11 Leg Exercises You Need to Be Doing as a Footballer

11 Leg Exercises You Need to Be Doing as a Footballer

(If you want to improve your confidence on the pitch, make sure you read the full article)

I know, I know, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “but why Ric?! Only eleven? Aren’t there many more exercises I can be doing?”

Personally I thought eleven was a lot, but I wanted to break down eleven for you, because 11 is a cool number and if you can perfect these 11, I promise you that you will be very very strong!

Football is a very fast-paced game that requires you to be powerful, fast and athletic. The explosive and fast actions are generally what lead to goals for your team or against your team.

In order for you to be successful in the beautiful game, YOU NEED TO BE STRONG. Strength is the base quality that every other quality feeds off of (power, speed, quickness, injury reduction, stamina, etc.)

Despite popular belief, you will not get bulky from lifting weights as a footballer!

The only way you will get bulky is if you train like a bodybuilder, you eat past the point of fullness consistently and if you have a coach who doesn’t know how to properly program for a footballer.

Football is not played at one pace. There is a constant stop and go action with a lot of decelerations and accelerations.

Strong, powerful legs will help you produce these actions much more efficiently and effectively which will help you be a better contributor to your team’s success and will help you stay on the field and off the sidelines.

Here are 11 Leg Exercises that You Need to Be Doing as a Footballer:

I always hesitate this part but I know many of you prefer when I suggest sets and reps, so, I will be suggesting sets and reps, because I always seem to get that question, but this need to be determined by your goals, your weightlifting experience, where you are in your season, etc.

If you don’t know how to properly program yourself, I highly recommend seeking out a well-qualified coach.

This article is meant for you to improve your performance, but just doing a random number of sets and reps and not having a proper plan can actually lead to worse performance.

Exercise 1- Explosive Trap Bar Deadlifts: 

How:

1. Stand in the center of the trap bar with your feet about shoulder-width apart.
2. Lower your hips down, take a big inhale, and grab both handles with a solid-powerful grip.
3. Keep your head forward and chest up with a strong powerful posture.
4. Drive your feet through the floor, explosively blow out of your mouth and drive up!
5. Push your hips forward and squeeze your glutes at the top.
6. Repeat.
7. What if you don’t have a trap bar?

-No problem, no need to overthink, you can use a barbell.

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 4-6 Reps

 

Exercise 2- Trap Bar Deadlift Jumps:

How:

1. Get into the middle of a trap bar.
2. Drive your butt back keeping your knees fixed, hinging from the hips.
3. Set up for a deadlift.
4. Inhale deeply through your belly, as you exhale through your mouth, explosively drive your feet through the floor and try to jump to the ceiling.
5. As you come back down to land, think of letting the weight pull you down and landing on a cushiony surface.
6. Reset and repeat.

What if you don’t have a trap bar?

No problem, follow the same technique but use two dumbbells.

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 2-6 Reps

 

Exercise 3: Barbell Romanian Deadlift

How:

1. Grab a bar at about shoulder width.
2. Bring your feet to slightly narrower than shoulder width.
3. Let the bar skid down your legs as your butt goes back.
4. Keep the knees fixed.
5. You should feel a nice stretch in the hamstrings.
6. We want adequate knee bend to activate the glutes
   7. The straighter the knee; the more the hamstrings are working.
   8. We want back to be flat and torso straight.
   9. We want the shoulders to be down and back and engaged.
   10. Try to keep head in neutral position by making a double chin; which I clearly didn’t do properly in the video.
7. Extend hips all the way through. 

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 4-12 Reps

 

Exercise 4- Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift:

How:

1. Grab two dumbbells.
2. Bring your feet to slightly narrower than shoulder width.
3. Let the dumbbells skid down your legs as your butt goes back.
4. Keep the knees in a fixed position.
5. You should feel a nice stretch in the hamstrings.
6. We want a slight knee bend to activate the glutes. Also, as you come up focusing on driving your feet through the floor and almost splitting the floor to focus on glute engagement.
   7. The straighter the knee; the more the hamstrings are working.
   8. We want back to be flat and torso straight.
   9. We want the shoulders to be down and back and engaged.
   10. Try to keep head in neutral position by making a double chin; which I clearly didn’t do properly in the video.
7. Extend hips all the way through.

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 4-6 Reps

 

Exercise 5- Stability Ball Hamstring Curls:

How:

6. Grab a stability ball.
7. Drive your heels into the ball and keep your toes up.
8. Place palms down and activate your back by pinching your shoulder blades together like you are squeezing a pencil to create a stable base.
9. Pull the ball int your body and you drive your hips to the sky.
10. Make sure to extend at the hip by focusing on a drive.
11. We want a clear line from shoulder to hip to knee.

