Strength Coaching in Modern Soccer
An Interview with K.R. Strength Coach Markús Kíslich
According to strength coach Markús Kíslich, Iceland has some of the most naturally strong individuals on the planet. The talent should be making its presence felt in the Olympic Games, but Kíslich says that a severe lack of intelligent coaching, especially in the physical sector, makes Iceland’sathletes relatively unknown and generally not very successful. Kíslich intends to change that.
Kíslich’s main clients are professional soccer players, but he also trains elite athletes from many other sports, including Logi Geirsson, an Olympic silver medalist in team handball. Although the strength and conditioning profession has been established in the US for several decades, Kíslich says that whilst there are some Track and Field-Coaches and a few Olympic-Lifters, he is basically the only real Athletic Strength Coach in the country. As such, his services are in high demand and he works with many of the best athletes on – literally- the top of the world.
His Main-Base is K.R., Icelands’ oldest and biggest soccer club.
K.R. consistently turns out top-players, for example Eidur Gudjohnsen, who plays for Barcelona.
In this interview, Kíslich shares his ideas for becoming a trainer of champions.
Q: What books do you read to help you with your work?
MK:
1. Strength: All books by Charles Poliquin, because he is the only one who’s got it 100 percent right. For example, Tudor Bompa has a prettygood book on periodization, but it’s only about 70 percent accurate. And that’s the problem. If you don’t know how to differentiate between what’s right and what’s nonsense, it only creates further confusion. I will say, however, that Al Vermeil is very good and has taught me a lot. A brilliant and very kind man, I’m sure he has helped countless athletes in both their careers and their lives.
Right now I have reached a level where if you ask me anyquestion about the basics of strength coaching, I believe I could give you a good answer.
2. On Soccer: A very good book is „The Coaching Philosophies of Louis Van Gaal and the Ajax Coaches“, by Henny Kormelink and Tjeu Seeverens.
It seems Van Gaal is the first Soccer Coach in the Major Leagues to have realized that soccer isn‘t an aerobic sport, consequently he discontinued all aerobic training and started using Interval Energy-System Work instead. The results speak for themselves; under Van Gaal, Ajax was better than ever, the best team at the time!
To my knowledge he‘s the first to have utilized interval-training per se in soccer.
Another pretty good one would be „Soccer Conditioning“ by Dr.Raymond Verheijen.
Q: What about those voices that still doubt the need for Strength-Training in modern Soccer?
MK: If you look at the physical abilities, what’s important in soccer?
Clearly; Speed, explosiveness, quickness and agility, especially for the first 5-10 meters. All of these qualities are highly dependent on Maximal Strength, basically these are ALL Maximal Strength.
To quote Al Vermeil: “It’s about who gets from point A to point B the fastest, in the most explosive manner, and under control.”
If you take two players with similar skill-levels, then the one who is stronger has the definite advantage, the definite edge over the competition.
Another factor is this: When you’re stronger you will be fresh for longer, at the end of the game as well as at the end of the season.
Then you have the psychological effect, the confidence-effect:
It is very important that the player believes in himself and his abilities.
If he knows he is in a better, stronger shape than the opponent, just that knowledge, that believe can make all the difference in a game of soccer.
And finally, the intelligently strength-conditioned, structurally balanced player is the best possibly injury-proofed player.
Q: Do your athletes generally have a good diet?
MK: Icelanders have the highest average lifespan in the world, but I believe the main reason is that the environment here is so clean and that it’s not so much diet related, although they do consume a lot of fish.
Q: Are you a big believer in supplements?
MK: Definitely. My athletes must take supplements to work with me – it is not an option. They are natural athletes, and as a natural athlete you need all the help you can get. Some of my basic supplements are omega-3 fish oil, glutamine and magnesium.
Q: Do you have a specialty? That is, do you do any specific aspect of strength and conditioning especially well?
MK: I don’t specialize in only one aspect of strength and conditioning because they all work together. You don’t get speed without strength, you don’t get power without strength, and in the long runyou can’t have strength without some functional hypertrophy. They’re all inter-related. That is exactly why those Track-Coaches who train for Power only year-round are just wasting everybody’s time. Sure, you will make some initial gains, and then you’ll plateau out for the rest of your life.
I look at an athlete’s specific sport, and this will help me determine what they need the most. In soccer, for example, one athletic quality that must be emphasized is power-endurance.
If you study the Match Analisis on games, you will find a lot of interesting information on the different positions in soccer:
How many sprints have been performed, how much running in total distances, etc…
Very useful info, but for one thing that I found missing:
None of them actually will look at the Work/Rest-Ratio, so they completely disregard the Energy-Systems utilized in the sport!!
Thus I did some Match-Analisis on my own; I concentrated on one position at a time, 3 games, 3 different positions: a Striker, a Defender and a Mid-Fielder. I took the TUT for every Activity-Phase, and every Rest-Interval. All the averages, longest and shortest TUT,etc.
And my findings were very interesting!
Because of this, I know exactly which energy-systems need to be emphasized; the results surprised even me a bit!
In Athletic Strength Coaching,there are three basics:
1. What are the Prime-Movers/Prime-Biokinetic Chains of the given sport?
2. Which Strength-Qualities are to be emphasized? And finally:
3. Which Energy-Systems are to be emphasized?
This is where you start. And then of course there’s the individual Training-Goals/Targets, ie.: What does the individual athlete need to focus on?
Q: How do you incorporate ART into your practice?
