Punching Power: Goalkeepers, Whoop the Ball into Submission

Kicking is important, but what about the good ol punch. Punching power can provide a readily available tool in a goalkeepers arsenal. Punching allows for great distribution (if executed correctly) in a crowded goal area. Sometimes, the only option a goalkeeper has is to punch that ball away from oncoming attack. Sami Hyypia of Liverpool recently attested to the powerful punch of Anfield’s new custodian Pepe Reina. Punching power is directly related to upper body strength. Strong and powerful arms, shoulders, back and chest can allow for a goalkeeper to clear the ball more effectively utilising a punching action. We must also not neglect the power of the legs to generate the necessary energy to reach the ball on time and to propel the body to meet the ball so that we can punch the ball out of danger.

Power is closely related to the Anaerobic energy system, these include the Lactic system and the Phosphagen system. I won’t go into the complexities here in detail, suffice to say that including upper body and lower body power training can significantly improve punching ability for a goalkeeper. Following are some useful drills to utilise in generating power to increase punching power.

• Boxing: Doing boxing drills can be a fun way to diversify a training regime, but it is also a fantastic way to increase your punching power.

• Box Jumps: Standing on a box of 30-50 cm height, the goalkeeper jumps off the box, landing on both feet and immediately bounds again. Small jumps, in the long run can relate to huge leaps and bounds in your goal area.

• Chest Throws: Using a medicine ball, throw to your partner, partner catches the medicine ball with both hands, crouches down into a squat and passes the ball back to you. Power up your chest and blast the ball to smitherines.

Now your ready to throw punches like Ali, and command your 18 yard box with a handy punch.

Weight Gain = Increased Goalkeeper Performance?

Nah. It can’t be, you say. If I get bigger I slow down, right? Wrong. There is a predisposition for many goalkeepers, and goalkeeper trainers to shoot off negative comments about gaining weight. Just over the weekend, my old goalkeeper trainer stated that I had become too big. “You must shed weight, as you will lose your agility”. Bollocks. Over the past 4 years or so, I have felt that my goalkeeping performance increased exponentially through weight gain. The question is, how? Think Big! By nature I am ectomorphic. This means that I am naturally skinny. I found that increasing my lean muscle mass was the key to increasing my goalkeeping performance. Over the years I had increased my utilisation of strength and power exercises, utilising WPI protein and also Colostrum. Now Colostrum I feel was fantastic for my growth, as I was a hard gainer. Colostrum is naturally occurring in the mothers breast during child birth. It contains IGF-1 (Insulin Like Growth Factor), which naturally allows children to grow.

Therefore, by combining Colostrum and a resistance training program (later I would utilise WPI and Creatine) I increased my lean muscle tissue to a point where I went from 74 kg to around 98kg at my peak. This was over a 4-5 year period, of heavy resistance and power training. The article Thinking Big shows the need for competitive athletes to increase lean body mass for increased performance. I’m definitely an advocate for this, in relation to enhanced goalkeeping performance. Now we must clear the distinction between weight gain as provided by fats, and weight gain provided by a well balanced diet that includes protein, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates. I was able to significantly increase my speed in the 18 yard box, because of increased Fast Twitch muscle fiber recruitment, my diving power, kicking power and overall goalkeeping performance increased. Weight gain helped me, it did not deter my game.

Remember being big gives you big presence in the goal area, not many strikers want to go head to head with a goalkeeper who has a large presence in goals. So let us not look at increased lean muscle mass as a detriment to our game. Goalkeeper training must move forward into a new direction of thought, and we must utilize scientific principles to advance the performance of goalkeepers at all levels, young or old, competitive or not. Positive weight gain for the competitive athlete does increase performance.

Sympathetic Nervous System…The Key to Unlocking Enhanced Goalkeeping Performance?

Home time. 5:00 pm and it was time to leave the office and face the outside hustle and bustle. Only problem was that the damn train was late. To top it off, the train was flooded and instead of my designated stop, I ended up walking home through some of my old stomping grounds. I believe in fate. Bernard Cornwell, a fantastic author who wrote a trilogy about the arthurian legend wrote “Fate is inexorable”. It’s a powerful statement. I live near a really large park (I’m not giving it away, as you little info fiends might check up Google Earth) and you get the usual early evening walkers, which is fantastic! There was an old guy huffing and puffing along ahead of me with the light quickly fading into dark. He did not really hear me stomping away behind him, and therefore as I stepped on a twig he got frightened and turned around and saw this shadowy figure looming behind him. His pace became frenetic. Here is this old guy stomping away at virtual light speed at the sound of a twig breaking and a pretty big shadow following behind him! It was quite a laugh.

