(Adapted from F-Marc.com, FIFA’s Medical Assessment and Research Centre)
Football is the most popular team sport in the world. There are already more than 265 million registered players, and the number of participants is continuing to grow.
With Football Fever hitting our country this year and being played in everyone’s backyard, a proper warm up is definitely justified. The warm up is vital before any game of football, or indeed any training session, in order to avoid injuring oneself. Football is a game that regularly places considerable strain on the joints and muscles and therefore it is extremely important to complete a thorough warm-up regime. Players all over the world miss games due to knee and ankle injuries, and female players in particular are at high risk of suffering anterior cruciate knee ligament tears.
Warming up prior to playing and training is a matter of routine for any serious player. A smart warm-up not only improves your performance, but also helps you to prevent injuries.
The importance of warming up is demonstrated by research published in 2008 by Soligard and colleagues on almost 2000 female football players comparing clubs (1055 players) following a structured warm up program implemented by FIFA's Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC) vs others (837 players) not following this unique program throughout an eight month season.
This study showed that the risk of injury can be reduced by about one third and severe injuries by as much as one half.
"The 11+", the new injury prevention programme from FIFA's Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC), provides a complete, football-specific warm-up and can easily be integrated into a daily training routine.
"The 11+" is divided into three parts: it starts off with running exercises (part I), moves on to six exercises with three levels of increasing difficulty to improve strength, balance, muscle control and core stability (part II), and concludes with further running exercises (part III). The different levels of difficulty increase the programme's effectiveness and allow coaches and players to individually adapt the programme.
"The 11+" takes approx. 20 minutes to complete and replaces the usual warm-up before training.
Prior to playing a match, only the running exercises are performed, for about ten minutes.
"The 11+" has proven to cut injuries by up to half - if performed correctly and regularly. When it is adopted together with the values of fair play, it enables you, as a player or coach, to protect yourself, your team and your opponents and thus increase everyone's enjoyment of the game.
Compiled By David van Wyk – BPhyst ; MPhil (Sport Physiotherapy)
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