Exercise 6- Front Squat:

How:

1. Step up to a barbell and grip the bar slightly with your hands.
2. Tighten your core and pull your shoulder blades down and back.
3. Drive your elbows up as high as you can while maintaining a strong posture.
4. Sit your hips down and back. Bend your knees as push your knees out to lower into the squat.
5. Keep your chest and elbows up throughout the entire rep.
6. Continue to bend your hips and knees until your thighs are about parallel to the ground.
7. Drive through your midfoot to stand up out of the squat envisioning that you are pushing the ground away from you.
8. You should feel your quads and glutes doing most of the work.
9. Squeeze your glutes to fully extend your hips at the top of the squat.

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 5-20 Reps

 

As Promised, Here It Is:

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Exercise 7- Barbell Back Squat:

How:

1. Start with your feet shoulder-width trying to keep your toes facing forwards. Please note; it is absolutely okay to have your feet turn out a little bit.
2. Go up to the bar with confidence and poise that you will lift some heavy weight powerfully and explosively.
3. Rest the bar on your shoulders, NOT on your neck (beginners can use a squat pad if needed).
4. Keep your chest up and head up creating a long tall and powerful posture.
5. Keep your knees soft and don’t lock them out.
6. Drop your hips back and butt back until about 50 degrees.
7. Pull your lower legs back along with the hamstrings.
8. Try to keep your lower legs as vertical as possible.
9. When your hips are just below your knees, exhale explosively out of your mouth and drive back up with power!
10. Repeat.

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 3-12 Reps

 

Exercise 8- Bulgarian Split Squat:

1. Put your foot on some kind of elevated surface.
2. Balance on the front foot.
3. Focus on keeping your mind on the ball of the front foot.
4. DO NOT let your knee drift too far over your ankle.
5. Move up and down as quickly as you can while coordinating your arms with your legs.
6. If you have trouble with balance, concentrate on a spot in front of you.
7. Keep your posture strong and tall the entire time.

Obviously, as you get better, please start adding some weight 🙂

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 4-15 Reps Each Leg

 

Exercise 9- Dumbbell Reverse Lunges:

1. Grab two dumbbells and stand with your feet in one line.
2. Step back into a Lunge with one leg decelerating the momentum and speed.
3. Drive down and through the ground with the Front foot to bring your leg back to the Start explosively and powerfully as you can.
4. That Front hamstring and glute should be active and on fire.
5. Think DRIVE!

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 4-8 Reps Each Leg

 

Exercise 10- Single Leg Romanian Deadlift:

How:

1. Grab a barbell and stand balancing on one leg.
2. Sit your hips back as if you were being pulled by a rope attached to your waist., and allow your left leg knee to bend slightly.
3. Your right leg should be straight as possible (but it’s OK if there’s a slight bend in the knee) and in line with your body throughout the rep.
4. Think of driving the heel as high as you can to the sky and the head to the ground. Lengthen as much as possible.
5. Keep your back flat, continue to bend at the waist until the barbell is at about mid-shin height (depending on your hamstring flexibility).
6. Drive through your heel and push your hips forward to stand up to the starting position feeling a nice glute activation and active hamstring stretch.

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 4-12 Reps Each Leg

Exercise 11- Single Leg Squat:

1. Grab a ball if you’re a beginner or a weight plate.
2. Have a chair or a bench underneath you.
3. Drop your butt back while keeping a strong erect posture.
4. Push the ball or weight out as you go down.
5. Try to keep the opposite leg as straight as possible.
6. As soon as you hit the chair, drive up and out, extending at the hips.

Sets and Reps:

3-5 Sets of 4-15 Reps Each Leg

Hope none of you are angry that I’m a reds fan ;)….

Make Sure You Bring Maximum Intensity

The most important part of all of this is that you bring maximum intent to every single one of these exercises!

What does that even mean Ric?

Intent: the intention to do something- your directed effort with a goal in mind.

Examples:

“I want to lift something fast.”

“I want to be the best athlete.”

“I want to be more thoughtful.”

Why lift with intent?

-Sport is about producing optimally timed efforts, at times “maximal or near maximal outputs.”

-My goal as a coach is to develop the ability to produce these maximal outputs at higher levels for the athletes I train.

Moving fast, training hard is not easy! Our body doesn’t want to move fast when it doesn’t need to.

 Having clear cut intent can shift the mindset from “lifting to complete the task of lifting” to “lifting to complete the task of lifting as fast as possible.”

(Ref- Max Schmarzano et. al 2021)

What Do You Do Now?

1. Find a way to properly program these exercises into a weekly plan based on your goals, weightlifting experience and your team schedule.
2. Find a routine where you can integrate these exercises in consistently. Without consistency, you will never see strength gains!

If you have a question, feel free to reach out.

I’m always here to help 🙂

I am grateful to have a large audience who speaks Spanish, so I went ahead and translated the entire article into Spanish to help you feel more comfortable. I hope it helps:

Do you want to improve your ability on the ball as a footballer?

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