Then the ligh bulb flashed. What had made him do this? And why is this at all relevant to goalkeeping? You ever heard of the sympathetic nervous system? Their is an ancient genetic code within us that gives us the ability to take flight, or fight. I’m a goalkeeper, so I like the latter option rather than the former. The sympathetic nervous system controls many functions in the body. In the instance of the old man, his sympathetic nervous system responded by increasing blood flow to the heart, thus his heart rate increased and his digestive system slowed down. Now I know from experience that before a big game I would feel my heart rate increase rapidly, and my stomach would do aerial feats. During the game it would continue. After the game I would be totally drained. It was my nervous system in overload as I faced the threat of attack, defence and the possibility of failure. Goalkeeping is 90% mental, you control your mind, you can control your actions in any given situation.

Over the years I learnt to accept these feelings of nervousness, they are a part of the game. But they are a powerful precursor to fuel performance, without them we would not be able to defend the goal effectively. Therefore, as a goalkeeper I feel that learning to deal with these feelings and accepting them as nature can really take a goalkeepers game to the next level.

Goalkeeping Errors: Winning the Mental Race

Winning is in the mind, mostly for those that take on the role of the goalkeeper. At an amateur level you can laugh it off with your friends, and crack open a beer. At an elite level, it costs you your position and possibly your livelihood. The mental race is 90% of your game as a goalkeeper. Every move you make is analysed, and every mistake you make is criticised and then some! David James (England goalkeeper) just lost his position with the English squad. James made some costly mistakes during a recent world cup friendly against Denmark. On my trip to Europe last year I read up in a magazine about the help he acquired from a sports shrink. So what has happened? I believe that nutrition plays a part in mental preparation. Many goalkeepers use caffeine (it does help) but there is a lot of angst about caffeine supplements by sports people in the media. Caffeine is a stimulant yes, but it can also cause dehydration, and if the tinker is dehydrated then you can’t think very well can you?

I believe in carbs as being brain fuel. Utilising some form of carbohydrate loading with your game can increase your mental capacity to achieve a better goal keeping performance. Carbs, as you already know are your first store of energy utilisation at maximum levels of performance. It is also good brain food. I used to eat high protein foods before a game at the start of this year, and my performances were sluggish and laughable to say the least. This is at a competitive level, so you could imagine the negative feedback I received. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I utilised some Low GI (Glycaemic Index) carbs over a week prior to competition and my performance sky-rocketed (now I have a torn ACL, but that’s another story altogether).

So here is some advice:

• Low GI Carbohydrates: Utilising Low Carbs in a loading phase, followed by quick carbs (Sucrose, Fructose) during prolonged activities can really kick you in the pants and boost your goalkeeping performance.

• Water: How many of your team mates do you actively see drinking water throughout a match, or after? Not many? Water contains essential minerals that are catabolized during extensive game play. It also hydrates the brain and enables it to process information better.

Two very simple strategies to boost your goalkeeping performance.

Steroid Trap: Anabolism Gone Haywire?

It was a cold winter morning in Manchester when I walked into the Bury
FC dressing room to get changed for a rigorous training session.
Plastered on the wall was a large notification put up by the FA
regarding banned substances. It seems that (and it is well documented)
for over six decades more and more elite athletes have been utilising
banned substances to increase their performance. Cheating athletes know the tricks
is a fantastic article that was just posted today, and it points to
some very prominent athletes utilising the ol’ roids to get the
competitive edge…so what is new? There has been a huge boom over the
past decade or so in the billion dollar sports supplements industry.
I’ll go fork out the dosh for the latest protein powder, and
voila…I’m the goalkeeping equivalent of the Hulk! It’s no laughing
matter. Some over the counter supplement manufacturers (not all)
play cat and mouse with the FDA. Christine Ayotte (head of the IOC
testing lab in Montreal), states in the article that some of these
manufacturers change the molecule in their ingredients and put it on
the market until the FDA catches them out, and the process evolves
again. Manufacturers re-invent the wheel, so as not to get caught out.

Now here’s an interesting insider secret in the soccer (football)
world. An ex team mate, who played in the Serie A once relayed the
story that for team lunch, before the game, they were approached by the
team doctor, who nonchalantly placed a bottle of roids on the table.
This doctor told them the steroids are there on the table, if you want
to take it, go ahead (as if it was not a big deal), if not, you’re on
the bench. Serious stuff. Elite athletes are under pressure to take
these drugs, notifications or not, the practices still goes on in the
soccer world. This is why I talk about natural anabolism (growth). Not
all supplements are bad for you, but there is a lot of crap out there
too. And even more that create a placebo effect. If you are playing
competitively, a qualified nutritionist will always guide you toward
good eating habits for growth. The money that you pay for the latest
designer roids, would be better spent on a nutritionist who will tell
you that good eating habits and some good strength work will provide
you with the edge you need to perform. But remember, a good protein powder can act as a supplement for a competitive player…just find out what is in it first!

