David Beckham Mens Health

David Beckham on Mens Health

David Beckham is the poster boy for English football, David Beckham currently plays in midfield for American Major League Soccer club Los Angeles Galaxy and the England national team.

David Beckham, the bulk of his cardio fitness training probably comes from football training sessions, but supplemented with some running and cycling. The main training routine for footballers is a specific circuit training routine. Footballers include in their arsenal speed work and plyometric training routines, as well as classic old school circuit training, such as shuttle runs, squat thrusts, jumping jacks, skipping, jogging forwards and backwards, plus abs/core workouts and upper-body conditional with crunches, leg raises and press-ups (push ups).

When it comes to fitness, Becks analyzes goals and decides what to leave out. “I went through a stage a few years ago where I lifted a lot of weights and put on about a stone [about 14 pounds] and ended up not being able to run,” he says. Cutting out weights saved time and enhanced the skill Beckham needs most on the field: speed.

“I’ve always kept myself in shape. I look after my body. For the 10 days before coming back to play for LA Galaxy earlier in the week, I did 10 miles on a bike every day,” The Mirror.co.uk quoted Beckham, as saying.

“I’m very self-disciplined. I always time my runs and keep a check on my fitness levels. I’ve been running and working in the gym and I do an hour of Pilates, which is a stretching and breathing routine, every day,” he added.

The 34 year-old also stressed that his stay at AC Milan helped him immensely to keep his fitness up to the level.

“Being at AC Milan has been incredible in terms of keeping my fitness up and giving me confidence that I can go straight back into a European side, Beckham said.

Beckham also highlighted that he was more confident about his fitness and was determined to match the career of former AC Milan captain Paolo Maldini, who retired last month after a 24-year career.

“I feel fit enough to play at the top level still. When I don’t feel that way, that’s when I’ll know to quit. The Milan doctors told me that I have the same sort of make-up as Maldini. They said that if I keep up my present levels of fitness I can progress as long as I want to,” he said.
[Source: www.mirror.co.uk www.menshealth.com]

David Beckham Mens Health

David Beckham Pictures and Football Workout

David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English professional footballer, who plays as a midfielder. He currently plays for and captains Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy and is also a member of the England national team. He earned his 100th cap for England against France in March 2008.
Twice been runner-up for FIFA World Player of the Year, and in 2004 was the world’s highest-paid footballer. He was Google’s most searched of all sports topics in both 2003 and 2004.
Beckham was captain of England from 15 November 2000 to 2 July 2006. He made 58 appearances as captain, and ended his tenure in that role after the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals. He continued to make contributions for the England national team.

Conditioning plays an increasingly more important role in today’s soccer, so if you ever want to become a pro, you’d best start working on your fitness and endurance levels from early on. Unlike popular belief, soccer conditioning drills are not just short-term, in that you can’t forget” how to be fit like many states.

Indeed, if you stay off sports for a while and gain weight, or simply lose touch to your conditioning, you won’t be able to run for as long a time as before, your muscles will be weaker and you won’t have the same tonus. But you won’t have to start from scratch all over again, because once you’ve trained using soccer conditioning exercises before, it will be a lot easier to step up and get to that level of fitness again.

What’s the best way to do this? It depends on one’s constitution, but I will try to cover what I believe to be some of the best soccer conditioning drills, regardless of your build or natural fitness.

- Best Soccer Conditioning Drills – The Pine Tree Sprints

This soccer conditioning drill is called this way because you’re drawing a virtual pine tree on the floor with your sprints. It’s one of the most effective, all round exercises you could train with, because it works out both your burst sprints and your long sprints. Here’s how to do it:

Place 5 marks on the field, aligned perpendicularly from where you’re standing and make sure the distance between them is equal. So, the first mark could be at 10 feet, the second at 20, the third at 30, fourth at 40 and fifth at 50. Or you could tone down the distance between each a little. Now, stand on the line and jump, pulling your knees to your chest. Either have a friend give you an audio signal (blow a whistle, clap hands, etc) or give yourself the green light and start sprinting for the first mark as soon as you land on the ground.

When you reach the first mark, do a quick break and turn and sprint back to the initial line. Now break and turn and sprint to the second mark and back. Do the same with all marks and when you reach the last one, start coming down again, to the fourth and back, third and back, and so on. This works your conditioning in so many great ways you’ll be practicing acceleration on sprints with the short runs between the first 2 marks, longer sprints when running for the 4th and 5th marks and you’ll also practice your breaking (mobility).

- Best Soccer Conditioning Drills – The Full Court

This is another great soccer drill that works all aspects of your conditioning. Here’s how it works. You start in one corner of the soccer pitch, running slowly in a 1/4 tempo along the length. You do so until the opposing corner, then pick up the pace a bit on the side of the pitch, running in a 2/4 tempo. When you reach the second length, gear up and run in a 3/4 tempo, close to sprinting. The last side of the pitch should be ran through at full sprint speed, then when you reach the initial starting corner, settle down to 1/4 again.

You need to breathe carefully during the 1/4 and 2/4 tempo areas, because you’ll need to save your energy for the other two sides of the pitch. Get a couple of these full court laps and you’ll soon notice an improvement in conditioning. If you can’t last for more than a couple of them, don’t worry. Just try to gradually increase the number of laps every week or so.

Niv Orlian is the author & the owner of a Soccer Fans website that provides info on various topics related to soccer. For the complete guide to soccer fitness click here.

Recreation-and-Sports Article Source: http://www.eArticlesOnline.com