Has physical preparation for football changed?

The videos we’ve posted over the last two weeks only give a snapshot into how these teams prepared for the World Cup. The public are unlikely to ever be given a full overview of how a team prepares for a major tournament as top teams are usually very secretive of their ideas.

What the videos do demonstrate however, is how much attitudes in football have changed to strength and conditioning and athletic preparation. Gone are the days when conditioning work would be laps of the field until players couldn’t run any more, or gym work consisted of a bit of upper body training and some sit-ups. Footballers often used to believe that weight training made you bulky and slow, but now we can see that intelligent use of strength and power training activities is used as an integral part of preparation at the highest level.

World Cups are won and lost by the tiniest of margins, so proper physical preparation is one big part of getting ready to play that must be done correctly. Will improving your performance in a single fitness test win you the competition? Probably not. However, we can see that a wholistic view of testing and preparing is being put together by these teams. Whether it’s a Watt Bike conditioning session at prescribed power outputs by England, or Brazil going through a series of symmetry and range of motion tests to assess injury risk, it seems that for this World Cup, teams are using detailed physical training and performance programs and will be hoping it helps lead to big rewards.