Kick (association football)
[5] The athlete’s vision should be focused directly at the ball through the entirety of the kicking action in order to increase accuracy.
[9] Lower body movement analysis and joint motions are important to learn because of the involvement in the kick.
The fourth stage is when the hip flexors and knee extensors initiate a forceful contraction in the swinging limb at a high velocity towards the ball.
Starting in stage 3, the kicking limb moves posterior of the positioned body, which is possible with hip extension.
[10] Once the kicking limb is near contact with the ball, the supporting knee initiates extension to stabilize the action.
Hamstrings are also activated in the supporting limb throughout the swinging stages until foot comes into contact with the ball to allow stabilization and balance.
[11] Stabilizer muscles, such as the gluteus medius and psoas, on the supporting limb are active to prevent the hip from adducting.
As the kicking limb begins forward movement in stage 4, quadriceps, hip flexor muscles (iliopsoas), knee extensor muscles including the rectus femoris creates concentric activity to produce a fast forward velocity toward the ball by extending the knee and flexing the hip.
[14] This multi articular movement is executed by segmental and joint torques in multiple planes and produces and angular velocity generated from proximal to distal limbs.
The spider Crawl is a dynamic compound exercise that works mainly the core muscles such as rectus abdominis, erector spinae, and external obliques as well as the pectoralis major, anterior deltoids, and triceps.
The hip involves flexion and internal rotation on the kicking leg side (tensor fasciae latae, rectus femoris, psoas major, iliacus, sartorius, pectineus, adductor brevis, longus, and magnus), and extension on the “planted” leg side (gluteus maximus, hamstring group and adductor magnus.
The side lunge increases strength of the quadriceps muscles, gluteus maximus, and hip adductors & flexors.
The side lunge improves balance by putting the body weight on the planted leg while trying to prevent falling back or forward.
In addition, cariocas is an exercise in which the person moves laterally while facing forward by internally rotating the hip and stepping over with the leg contralateral to the direction of the movement.
Jumping squats are a plyometric exercise that improves force, speed which equals power and explosiveness on the legs.
Mountain climbers are a great way to improve endurance due to the duration and high intensity nature of the exercise.
Most importantly, sprints will improve speed, force, agility, and endurance because it requires explosiveness and coordination of the body segments.