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Overtraining…When Enough Is Enough

I’m sitting here typing away with a torn ACL. I’m reminiscing about the
past year, and the goal keeping adventures that were had. Some time ago
while pencil pushing, I had an epiphany of sorts. Over the past 4 years
I had a long lay off from soccer. I went from playing at the highest
level, to playing in local soccer leagues…sometimes not playing at
all. But something struck me as missing. It was the round ball, and
mostly being me…a goalkeeper. So there I was sitting in a maze of
office cubicles thinking about all the guys who made it, and thinking
about why I did not pursue my dream…I started training,
religiously. I trained extremely hard, and pushed myself to some pretty
serious limits. I started to play competitively again. In between all
this mayhem, I gained the opportunity to go trial and train in London.
I stepped it up a notch. When I got back home to Australia, something
did not feel right. Fatigued, depressed, loss of appetite…you name
it, I had it. Although I got back into playing at a state league level,
I started falling apart. Injury after injury pursued until…well, here
I am typing about my torn ACL.

Overtraining gang, it can and does happen. At a professional level it
is evident with high amounts of training, followed by little or no
rest. Overtraining means the detriment of your game, not for 1 or 2
weeks, sometimes up to 7 months. Let’s look at the physical
symptoms of overtraining:

• Poor Performance
• Chronic Fatigue
• Sudden drop in weight
• Elevated resting heart rate

The above are only a few of the symptoms encountered by an athlete who
may be overtrained. Some of the emotional symptoms include:

• Depression
• Poor self confidence
• Low motivation
• Poor sleep
• Anger

And if you guessed, I suffered all of the above and then some. There are usually two types of overtraining:

• Short Term: 2-3 weeks duration depending on severity
• Long Term: Up to several months depending on the severity

The Three Main causes as outlined by (Richmond, W. 2001) include:

• Inadequate recovery between sessions
• Excessive amounts of high intensity training
• Sudden increases in training load

Intense strength training, like the type that I utilised can be a major
cause. Don’t get me wrong we goalkeepers need to strength train. But
too much is too much. Heed my words. Know when to rest, and know when
enough is enough. You have a long career ahead of you.

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Training Principles Different for Competitive Goalkeepers?

Periodisation is a powerful scientific concept. Training is divided
into components (phases) that may comprise of anything from strength or
power, to aerobic endurance. The premise behind this is that at a
competitive level a goalkeeper will need to spilt the season up into
training periods and focus on his/her specific needs. Bompa (1994)
(cool name huh), created the fantastic concept of periodising the
training year into specific training phases. One of these components
was strength. Paul Gamble recently stated in Strength training – When it comes to strength training, athletes need to be treated as a ‘special population’ that training
for strength is important for elite athletes and that the training
needs of these athletes are different to that of amateur athletes.
He does well to mention the fact that more study needs to be conducted
into the strength training needs of amateur athletes as they
differ significantly from that of elite athletes.

But does that mean that a goalkeeper playing in amateur
leagues all around the world are less inclined to be performing at
a peak level? No, the article states the obvious in that
each player will have significantly different needs depending on
their level of play. But it does not mean that amateur goalkeepers
cannot strive to attain a better level of performance. Now back to
strength training. I believe that periodisation and strength training
for the goalkeeper, AT ANY LEVEL, will produce a significant training
effect, and allow a player to enhance their performance significantly.
Therefore, try to introduce specific periods of strength throughout
your season and watch your game grow to new heights.

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Balance…Eat right, Drink Right, Succeed on Game Day

There was a fantastic article in regards to game day preparation, that I stumbled across while surfing. I know that it has been discussed fervently on forum and discussion posts also. Pre game eating habits, and especially fluid intake is extremely important for the goalkeeper. Why? Obvious, we stand around most of the time with intermittent periods of intense activity. Therefore the risk of dehydration is high. The article passes on some great tips in regards to carbohydrate consumption (carb-loading essentially) which should begin 1 week before match day. Though there is one thing that did stand out in the article and that is balance.

Check it out here:What teen athletes must eat, drink on game day

Having a balanced diet (excuse the cliche) is pertinent to ongoing performance. At a competitive level the goalkeeper will obviously have greater need to increase their intake of carbs, protein and water intake. There is something that I feel is a little disappointing though, and that is that the article states that there is no real need for supplementation. Balanced diets and good fluid intake are important, yes, but at a competitive level, the right kinds of supplements (there is a lot of hype out there) go a long way to enhance performance. Increased protein intake, is a no-no pre match, as it increases dehydration. And yes, carbs should always be the main source of fuel to enhance performance. Water is a must pre, during and post match day. But supplements do fit into the picture. Not all are relevant, but many are useful.

