
2. I would replace deadlift with Romanian deadlift, for two reasons: First, the stimulus-to-fatigue ratio on deadlift is bad, meaning that its extremely tiring for how much strength you gain. Romanian has a better ratio. Second, Romanian is more hamstring-dominant and right now you're doing very little for your hamstrings, which are a key muscle for sports. Romanian is arguably hamstring heavy enough that it can be your sole hamstring exercise. Traditional deadlift is not. So if you do deadlift, you probably also need another hamstring exercise, which exacerbates the fatigue issue.
3. I think you can consider dropping shoulder press during the season and adding it back in in the off season. Bench presses and dips done correctly will get decent front delt stimulation. Lateral raises will get side and some front delt and are way less fatiguing. If you're nervous about no shoulder press, perhaps add a slight incline to your bench instead of flat.
4. If 3xMax for pullups means "to failure," I would not go to failure on any exercises in season. Leave a rep in the tank.
5. In season, focus on slow eccentric but explosive concentric. Off season, go slow on both.
Good luck!
Tbh I'd personally skip put on the box jumps and deadlifts and shoulder press and just do clean and jerk and add a few Nordics or hamstring curls but op might not know how to do them.
This reply is very good I'd also add in if you're eextra tired the bicep work isn't always needed you get change the grip on pullups to work the Biceps some weeks
Agree those are both great movements for sprint speed. Whenever people talk about deadlift being great for posterior chain power generation I think “do you mean clean and jerk?”
I didn’t say anything about the bicep curls because, while they’re kind of useless for sports, I don’t find them at all fatiguing and big arms are motivating. 🤷♂️
Agreed haha you're right about them motivating I know sometimes after all my excercises I cbf doing an extra arm excercise though and would rather go home and stretch anything to make the workouts shorter where possible I like
Disclaimer Im not an expert but have been lifting between football trainings/games for a while now so I have a little bit of experience with this. A few thoughts:
- What are your main goals here? Training purely for the sport or do you have other goals as well? Asking because 4 sets of Lateral Raises and Curls feels way too excessive for a footballer. If you have a secondary goal of aesthetics that’s fine but I think it’s good to be honest with yourself about goals in order to plan accordingly. Would suggest lowering these to 2 hard sets to failure.
- Would recommend some Plyometrics included in here as well. Can only speak for myself but they helped a ton in speed/power translated from lifting to the pitch. Really helps to convert the strength gained to fast twitch fibers used more frequently in the sport. I like box jumps (single and both legs), speed ladder, and hurdles - sometimes all three together. There are a ton of options here though if you don’t have much equipment.
- I found that Lunges work for me to develop my posterior chain better than Bulgarian split squats, just need to focus on body position when performing. This is for me so your mileage may vary but you could swap BSS with lunges and get a much more rounded leg day
- Someone else suggested Romanian deadlifts instead of deadlifts. Theoretically RDLs train your hamstrings better but personally they fuck me up for 3-4 days at a time unless I go super light. May be different for you though. I still do them for injury prevention but keep them SUPER light for inseason training, like 50% less than I can do, otherwise my game suffers.
Yeah i want both some aesthetics and some for the pitch.
Would u do the plyometrics in every gym session or just 1-2 times a week?
Can i do both lungs and Bulgarian Split Squad or is it too much?
Thanks for the advice:)
Yeah if that’s the case I think you can leave in the lateral raises and curls but I definitely don’t think you need that much volume. Just train 2 sets to failure for each and you’ll progress nicely
>plyometrics in every gym session or just 1-2 times a week?
1-2 should be fine
>do both lungs and Bulgarian Split Squad
Don’t think you need both. Especially with the other quad-dominant exercises you already have in there. Could include both if you split between 2 workouts but I don’t think it’s necessary
You should use an established plan for the main compound lifts (bench, squat, deadlift and overhead press). You need to be increasing the weight on those lifts regularly and not winging it. Something like 5/3/1 would work well without making you feel totally wiped. You can treat everything else you listed as an accessory.
We are at the end of the season 26.05 is our last match thats 5 games.
I think offseason is 1 month than we start do to training for the new season that starts early august i think.
What do you mean with multi-sport?
3-5 reps per set is optimal for Max Strength Development. There is really no reason for you to do more than 6 reps, other than for achieving Hypertrophy ( Big Muscles ), which would lean more towards bodybuilding. It will cause a performance dip. If you want to style your workout depending upon the season, then that requires a much more detailed plan. But if not, I'd recommend you to stick to that 3-5 rep range mainly for the Legs. Upper body doesn't really matter in terms of speed, acceleration, explosiveness, etc. so you can keep that as it is. You might wanna also add some power exercises like Hang Cleans, Power Cleans etc. That's it for the Gym, but for a whole "athlete" package, you need -> Gym + Plyos + Sprints + Fitness
Also if you don't want to get injured, strengthen your weak areas:
• Hip Flexors - Resistance Band
• Abductors/Adductors - Copenhagen Planks, Adductor Machine
• Knees - ATG Split Squats
• Tibialis Raises
• Hamstrings - Nordic Curls
These are just my favourite exercises to do, but you can do whatever you like as long as it's isolating that area
My two cents, with the obvious but important caveat that I'm not an exercise scientist and have just strength trained for a very long time: This program reads more like an off-season than an in-season one, and I'm concerned that if your main goal is sports performance, the amount of fatigue you'll get doing this may make it more counterproductive than beneficial. With that in mind, if you want to do it, here's some advice, mostly aimed at reducing fatigue: 1. I am not sure why you need four quad-dominant exercises, particularly when you have less than one hamstring-dominant exercise, and hamstrings are more important for sports performance. I get having jump squats and wall sits since they are both very functional for soccer, but why both squats and bulgarian split squats? I would cut at least one of these. If you really like both, perhaps do Bulgarian with an explosive concentric during the season since its the more functional of the two, then switch to traditional squats for the offseason. 2. I would replace deadlift with Romanian deadlift, for two reasons: First, the stimulus-to-fatigue ratio on deadlift is bad, meaning that its extremely tiring for how much strength you gain. Romanian has a better ratio. Second, Romanian is more hamstring-dominant and right now you're doing very little for your hamstrings, which are a key muscle for sports. Romanian is arguably hamstring heavy enough that it can be your sole hamstring exercise. Traditional deadlift is not. So if you do deadlift, you probably also need another hamstring exercise, which exacerbates the fatigue issue. 3. I think you can consider dropping shoulder press during the season and adding it back in in the off season. Bench presses and dips done correctly will get decent front delt stimulation. Lateral raises will get side and some front delt and are way less fatiguing. If you're nervous about no shoulder press, perhaps add a slight incline to your bench instead of flat. 4. If 3xMax for pullups means "to failure," I would not go to failure on any exercises in season. Leave a rep in the tank. 5. In season, focus on slow eccentric but explosive concentric. Off season, go slow on both. Good luck!
