Footballscience.net
We watched a strength-training session of FC Bayern Munich during their training camp at Doha/Qatar two weeks ago.
This session followed the previous released warm-up session as the main part of the training session.
The setup consisted of 6 stations. Each station was performed ~1 minute in length followed by a 1 minute recovery period. All players went through the entire strength-training circle 3 times. The 27 players were “equally” divided in groups of 4-5 and the set-up of the circle was an area on the football pitch of ~35 x 15 meters.
1) Exercise: Double-leg squat including overhead press
- Equipment: bungee cords that add little resistance
- Major muscle group trained: hip and knee extensors, shoulder and elbow extensor
2) Exercise: Single leg lying hip extension (or bridging with alternating legs)
- Equipment: none
- Major muscle group trained: hip extensors and hamstrings, core
3) Exercise: Prone rowing
- Equipment: none
- Major muscle group trained: shoulder muscles (deltoids), neck (trapezius), back muscle (erector spinae), rhomboids and levator scapulae
4) Exercise: Tall kneeling trunk rotation
- Equipment: none
- Muscle group trained: flexibility hamstrings, transverse and external oblique/abdominals, back extensor
5) Exercise/Movement: Double leg squad to upward trunk rotation
- Equipment: ~10 kg weight plates
- Muscle group trained: knee and hip extensors, transverse and external oblique/abdominals, biceps, deltoids
6) Exercise: Prone bridge
- Equipment: foam roll
- Major muscle group trained: trunk muscles
As far as we can see, all exercises involved and combined major muscle groups in soccer and due to the load (as a combination of body weight or little resistance and time spend in each exercise) the purpose seemed to be to improve the strength (endurance) of the muscles trained. Furthermore, the exercises were placed in an order that ensured a changed between muscle groups with the practical effect to maximize efficacy of training and limit total duration of session.
The video to the session:
