Football Fitness
The football tournament ‘UEFA EURO 2020’ was due to take place this summer, but understandably has been postponed until 2021 due to the current global pandemic. There may be a few of you out there who are rather pleased to not have their evenings and weekends filled by their loved ones watching football games, but for others you may be itching to get your football fix this summer, so why not try some Football Fitness for your gut health.
Train Like the Lions – Football Association
Whether you are a keen footballer who wants to stay match fit, or you are someone who has never kicked a football in their life, the FA (Football Association) has put together a 12-week training programme ‘Train like the Lions’. The programme focuses on improving your sprint strength, breaking strength and ability to repeat and recover. The programme starts with three assessments that you can do at home to evaluate your current strengths and weaknesses, which allows individuals to alter the workload of future sessions. Subsequent weeks incorporate resistance-based workouts, using mainly body-weight exercises, that cover important types of exercise such as:
- Aerobic exercise:in the form of interval running, jumping and lateral skaters.
- Strength training:such as, squatting, lunging, glute bridges and calf raises.
- Balance exercises: including a variety of single leg exercises.
No matter what your current footballing ability or fitness level you can join in by visiting The FA Website.
Stay At Home Work Out – Irish Football Association
The Irish FA have also provided a 6-week at home work-out programme, by Johnny Pedlow – strength and conditioning coach for the Northern Ireland’s senior women’s team, which contains a warm-up, core and mobility exercises and fully body workouts.
If you’re not looking for something quite so structured why not pick up a football and get outside for a good old-fashioned kick-about!. Football is a great form of exercise for people of all ages and the great thing is… it doesn’t feel like exercise when you’re having fun.
Love Your Gut – Exercise
Remember Football Fitness can also improve your gut health!
References:
- (2018) Available from: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/exercise-health-benefits/
- Peters et al.(2001) Gut 48(3):435-491 doi: 10.1136/gut.48.3.435
- Stachow(2019) SAGE Open Med 12(9):517-525 org/10.1177/1755738019855412