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“Strength training and Football” The effect on body composition PDF

“Strength training and Football” The effect on body composition PDF


Physical condition as an optimal level is required for any kind of sport regardless of the level or frequency.

In the last decades, Football has become more and more physical, and an adequate preparation during the preseason is essential to reach the "peak" at the right time and maintain an adequate strength and good level of fitness through the entire league.

This thesis responds the necessity of a football team located in Kajaani, Finland (Kajaanin Haka), which just been promoted to the second semi-professional category(Kakkonen), to prepare in the best possible way the players according to their own level.

Theoretical framework cover, exercise physiology, strength training, periodization of training, nutrition with focus of carbohydrate intake.

Skills such: strength, with focus on the lower limbs, speed, aerobic and anaerobic fitness are of primarily importance for achieving good results, avoid injuries and be competitive.

These abilities are achievable also following a healthy lifestyle, recovery and specific diet.

This thesis is based on a research of about thirteen weeks’ focus on strength training preparation through which the author collected the data effecting the impact of a strength training program combined with a specific nutrition plan, which emphasize the concept of carbohydrate cycle.

This aimed to maximize the change of body composition in the athlete, with focus on increase the skeletal muscle mass and maintain a low level of body fat.

The research has planned to be complete by the end of April 2017 before the beginning of the league, which will start in early May 2017.

Football is one of the most popular and played sports in the world and it has reached almost all the countries on earth.

According to the statistic provided by FIFA with the data for “Big Count 2006”, 270 million people are active worldwide in football.

Soccer, which is an interchangeable name for this sport, gains its popularity from its features such as the simplicity in terms of rules, and the limited amount of equipment and cost effectiveness, required to play, as demonstrated by several examples of professionals who learned the game in their youth on the street playing barefoot.

On the cultural side, due to the large broadcast of event, including national team or local club, the meaning that each of these games hold, exceeds the mere score line on the pitch, but rather include concept of identification and integration of a certain class or community, with their rivalry.

In addition, due to this universality, football can be used as a tool to promote integration and go beyond divisions such as race, languages and even gender.

The Football association of Finland (FAF) has more than 1,000 member clubs and approximately 115,000 registered players.

The Finnish Gallup survey has indicated that football is a popular pastime with around 500,000 Finns interested in the sport.

The SPL is Finland's largest amateur sports federation.

During the previous season (April 2016-October 2016), the author noticed, according the level of the league and so also of the players, a big difference in the level of physical condition within the team, Kajaanin Haka R.y., which included almost twenty different players in the age between eighteen to over thirty years old.

Throughout the entire previous season, the team faced many different problems with the players, which on several occasions had muscle injuries and sickness.

I 2 also could not avoid noticing, considering my own background in sport in general as passionate first, and then as future potential sport instructor, how most of the players had a “poor level” of strength training, muscle care knowledge and nutrition bad habits.

These thoughts have lead me, and the management staff to focus even more on these aspects in the second part of the previous season.

I observed the response of a thirteen week strength training program conducted during the pre-season between the 1st of February 2017 and 30th of April 2017.

The subjects were players of local football team Kajaanin Haka R.y. Pre and post training assessments included among the others, Body mass index (BMI), Skeletal muscle mass (SMM) and fitness score, done through “In Body Composition Analyzer 720” Bio-electrical Impedance (BIA).

The training program included one weekly session with machines and weights in the Gym, held on Sunday, which involved all the major muscle groups, plus one brief body weight session held on Wednesday before the practice.

A nutrition plan, customize to enhance the result in body composition, had been drawn by the author, according the literature review.

Ten semiprofessional male soccer players, whose average age was 22,5 ±8,8, attended the entire preparation program, customized to maximize the effect of strength training, beside improving the overall body composition, in order to face the upcoming season.


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