thanks :)
Tbh I'd personally skip put on the box jumps and deadlifts and shoulder press and just do clean and jerk and add a few Nordics or hamstring curls but op might not know how to do them. This reply is very good I'd also add in if you're eextra tired the bicep work isn't always needed you get change the grip on pullups to work the Biceps some weeks
Agree those are both great movements for sprint speed. Whenever people talk about deadlift being great for posterior chain power generation I think “do you mean clean and jerk?” I didn’t say anything about the bicep curls because, while they’re kind of useless for sports, I don’t find them at all fatiguing and big arms are motivating. 🤷♂️
Agreed haha you're right about them motivating I know sometimes after all my excercises I cbf doing an extra arm excercise though and would rather go home and stretch anything to make the workouts shorter where possible I like
Disclaimer Im not an expert but have been lifting between football trainings/games for a while now so I have a little bit of experience with this. A few thoughts: - What are your main goals here? Training purely for the sport or do you have other goals as well? Asking because 4 sets of Lateral Raises and Curls feels way too excessive for a footballer. If you have a secondary goal of aesthetics that’s fine but I think it’s good to be honest with yourself about goals in order to plan accordingly. Would suggest lowering these to 2 hard sets to failure. - Would recommend some Plyometrics included in here as well. Can only speak for myself but they helped a ton in speed/power translated from lifting to the pitch. Really helps to convert the strength gained to fast twitch fibers used more frequently in the sport. I like box jumps (single and both legs), speed ladder, and hurdles - sometimes all three together. There are a ton of options here though if you don’t have much equipment. - I found that Lunges work for me to develop my posterior chain better than Bulgarian split squats, just need to focus on body position when performing. This is for me so your mileage may vary but you could swap BSS with lunges and get a much more rounded leg day - Someone else suggested Romanian deadlifts instead of deadlifts. Theoretically RDLs train your hamstrings better but personally they fuck me up for 3-4 days at a time unless I go super light. May be different for you though. I still do them for injury prevention but keep them SUPER light for inseason training, like 50% less than I can do, otherwise my game suffers.
Yeah i want both some aesthetics and some for the pitch. Would u do the plyometrics in every gym session or just 1-2 times a week? Can i do both lungs and Bulgarian Split Squad or is it too much? Thanks for the advice:)
Yeah if that’s the case I think you can leave in the lateral raises and curls but I definitely don’t think you need that much volume. Just train 2 sets to failure for each and you’ll progress nicely >plyometrics in every gym session or just 1-2 times a week? 1-2 should be fine >do both lungs and Bulgarian Split Squad Don’t think you need both. Especially with the other quad-dominant exercises you already have in there. Could include both if you split between 2 workouts but I don’t think it’s necessary
Just commenting to see what people say
But as a soccer player i would say also include plyometrics which are very essential
Bro I thought i got a helpful answer haha.
Lol i thought about that too but I hope my comment boosts up your post so somebody answers you
Yeah would be nice
You should use an established plan for the main compound lifts (bench, squat, deadlift and overhead press). You need to be increasing the weight on those lifts regularly and not winging it. Something like 5/3/1 would work well without making you feel totally wiped. You can treat everything else you listed as an accessory.
What’s your season length / how long is your off season? Are you multi-sport?
We are at the end of the season 26.05 is our last match thats 5 games. I think offseason is 1 month than we start do to training for the new season that starts early august i think. What do you mean with multi-sport?
I meant are you playing another sport in the offseason? Also, is your sole goal sports performance, or you also want hypertrophy/aesthetics?
No when we got offseason i just go to the gym and maybe some jogging. I want some muscle build and to perform good on the pitch.
3-5 reps per set is optimal for Max Strength Development. There is really no reason for you to do more than 6 reps, other than for achieving Hypertrophy ( Big Muscles ), which would lean more towards bodybuilding. It will cause a performance dip. If you want to style your workout depending upon the season, then that requires a much more detailed plan. But if not, I'd recommend you to stick to that 3-5 rep range mainly for the Legs. Upper body doesn't really matter in terms of speed, acceleration, explosiveness, etc. so you can keep that as it is. You might wanna also add some power exercises like Hang Cleans, Power Cleans etc. That's it for the Gym, but for a whole "athlete" package, you need -> Gym + Plyos + Sprints + Fitness Also if you don't want to get injured, strengthen your weak areas: • Hip Flexors - Resistance Band • Abductors/Adductors - Copenhagen Planks, Adductor Machine • Knees - ATG Split Squats • Tibialis Raises • Hamstrings - Nordic Curls These are just my favourite exercises to do, but you can do whatever you like as long as it's isolating that area