“I'm starting to feel that I can do more with my left foot than just fetch beer.”
Even though in some situations it seems as though Thomas Müller owes us this one of his steep thesis, it is fair to say that unilateral training in soccer is clearly decisive for league membership. Take identically talented soccer players.
With one difference: One of the two passes, shoots, dribbles almost synchronously right and left. The other only uses one leg as a support leg. Which player do you think will make the breakthrough?
Admittedly, this question is easy to answer. However, why two-sided training in general still often does not find its way into soccer-specific athletic training is just as difficult to answer as the math Abitur assignments in 2019.
In training science, the term “unilateral” is used whenever you train body parts unilaterally — on both sides, of course. In the following, we want to explain to you why this form of training has actually become an integral part of modern training.
Improved prevention, more coordination, increased strength gains and better balance — unilateral training covers almost all superlatives of the modern athlete, because it is precisely these premises that are decisive for soccer players. Training exercises that are subordinate to the respective side activities primarily improve the control process of muscles and joints — not just on the side that has just been trained, by the way.
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Unilateral training in soccer works largely due to its overarching effect (“cross-education”). Therefore, when you train one side of your body, the corresponding muscles on the other side are stimulated and improved as if by magic.
A representative study with 785 participants found that this overarching effect resulted in a 9.4% increase in strength in the upper extremities and 16.4% in the lower extremities.
Compensation patterns often occur, especially during rehabilitation. This is the fact that the “good” side does work from the “weak” or injured side. This is completely avoided with unilateral training. As a result, this also provides significantly improved protection against (further) injuries.
And last but not least, you will be proven to generate greater strength gains with the help of unilateral training than with the conventional training variant.
Together with the training experts, who have been mentoring World and European Champions as well as Olympic and Bundesliga players in their athletic center for several years, we have often focused training on one side or a body part, not only in our ROAD2RECOVERY guides.
Our GAMECHANGER performance training also received a facelift and was expanded to include this exciting training methodology and specific speed programs. These are now possible all year round — easily accessible via an app on Android and IOS.
If you want, you can see for yourself completely free of charge in a one-week trial period.
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