How to Get as Strong as a Football Player
3 min
©David Madison
Football is a creation from the other side of the Atlantic that most of us don’t understand particularly well. It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve seen Any Given Sunday, everything we know about Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen’s split, or memorized The Weeknd’s performance at the 2021 Super Bowl, our knowledge of the beautiful game in the USA will still be close to zero.
What we do know is how strong and powerful football players are. If we were to rank the strongest athletes in the world of sport, we would definitely find them in the top positions. Giants of more than 100 kg of pure muscle, who can run 100 meters in 11 seconds or less and are capable of withstanding the kind of onslaught you’d find in a collision between two high-speed trains.
Football players are impressive, and watching them train their bodies is a real spectacle. As in other sports and, as always, depending on each person, training can vary, but with the idea of increasing or maintaining good muscle mass without losing speed, football players face endless days full of biceps curls, dips on the bars, sets with dumbbells, throwing medicine balls and even specific exercises for the forearm and neck. Ultra demanding full body routines, with a lot of weight and mainly strength exercises.
Strength training and football
Football players need to work on muscle mass and intramuscular coordination, which means that each individual muscle fiber works with the others effectively. Whether it’s the quarterback, offensive or defensive tackle, defensive wing, linebacker or cornerback, every player on the team must be in perfect physical condition to play their game. After that, they need to train position-specific skills. Runners need speed, and the offensive line needs to generate strong forward momentum, even if it feels like they’re pushing against a brick wall. At foodspring, we consulted a professional fitness trainer who gave us 7 tips on building muscle mass fast.
Supplements to build you up
If the training needed to get as strong as a football player is essential, then supplements are no less so. It goes without saying that a healthy, high-calorie diet is extremely important in order to get big. But in addition to this diet plan, there are some sports supplements that can provide the final push towards attaining a football player’s almost divine physique. That’s why we’re going to share 3 nutritional supplements with you that can be a total game changer. Take note!
#1 Creatine
Creatine is a staple in the diet of any athlete, let alone a football player. This supplement, with more than 700 scientific studies that support its effectiveness, can increase our anaerobic work capacity. It’s also extremely useful for improving strength endurance and recovery between sets. In other words: creatine helps you to always give a little extra when doing any exercise. A scientific review published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition highlights the impact of consuming 5g of creatine per day on endurance, strength and hypertrophy in athletes.
Creatine can be found in a lot of foods, especially meats. The problem is the enormous amount of meat that would have to be consumed to reach an optimal level of creatine intake. That’s why creatine must be produced synthetically to achieve levels that can provide some effect. The most common form you’ll find it in is creatine monohydrate, which is available both in capsules and in powder form.
#2 Whey protein
Another super classic sports supplement. Whey protein is one of the main proteins found in dairy products that can then be isolated for easy consumption. The benefits of whey protein consumption in muscle development and recovery are certified by a large number of scientific studies, such as the ones you can see in this study. And as for the necessary amount, a study by Philips SM1 and Van Loon LJ maintains that an intake of between 1.3 and 1.8 grams per kilo, divided into several doses, promotes muscle mass gain.
If you want a quality protein, at foodspring our whey protein comes in a wide variety of flavors and also in its most refreshing version: Clear Whey.
#3 Beta-Alanine
Beta-Alanine is a non-essential amino acid found in white or red meat such as chicken or beef. As with creatine or protein, it’s synthesized to make it easier to consume. You’ll find Beta-Alanine both in a stand-alone format and accompanying other ingredients in supplements such as foodspring’s Energy Aminos.
Looking at the scientific evidence and numbers, there’s a lot of research confirming that Beta-Alanine can improve sports performance and muscle development. For example, this scientific review analyzed up to 15 studies to conclude that taking about 5 grams of Beta-Alanine daily can improve our performance by 2.85%.
Find out more about this topic at foodspring:
- Strength Training Exercises, Effects and Beginner Tips
- How fast can you master our new extreme HIIT workout?
Sources for this article
We at foodspring use only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial policy to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.