Conditioning for Soccer: Balance

Joey Macauley
Complete Conditioning for Soccer
By: Greg Gatz

An individual's balance is an imperative component for playing soccer. In chapter 4 of Complete Conditioning for Soccer, Greg Gatz elaborates on the importance and effect for having heightened awareness and ability to control your body in space. Unless you're a cat that will always land and their feet, it takes precise and disciplined training to purse enhancing the mechanical processes of your muscles. Therefore, similar to how flexibility exercises are divided between static and dynamic stretching, balance exercises are defined as either strengthening basic posture control or dynamic stability. Basic posture control focuses on increasing the vitality and balance of the core while dynamic stability results in more coordination to efficiently execute combinations of vigorous movements in motion, or in other words, optimizing neuromuscular control (Gatz 45). Furthermore, Gatz interprets balance as he goes more in depth asserting that, "helping you move and react without losing control is the job of the processing mechanisms in the brain that maintain a state of equilibrium. The body also calls on proprioceptors to respond to changes in body position, center of mass, and muscles length" (Gatz 45). At the end of the chapter, he provides drills and routines to progressively improve one's balance and specifically train the internal muscle mechanisms that are responsible for the component of balance that influence and individual's performance on the field. For example...

Lateral Bounding: "Explosive" takeoff to land and "hold" on opposite foot, keeping your body in the air for as long as possible (repetition and incorporate different patterns of movement with same technique)

Single-Leg Squats: With one leg and both arms reaching forward, I "try" to squat to the lowest position maintaining balance, pausing, and extending back to the starting position.

After the enlightenment of this information the idea and importance of my balance became more than just the ability to stay on my feet. I never considered how our muscles can be treated as processes of mechanisms that can be improved through repetition and certain exercises. Personally, I'd say have pretty good balance because of how I've had to handle and react to taller and stronger competition my whole life and be able to successfully shift my body in a variety of movements in motion. However, after reading the text I paraphrased I've been determined to apply basic but challenging exercises to my conditioning in order to continue heightening my balance proficiency. Additionally, it was very helpful learning about what balance really is in regard to your muscle structures and systems. Lastly, my directly quoted evidence that I provided, again, instituted a better understanding for the concept of balance and its influence/importance while performing on the field. Consequently, this allowed me to more fully grasp this component which then arranged better direction towards being able to improve my balance. 

How crucial is your balance during the activities you're involved in, and how have you or would you pursue improving upon your balance?

Work Cited: 

Gatz, Greg. Complete Conditioning for Soccer. Human Kinetics, 2009.