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Protein, Does the Competitive Goalkeeper Need It

WPI, WPC, WBF…isn’t that a boxing title, or something along those
lines? Protein supplementation is not a new fad, and I can assume that
everyone has utilised some form of protein in their goal keeping
development somewhere in their training regime. There are many forms of
protein and each one does the same thing. Believe me, there is no super
genetic key ingredient that will make you into a goal keeping behemoth.
Get with reality guys, each one of us is born with a different genetic
code…so guess what? You are all different, and hard work will produce
different results for each person. Talk about ABC. Why am I a little
overwhelmed here with the whole protein thing? Well, choice is the
mother of all invention. There is alot of hype out there, so from time
to time I will endeavour to give you an overview about what types of
protein supplementation are the best out there in the market place.
From experience, I have used almost every brand you can put your hands
on, therefore I’m thinking, every month I will put down a product
review of different proteins and other popular supplements, and the best
products for us goalkeepers to utilise. Give me some feedback, and I
might actually put a hot product review in my site.

I digress, back to the matter at hand. There was a goalkeeper who
approached me regarding protein supplementation. The usual questions?
“Am I going to get big”, “Does it make me stronger” etc…I had let out
a monotonous sigh, not because I am an arrogant goalkeeper or anything
like that *cough*. I had to relay to him the function of proteins…you
know, lay out the blueprint in ABC. I explained that protein
supplementation is necessary for every goalkeeper playing at a
competitive level. “Competitive” being the key word. At a competitive
level you are going to be training hard. Heavy goalkeeper training
entails that the body breaks down. Muscle, Skeletal tissue you name it.
Protein, I explained, is the building block for many components of our
bodies. It’s functions include cell structure, all the way down the
list to energy creation and movement. There are 100,000 different
proteins in the human body (Richmond, W. et.al. 2001). So there you go.
Protein is bloody important.

With heavy goalkeeper training, and the rough and tumble nature of the
goalkeeper. It is common for us to break down cell tissue like muscles
(catabolism). Therefore, proteins play an essential role in the
building blocks of all cells, and supplementation is needed as a primer
to increase a goalkeepers ability to restore those catabolic cells
and grow. Overall, I explained to my goal keeping friend
that protein can be found in high amounts through the food we eat every
day, everything from canned tuna, bananas, egg whites and milk. A
balanced diet with good amounts of protein keeps the body in balance.
So I told my fellow goal keeping buddy “eat a good amount of protein as
part of a well balanced diet”, he promptly stated “oh…ok”…great
response. Go figure, he’s a goalkeeper.

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Creating An Natural Anabolic State: 4 Steps To Create a Goalkeeping Colossus!

Don’t you love the discovery channel? (Yes, I am quite the
nerd…sorry). There is always something to learn from the cycle of
life. A little lion cub is born into the Serengeti, pretty much
defenceless. It has the amazing ability to learn, adapt and grow in an
extremely hostile environment, until it becomes the most fearsome
predator in the savanna. There is something that we can take away from
nature, because we ourselves are a product of it. Adaptation is a
powerful concept in physiology. It is the harnessing of one’s
environment and the impetus for growth that allows us to become something
larger, a part of the big picture. I want to unleash the power of
adaptation in your own goalkeeper training so that you grow to become
better goalkeepers. How do we do that?

Anabolism is growth. I can give you the scientific version , but
we’d probably both yawn, right? Creating an anabolic state, contrary to
popular belief, can be developed naturally. No shady black-market advice
at Keeper Skool buddy! Here is the legit way to create amazing growth
and really power up your goal keeping performance.

• Step 1: Big Lifts = Big Growth; Heavy resistance training with 85%-95% of 1 Repetition Maximum.

• Step 2: Compound your
  performance with classic lifts; Heavy compound movements that use
  more than one joint really increases testosterone and produces growth.
  Try the Squat, Dead lift and Bench Press!

• Step 3: Less = More; More
  = Less? Confused. Multiple sets, and multiple exercises create growth.
  This type of training regime creates hypertrophy.

• Step 4: Why you resting
  for…we are still growing? Take shorter rest intervals. Doing
  super sets for example. You can therefore be in and out of the gym in
  no time…and grow, grow, grow.

Richardson, A (et.al. 2001) showed that testosterone increase resulting
form resistance training can really power up performance “It is
possible that apart from promoting muscle hypertrophy by protein
synthesis that testosterone may augment neurological adaptations in
well trained strength and power athletes”. Therefore for goalkeepers to
increase strength and power, a heavy resistance regime can be just the
thing to enhance growth. For any training to have the desired effect it
is recommended that we train for a prolonged period, and that we begin
with a solid base, usually training for more than 2 years.

So there you go. A powerful new way to look at increasing the potential
of your goal keeping prowess, through adaptation, growth and creating a
natural anabolic state!

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