Measuring Your Aerobic Max For Goalkeeping Success

Yup, just did 12 laps because your trainer said it was good for you. Did he test your aerobic max? Or, you possibly did 1 hour of extremely intense sprint sessions, because that same trainer felt it would be good to see you writhe in pain a little bit. Did he test your aerobic max? I bet the answer is no. Many goalkeeper trainers that I had the so called pleasure to train with just got you to work hard, and then assumed that you were in tip top aerobic shape. It’s just not acceptable in this day of modern football to assume, and assumptions don’t provide solid results. VO2 Max is certainly a great way to gauge your aerobic conditioning, and it takes tonnes of money and research to gauge relevant results. the following article provides methods you can use at home to gauge your VO2 Max and measure your aerobic ability.

Grassroots soccer players don’t really have a significant gauge to measure their VO2 Max, unless you are cashed up or have hijacked a sports scientist from a local university. Following are two ways to firstly have your doctor measure your own VO2 Max, and secondly allow you to gauge a rough measurement of your VO2 Max at home:

"HDL cholesterol – this is our "good" cholesterol, and it has a positive association with VO₂ max. That is, as HDL cholesterol goes up, VO₂ max goes up.

LDL cholesterol, Body Mass Index (BMI), Smoking, and long-term Blood Glucose Levels – quite a long list, no doubt, and all of these factors, from "bad" cholesterol to BMI have a negative impact on VO₂ max. As they go up, VO₂ max goes down."

Getting your local GP to measure the above markers and get the results to you on paper can allow you to understand your aerobic potential and plan to gain the best out of your goalkeeping performance (it should be measured both in the pre-season and during the season to measure any differences. The next best way is to measure it at home:

"Another predictor that requires no equipment is the Cooper test. In this test you run 12 minutes all out, and you take the distance you ran (in meters) and subtract 505, then divide that number by 45, and you have a predicted value in ml/kg/min. Again, this is a gross estimation and not as personal as even tracking the progress of your markers."

The Cooper 12 minute test is a great way to get a rough estimate of your VO2 Max. If you have a treadmill you can pretty easily get the above measurement, or if you are signed on with your local gym like Fitness First or 24 Hour Fitness for example, you can hop on a treadmill there and get an understanding of your VO2 Max. Happy running! 

Around The Net In Goalkeeping

Plenty of Premiership goalkeeping antics going on as we scour the net for goalkeepers doing the usual crazy things that they do. Following is the best from the net in goalkeeping:

• Manchester City seem to have goalkeeping gold with Nick Weaver, Andreas Isaksson & Kasper Schmeichel putting in solid performances for City and Bury respectively. The great part of this report is the story of Weaver who had come back after three years from a debilitating knee injury. Proof that injury should never curb your goalkeeping career, it should just make you hungrier to be the best goalkeeper that you can be.

• Livorno goalkeeper Marco Amelia might be heading to the Premiership and Liverpool.

• Mark Schwarzer of Middlesbrough has been in superior form, and Zeljko Kalac had kept a clean sheet for AC Milan, while Brazilian Dida takes a 6 month break to recuperate from injury.

As always, enjoy the read!

Goalkeepers and Genes?

To be great at any sport takes a whole lot of determination and hard work. Just like goalkeeping, some goalkeepers are just better equipped to play the role than others. This does not mean that if you were not born like Gianluigi Buffon, that you will not be able to advance your goalkeeping skills. A riveting study by the ACSM has uncovered some progressive results in regards to our inclination for fitness and exercise. It seems that goalkeeping may all be in the genes:

The article pointed out the following. "Some people are gifted," said lead researcher Claude Bouchard, Ph.D., FACSM, referring to such characteristics as cardiorespiratory endurance, strength, flexibility, and body composition. Genetics play a big role in such matters, as they do in "trainability" – the capacity to benefit from exercise. "But," said Bouchard, "there’s no correspondence between the genes responsible for your being advantaged, even as a sedentary person and those allowing you to gain from exercise." 

The above shows that even though you may not have the genetic makeup of Peter Schmeichel, you may still enhance your goalkeeping ability through dedicated exercise. Though genetic make-up does play a significant role in how you will develop as a goalkeeper. But at the end of the day who really cares. If you can play for your local team and have a good run, smile and enjoy yourself, that is what counts. Not everyone will have the chance to play in the Premiership or the Primera as a goalkeeper. The main thing for any goalkeeper is to enjoy themselves and get a good workout, which is great for fitness throughout your lifespan.