MK: First, I want to say that I recommend that anyone who wants to be a strength coach should take ART, because if you leave all your rehab up to the physios, usually it will never happen. Also, what you learn about physiology and biomechanics from taking these courses will help you develop a deeper understanding of the whole field of strength coaching. To answer your question, I incorporate ART maybe two-three times a week in the rehab-situation, for prehab (ie.: prophylactically/prevention ofinjuries)maybe once on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. And I don’t use ART during/before a training session/game unless I have to.
Q: Do you find any common weaknesses among your soccer players?
MK: The Piriformis is a soccer-muscle, so is the Sartorius. Then there are the more obvious ones like the hams and the adductors, the ankle-complex (calf, etc.) and the psoas. For Goalies you have to add the subscap and the external rotators, because of the throws and falls on an outstretched arm. Weaknesses in soccer players can also be individual, of course. But a common one is the lower back, and -funny enough- the VMO. Clearly the sport is lower body dominated, but as we all know from sprinting, the upper body is very important, so my athletes do as much upper body work as lower body work.
For the upper body I like chin-ups, pull-ups and presses – and we do them like crazy. As far as squatting, we utilize that a lot. Some of my boys look like they got a fist growing out their medial knee! Jonas, our team-captain, full-squatted 185% bodyweight on a proper 40X0 tempo, as far down as you could only get!
I also like to use a lot of modified strongman exercises, such as farmers walk performed barefoot on the grass for ankle stability, and a lot of sled drags/pushes and medicine ball tosses.
To get back to the importance of upper-body training in a lower-dominant sport like soccer, here a few additional points:
1. Confidence. Not to be under-estimated, in for example a tackle-situation. They go in without hesitation, and it’s not at all easy to tackle THEM. Can’t bounce MY boys off the ball.
2. Stability, see above. For our opponents it’s like running into a wall.
3. Can be intimidating for the opponents.
4. You need a strong upper body to effectively overload the lower.
5. The right upper body needs to counter the torque of the left lower, and vice versa. So if your upper is weak, your lower will not be able to display its full potential.
6. The upper body is highly involved in running, kicking, jumping.
7. Vertical-Jump (Header). The upper contributes up to about 25% of the Vertical-Jump.
8. It looks cool.
Q: What common injuries do you see in soccer players?
MK: To get back to the common weaknesses as outlined above: The hamstrings are a high-risk area, as well as the groin, all kinds of knee-issues and the ankle/calf-complex. I would like to mention that since I was asked to come on board by our Head-Coach Logi Olafsson, none of our players have been out with any serious injuries. That is the value of professional prehab/rehab-work, including A.R.T.
For lower back problems, Dr. Michael Leahy told me that in 95 percent of all lower back cases the psoas is involved, if not the primary cause.
In my evaluation, prehab consists of about 90% specialized work in the weights-room, such as Structural-Balance Training, and 10% soft-tissue manipulation.
Rehab is about 50/50 on average specialized rehabilitory exercises in the gym and treatment.
Q: What is your opinion on core training?
MK: If you want to have clean language in this article, you shouldn’t ask me this question! Basically, I hate it. Maybe swiss balls can be a good tool in some areas of rehabilitation, but their application has been badly abused.
The only thing swiss balls are good for is Goaly-Practice: It gives the goaly a chance!
Let’s say someone wants to become a strength coach someday and they don’t know any better and get caught up in all this core-training nonsense and they waste a lot of money because they don’t get results. They lose hope and they lose time – And I don’t appreciate it when someone wastes someone else’s time, because your time is your life.
The whole Physical Sector: Training, Nutrition and Therapy is still in its very first baby steps-beginnings. Generally speaking no one knows what they’re talking about; It’s like a cycle: Nonsense creates Confusion, Confusion creates further Nonsense, etc, etc….
Really good Strength Coaches are the rare exception to the rule here.
Q: What’s your opinion on personal training?
I don’t believe in it. I train athletes, and athletes only. This for several reasons:
Helping athletes to perform at their limit-potential is what I learned, what I know how to do.
This is not about looking great naked (even though that’s a beneficial side-effect), but about getting faster, stronger, more explosive. I tell my soccer players: We’re not here to build a beach-body, but a Pitch-Body!
So if you’re a competitor, I know how to make you better in your specific sport, eg.: soccer, hockey, etc….
Another factor is this:9 out of 10 civilians would just never make it. It’s just way too hard.
Even some so-called athletes don’t have the self-discipline to pull it through, but they’re not true athletes in my book anyways. I always say there’s sportsmen, and then there’s Athletes.
My definition of the latter is someone who will do just about anything to become the best they can possibly be. (Even train with me!;-)
Q: Outside of soccer, what other sports do you enjoy coaching?
MK: I really like Ice Hockey. They’re tough individuals and very rewarding to work with. We will help raise the level of Icelandic sports to the next, that is international elite level; including Ice Hockey.
I also want to say that I consider myself very fortunate, very lucky to coach so many exceptional Athletes, and work with the best of all clubs, K.R.
Thank you to Logi the Silver Man, to Logi Olafsson for bringing me on board, to the Soccer-Boys, the Hockey-Boys, and last but most certainly not least to those that make sure K.R. stays ahead of the game: Rúni and Jónas Kristins, Baldur, the Board-Members and all the Fans, everybody that stands behind us 110%!!
Q: What are your future goals?
MK: Well, obviously I have no intentions of resting on my laurels. For me, this is only the beginning. Professionally, my most immediate goal is to coach at least 10 athletes to the 2012 Olympics and have a minimum of three of them win medals, preferably gold. That’s the plan. Then I would like to open up my own Athletic Performance Center for athletes only, open 24 hours a day. That’s the next step.
The ultimate Goal: Premier-League Soccer.
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