Soccer is a demanding sport that requires you to be aerobically fit, posses speed and agility and be able to perform short bursts of intense exercise. According to ExpertFootball.com, if you’re a soccer player, it’s important for you to develop your body through training. A more muscular body will help improve your speed and power and enhance many facets of your game, and can be achieved using free weights, exercise machines and resistance bands. But simply playing the sport helps develop your physique too, especially your lower extremity muscles, which you use frequently during soccer matches for kicking, running and cornering.
Quadriceps
Professional soccer players are well known for their bulging quadriceps muscles. Your quadriceps muscles develop from playing soccer due to the amount of running, jumping and kicking you perform while playing. Don Kirkendall, Ph.D., a professor at the University of North Carolina and a member of the US Soccer Federation sports medicine committee, suggests that soccer midfielders run the most during matches, logging about six miles during 90 minutes of play.
Soccer is also a sport that requires you to perform frequent accelerations and decelerations. The deceleration phase of your sprint—or the landing phase of your jump—involves an eccentric contraction of your quadriceps muscles. According to a study by Swedish researchers published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, eccentric contractions are a powerful stimulus for muscular hypertrophy or growth.
Calves
Because of their relative visibility on the pitch—thanks to the standard uniform of jersey and shorts worn by most soccer players—the box-like calves of professional soccer players are one of the most common muscles associated with the game. Dribbling, running and jumping all contribute to the development of your gastrocnemius and soleus muscles—your two most significant and bulkiest calf muscles. Despite the sturdy design of your calves, calf muscles commonly are injured while playing soccer, according to Roland Jeffrey, a New Zealand-based physiotherapist and soccer sports injury specialist. If the frequency of calf muscle strains amongst soccer players is any indication of the relevance of this muscle to the game, then your calf muscles undoubtedly are one of your most significant and heavily relied upon soccer-related muscles.
Psoas
You regularly use your psoas muscle—which is about the size of your forearm and runs from your lumbar spine to the top of your femur—while playing soccer, especially when kicking the ball. Your psoas muscle is part of a group of muscles called your hip flexors, whose principle action is to lift your upper leg toward your torso. According to SportsInjuryBulletin.com, your psoas muscle is recruited—along with your tensor fascia lata, rectus femoris, iliacus, sartorius and leg adductor muscles—for use during the approach and swing phase of your soccer kick. Your repetitive kicking of a soccer ball will strengthen your psoas muscle and improve its muscular endurance, which will add velocity to your kicks over time.
About this Author
Martin Hughes is a chiropractic physician and freelance writer based out of Durham, N.C. He writes about health, fitness, diet, lifestyle, travel and outdoor pursuits. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in kinesiology at the University of Waterloo and his doctoral degree from Western States Chiropractic College in Portland, Ore.
