Health – Warming Up

When you are not presently involved in exercise your muscles and tendons are cold and subsequently prone to being overstretched or torn as a result of any drastic body movement brought about by physical activity.

Such drastic body movements are common in football – twists and turns in dribbling, a stretched out leg in an attempted tackle or quick sprinting during a chase for the ball.

Injury can be avoided by warming up your muscles and tendons. The aim of a warm up is to gradually warm up the tissue without any drastic movements of limbs. Once warm, the player should aim to statically stretch the muscle as a prequel to the types of movements the limbs will be subjected to during exercise.

Players should initiate a warm up with a gentle jog, preferably in a small space maintaining a slow stride pace. Common to most football warmups are the following running exercises aimed at loosening the joints and warming up the muscles for the game ahead.

Forwards running

Players will gently warm up their body by running at a slow pace forwards.

Sideways running

This type of running is aimed at loosening the hip and inner thigh areas that are often strained in football. Players should maintain a straight pattern while turned to their side, alternating the right and left leg at the front to give both sides equal exposure.

Backwards running

Backwards running is aimed at warming up the quads and calf muscles in readiness for the rigors ahead. Players should gently run backwards paying close attention to where they are going to avoid falling or collisions.

High knees

As they run, players should lift their knee until their thigh is in parallel to the ground for this exercise. This exercise helps to stretch the hips and strengthen the sensitive tendons and tissue around the ankles.

Lunge walk

This exercise aims at loosening up the hips and gently stretching the thigh and groin area. Players should extend their legs in an exaggerated stride pattern along with their arms. Their torso should remain erect during this exercise.

Jumping run

This exercise constitutes the players running in a straight line and jumping up to attempt a fake header in regular patterns. The exercises helps strengthen and warm up the ankle and knee joints which get a lot of strain during a game.

Running warm up exercises should be followed with static stretching exercise to isolate and pay attention to separate muscle groups.

It is important to note that very young players (under 10 years old) do not have to follow a complicated warm up regiment – running in different patterns and speeds should be enough – as their matches are not as intense as those of the older age groups and their bodies are not as prone to injury as those of the older players.

By properly warming up and warming down before and after games and training, players are able to concentrate on their skills during the game and avoid most niggling injuries that can be difficult to get rid of and can have a detrimental effect on their footballing development in the long run.