Spider’s Lessons Learnt At AC Milan

Zeljko Kalac. Spider. It was a great time as a junior goalkeeper to have trained with and watched him terrorize the old NSL with his freaky height. To me Zeljko epitomizes the best of Croatian goalkeeping…namely a fiery attitude mixed with enormous presence, hard work and freaky agility. But you think that life as a goalkeeper can be tough. Imagine life as a goalkeeper moving to the Serie B of Italy. Spider shares his thoughts about agents in this awesome little video, and I’ll give you an overview of my own opinion.

 

Zeljko’s honesty and realism is something that every young goalkeeper can take and learn immensely from. It resonates my own experience with agents, and countless other aspiring soccer professionals around the globe. Take this away from Spider’s words if you will, God (whichever you pray to), family and hard work ethic are what you need to succeed when everything in your aspiring soccer career seems to throw obstacles toward you. There is no Jerry Macguire relationships when it comes to business…in fact, keep family and business completely separated, and when you need further information in regards to a contract or proposed contract always seek solid legal advice.

Zeljko now has a great opportunity with AC Milan now Dida’s recent injury has gifted him a solid opportunity at one of the worlds largest clubs, I’m sure he will succeed. Good luck Spider!

Goalkeeper Cloning? The Mind Doth Boggle!

Imagine Makybe Diva winning another three straight Melbourne Cup’s…in the year 3000. Could you even think about Peter Schmeichel terrorizing a hapless attack for another ten years…again. in the year 3000? Gene doping is here, and it is real! So much so that they cloned Dolly and created a two headed fish. Good intentions I’m sure and all in the name of science, right? Following is possibly one of the most riveting articles I have read from the sports science frontier in quite some time, by an Aussie sports science researcher.

Robin Parisotto has come up with some smashing questions that resonate the possibilities of gene doping for many sports, here is one of the best points of the article:

"No matter whether we are talking about humans or animals, gene doping will cross all doping boundaries because it has the potential to permanently change the body, not just temporarily like conventional drugs. And it will affect all sports. Even genes responsible for height, weight, metabolism, balance, nerve, vision when identified will become performance-enhancing even in the most innocuous sports that don’t require great feats of strength or endurance like pistol shooting, archery, gymnastics etc. Gene technology will challenge society on many levels and it will force to question what it means to be human. It may well force us to ask another question: ‘What does sport mean?’ At the moment it appears that no one really knows where gene technology is taking the human race, let alone human sporting performance."

You can read up more regarding the article here. It truly is one of the best reads I have had in a while!

Around The Net In Goalkeeping

So much going on in the goalkeeping world…well not much this week, but there is some exciting news from around the soccer world that you may be interested in. Let’s take a look:

• Aston Villa goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen thinks that Villa has a good chance for a Champions League place.
• New reports link Brazilian goalkeeper Dida to another 4 year contract with AC Milan.
• Middlesbrough are looking at signing South African international Ryan Hartslief…never heard of the guy. So what is happening with goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer?
• Jens Lehmann may have some competition for the German national team position with Simon Jentzsch of Vfb Wolfsburg.

And that’s a wrap my goalkeeping buddies…til next time! Enjoy the read.

Shay Given: A Video Tribute To World Class Goalkeeping

He’s back from injury and you can’t deny him! Shay given is one of my favorite goalkeepers and possibly one of the best in the round ball game. Following is a cool video tribute to the Irishman with some great show stopping goalkeeping feats for the Toons.

Why Muscles Fatigue?

I’ve been doing much research over the weekend and a lot of milling around dusty scientific journals and other articles on the net. Why? Cause I like too? Yeah I know i’m sick! Anyway, I found a very recent study by some Harvard lab rats that pointed to why muscles fatigue during intense exercise that you may find useful in your own training regime.

When training intensities are beyond a certain threshold, your usual aerobic pathway is not enough to maintain performance over and above that threshold, usually between or over 70 to 85% of your maximum heart rate. Once we reach super hard intensities (you know the type of intensity where you think your head is going to pop) we start  utilising the anaerobic pathway (meaning training without oxygen). When the anaerobic threshold kicks in, our muscles fatigue rapidly, and we can only maintain it for short intervals.

