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Becoming a Better Football Player through Judo
- Do you have a young football player in your family?
- Looking for ways on and off the field to help him or her to improve their game?
Many players are turning to martial arts to enhance their football game, of all the best martial arts out there, Judo reigns supreme for it. Here we will take a look at 10 reasons how Judo can help improve your football performance.
Netherlands Football team
Strength and conditioning coach for the Netherlands national team Rene Wormhoudt
- "Only focusing on football might not be the best way to become a football player."
- "What I learned from doing judo is that even if someone is stronger than me, I can decide which way we go. I can use your strength to my advantage. In that way, if I am totally comfortable in my balance I can use it to my advantage when you push me.”
- "What I realised is that if you could fall well, if you could have a better balance as well as the skills, you could become a better football player.
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Manchester United
Donny van de Beek: How judo helped make Manchester United midfielder | Football News | Sky Sports
Tottenham Hotspur
Elite Tottenham Hotspur coaches John Thrower & Sam Pooley recently visited the British Judo National Training Centre to learn how judo skills can be incorporated into the academy and senior training
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1. Conditioning
- Judo is a well rounded martial art that is highly aggressive and requires non-stop activity. On the field, conditioning is important so you don’t run out of energy and gas in the middle of a game. Judo constantly pushes its athletes to increase their cardiovascular endurance as part of routine training.
- Judo fighters often have endurance and cardiovascular strength far superior to many other athletes.
2. Strength
- Judo not only requires a strong physical presence, it nearly demands it. While by definition, the word Judo means “The Gentle Way”, it’s far from gentle. Likewise, one of the core tenets of Judo is “maximum efficiency with minimal effort”, which is also infrequently a reality.
- Judo fighters are often extremely strong with tremendous core strength, powerful arms and hands, and powerfully muscular legs and feet.
- Few sports engage the entire body (many times, all at once) as Judo does.
3. Agility
- Agility is another key fundamental in Judo. A Judo match is fast and furious, and the first person to get thrown or taken down loses. Extreme agility is an absolute necessity.
- Competitive Judo teaches a person how to move properly, how to stay on balance, how to avoid the takedown or the throw, and most importantly, how to rapidly back get into position to attack, sweep, or throw the other person.
- Judo teaches this from the safety of a padded mat, versus the hard surface of the ground or turf playing field.
4. Balance
- This goes without saying, Judo fighters are masters of balance. Not proficient, or even experts, but absolute masters.
- The whole premise of Judo fighting is to get your opponent off balance and either take them down for a pin, or sweep or throw them to the ground.
5. Falling
- Learning to fall is one of the first and most important parts of Judo. Being picked up and thrown six feet through the air requires the person being thrown knowing how to fall without getting hurt. Falling techniques are practiced on the safety of padded mats, they are routinely practiced in Judo training.
- While injuries do happen on occasion in Judo just like any other sport, learning proper falling techniques are supremely important. Hitting the ground incorrectly can amplify any injury caused by a hard tackle.
- Football players who practice Judo get hurt less frequently than average players because they know how to fall.
6. Coordination
- Unlike most other martial arts, Judo engages the entire body – often in a simultaneous fashion. To properly execute a throw or takedown, your body has to work as a seamless unit from your head to your feet. Fighters must use their arms and legs simultaneously most of the time.
- Being able to engage all four extremities to perform different complex actions requires an advanced degree of coordination.
- This is important on the field as well, because football is a full-body sport too. Running, jumping, turning, faking… all of these actions require coordination. The more coordinated a player is, the better their performance will be. This is equally true for Judo and for football.
7. Confidence
- Self confidence plays a key role in Judo matches. In Judo, like football, there are all sizes – big, tall, wide, narrow, light, and heavy. Being able to go up against a larger, heavier, and stronger opponent is an everyday thing in Judo.
- Judo teaches, from the self-defense aspect, that you don’t get to pick your bully or attacker. And it’s almost always likely your bully or attacker will be larger and more intimidating than you appreciate.
- Judo fighters train against all sizes, big and small, weak and strong. And while training against someone smaller and weaker doesn’t necessarily make them an easy target, as smaller Judoka are frequently faster.
- Going up against a smaller and faster or larger and stronger opponent, and having the confidence that you can successfully defend yourself in the moment is hugely important, both on and off the mat and/or field.