For many football managers, the punishing training and cold bath approach is used in pursuit of top performance. Some prefer the yoga and pilates route, writes Patricia Weston
Burly, muscular footballers gracefully poised in a meditative yogic tree pose, elegantly stretching and lengthening their muscles to develop balance, concentration, co-ordination and relaxation.
This image is fast becoming an ordinary commonplace one as professional footballer's training techniques undergo considerable change.
Macho footballers are moving away from traditional stretching and strengthening exercises as part of their training in favour of more alternative exercise disciplines such as yoga and pilates.
Manager of the British Premiership team Bolton Wanderers Sam Allardyce encourages his players to practise yoga and pilates for stronger, more flexible muscles and to help prevent injuries. "The players do both yoga and pilates with our in-house football arts specialist Ching. Yoga is used for strength and flexibility of the body and pilates is mainly for the body's core stability," he says.
According to yoga instructor Louise Fagan practising yoga postures can be very beneficial for footballers. "Because of the explosive nature of football players push their bodies to a great degree putting muscles, tendons and joints under strain. Yoga promotes a relaxed state in the muscles, stretching, strengthening and toning to assist the body in moving more freely."
Pilates, for its part, concentrates on strengthening the core area of the body, which includes the abdominal muscles, lower back and gluteal muscles in the backside. A strong core therefore, improves posture and stability and strengthens and tones muscles to help prevent injury.
As an experienced football coach Allardyce realises the importance of preventing injuries. "I had heard many good things about these [yoga and pilates] through the sporting industry and I heard they were a good method of injury prevention and thought why not give it a go."
These alternative disciplines are now incorporated into the Wanderer's regular training schedule. "We involve it as part of the training and some players even like to have individual sessions with Ching, especially if they are injured as it helps to get them back to fitness quicker," Allardyce adds.
The players have also come to realise the benefits of these exercises. "Most of the players find that it helps, some players like it more than others and some even ask for additional individual sessions," he points out.
The Bolton manager would strongly recommend other football managers to use such methods in training, "I would advise it, as it is a way to prevent injury, and it is extremely good. And I believe that everyone will soon see the benefits of it and incorporate it into their training methods."
Another football player who discovered the benefits of alternative techniques in training is Manchester United's Roy Keane. Keane recently admitted in an interview in this newspaper that he took up yoga a few years ago and noticed a huge difference in his fitness. "There are benefits. You loosen the muscles and take pressure off your joints," he noted.
Manager of Sunderland Mick McCarthy is keenly aware of the benefits of pilates in training. "In the modern game it is important that players are at the peak of their physical fitness. At Sunderland, our players regularly do pilates sessions, and have done so since I arrived at the club.
"It's great for core strengthening and improves flexibility, it also helps with general posture and breathing," says the former Irish team manager.
What of the Irish scene? Former Longford town football manager Martin Lawler introduced yoga to his team's training regime. "When I took over the team I introduced the players to a night of yoga as part of the training with great results. It improved their flexibility. The lads joked about it at first but after the first few sessions the took to it."
Martin noticed a difference in his player's fitness from practising yoga, but when he left the coach who took over didn't keep up the yoga sessions. "It increased the players ability to concentrate and delivers a fantastic ability to stay injury free. I believe it can also lengthen a players career," he says.
Traditionally footballer's training involved running, working with weights and very little stretching compared to the amount of stretching involved in yoga and pilates. "Footballers training in the traditional method don't do a warm down with lots of stretching," according to Lawler.
Exercises such as yoga and pilates can be perceived as 'far out' eastern regimes by footballers. "Footballers and coaches still see these disciplines as something only tree-huggers do and not something macho footballers take up," Lawler believes.
Although football coaches are moving towards this type of flexibility and strength training the benefits still need to be highlighted even further. "We need more positive role models like Roy Keane," he says.
He laments the fact that League of Ireland football haven't been so quick to take up such physical disciplines. Few in the League of Ireland have taken up yoga or pilates and he doesn't think there will be a significant change. "They are not forward thinking enough," he says.
Referees, however, within the National League of Ireland have started to introduce yoga as part of their pre-season preparation. Darren Coombes says: "When we started doing the yoga it was perceived as girlie and there were only about five to six refs doing it, by the end of the first week of pre-season training there were about 20 refs taking part."
Within the Eircom League there are some footballers who do yoga and pilates and some who wouldn't consider it as part of their training. Bohemians Football Club practise yoga and pilates regularly. Shamrock Rover's training involves lots of weight training but, according to their spokesperson, "There's no yoga or pilates done in our squad."
It seems footballers are slow to change their training techniques. According to Cathal O'Shea who trains Cork City football team, "it takes a bit for the lads to get used to doing something different. I usually have to encourage one person to do something new and then when the others see how it's benefiting that player they'll follow."
"Footballers can get stuck doing the same type of training, rugby players seem to take to new techniques quicker. There is an old fashioned view in football and I don't know why that is but I think it's beginning to change slowly," he says.