"During exercise, muscles continuously break down and resynthesize the chemical ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which serves as the immediate source of energy for muscle contractions. During less vigorous muscular activity, essentially all of the ATP needed for muscular contraction can be provided via aerobic pathways that utilize oxygen delivered via the bloodstream.  The aerobic pathways allow moderate levels of force to be generated without fatigue for prolonged periods, but can only support modest levels of muscular activity, due to the upper limits on how rapidly blood and oxygen can be supplied to the working muscles by the heart. Consequently, during more vigorous exercise, such as sprinting or lifting heavy loads or weights, the aerobic provision of ATP is supplemented by anaerobic pathways that do not rely on oxygen delivery. While the anaerobic pathways provide ATP very rapidly, their capacity is finite and must be replenished after each bout."

The studies revealed that fatigue is very closely related to ATP depletion and this means that as we utilize the anaerobic pathways we can lose muscle force which can affect performance. Interesting stuff. Therefore, intense goalkeeping sessions during the season could possibly be best delivered with one maximum intensity session during the week, but with enough time to allow the body to recuperate between sessions, or other sessions that allow for aerobic training over a longer period of time (say 1 hour) rather than solely anaerobic sessions that bring on muscle fatigue.

All That Glitters

Trophies get dusted off from time to time, and although they don’t really amount to much, it is the mental picture of the moment you received it that makes your feel great about being a goalkeeper. The picture in the following post really takes me back. Let me walk you through the journey.

To the left is a picture of a trophy I received when playing for Sydney United (NSW Premier League) back in 1995 in the old NSL. It’s nostalgic for many reasons. I was 15 at the time and I went from being a young unknown goalkeeper who played in minor State League teams, to being pushed through the ranks to the Sydney United Colts. I was one of 3 youngsters from my team at that time to advance to the reserve team. The other guys who came along for the ride were Anthony Seric (Panathinaikos), Eddie Bosnar & Jason Culina (PSV Eindhoven). 

After some months with the Colts we were all given the chance to sign on with the reserve team at Sydney United. I was a proud member of possibly one of the most talented youth teams in the whole country. Names like Jacob Burns (Currently Barnsley FC) and Joel Griffiths (Newcastle Jets, A-League) passed through the ranks at Sydney United to greater soccer feats to name a few.

I had the great pleasure of travelling to Croatia to train with Dinamo Zagreb in 1995. In 1996 I played against guys like Igor Biscan (Panathinaikos) at the Kvarnerska Rivijera tournament. Igor was the guy at Dinamo who would call me "Klokan" or kangaroo when I entered the dressing rooms. But the Kvarnerska Rivijera tournament is closely related to the picture to your left. At the entrance to the stadium where most of the preliminary games are played is a fantastic statue that shows the scene in the picture above. Classic goalkeeping!

During 1996 I was also selected for NSW Schoolboy representation. In the NSW Catholic Combined Colleges team I had the privilege of playing alongside Nick & Leo Carle (two awesome talents). The list of guys I had the pleasure of training with can go on and on…maybe I’ll leave it for another post. One thing resonates, and that is that football, if you love it with everything you’ve got, allows you to experience some great moments and share them with amazing guys and girls who go on to greater things. I’ll never forget 1995 and 1996…because it is what made me who I am, and it made me love goalkeeping with the passion I share with all of you today!

Once Injured…Never The Same

The feeling of the long and winding road to recovery can certainly take its toll.  Interesting research by the American  College of Sports Medicine has uncovered the fact that once you are injured, no matter how well you recover….you never really recover fully, ever. I was looking at my leg in the mirror (no not some sick fetish) and saw the aftermath of my ACL tear, I’ve actually lost 5 degrees of normal extension. This means that my leg will never really be as dead straight as it used to be. Following is an excerpt from the recent findings:

“Once you get injured that body part is damaged forever. Even if we have great therapy, great surgeries, great operations, you have an anatomic injury. If your knee is banged up, you tear your cartilage and you have it fixed it’s still not right. If you injure your shoulder, and you injure the ligaments or the bone; it’s just never right. So the key is to maximize what you can do at your level of illness, or deficiency or ability …"

Realization churned in my heart when I read that passage. To be honest I may not have been as proactive as I could have been in my rehabilitation, and as the passage resonates…I’m still feeling some pain. But you can’t expect miracles overnight, and surgery takes time to heal. So my prescribed recovery of 12 months may prolong to 15 months. But there are also words of wisdom to the research, and that is for athletes to rest and take their time to recuperate after surgery.   

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