Football Resistance Training: A 2-Day-a-Week Programme (In-Season & Pre-Season) That Actually Works
Most amateur and semi-pro footballers either don’t lift weights at all. The ones that do train at the gym like a bodybuilder and turn up to Saturday’s match with heavy legs and arms. Both are wrong – or at least not optimal, and the research has been shouting this for over 20 years. Old football coaches tend to be a bit stuck in their ways…
Below are two programmes (spelt “programs” in the USA) – pre-season and in-season – plus what the studies actually say about periodisation, and the classic mistakes to avoid.
Why Footballers Need to Lift
Lifting weights in a certain way, makes you faster. That’s not opinion. Wisløff and colleagues tested 17 elite Norwegian footballers and found a correlation of r = -0.94 between back squat 1RM and 10m sprint time (Wisløff et al., 2004). That’s about as strong a correlation as you’ll ever see in sports science.
Follow-up work in 492 elite youth footballers found relative squat strength explained 45-53% of the variance in sprint and jump performance (Keiner et al., 2022). And a 6-week in-season strength programme in professional players increased 1RM squat from 1.66 to 1.96 times bodyweight – with parallel improvements in 5, 10, and 20m sprint times (Styles et al., 2016).
Then there’s the injury side. The Nordic hamstring exercise alone reduces new hamstring injuries by up to 60% and recurrent ones by up to 85% in footballers (Tedeschi et al., 2025). That’s pretty amazing really.
The FIFA 11+ warm-up cuts total injuries by 30-46% (Al-Balawi et al., 2025). Bundesliga data has shown that the weakest quartile of players suffer 2.3-2.8x more non-contact injuries than the strongest quartile.
So stronger footballers are faster, jump higher, and get injured less. This is settled science. The only question is how to lift. Remember technique and form over weight, keep reading for more specific tips on lifting for football.
Periodisation – What It Actually Means
Periodisation is a fancy word for “planning your training in blocks so you peak when it matters.” For a footballer, that means:
- Pre-season (6-8 weeks): build the base. Strength, power, work capacity. Highest volume of the year.
- In-season (36-40 weeks): maintain what you built. Freshness first, always. Low volume, moderate-to-high intensity.
- Off-season (2-4 weeks): complete rest, then easy general training.
Block periodisation – where you focus one quality at a time in 3-4 week blocks; has been shown to work as well as, or better than, mixing everything together, and it fits the tight pre-season window (Bakhshinejad et al., 2025; college soccer periodisation, Wong et al., 2018).
A simple pre-season block model looks like this:
- Weeks 1-2 – Anatomical adaptation. Higher reps (8-12), moderate load. Get tendons and joints ready.
- Weeks 3-4 – Max strength. Lower reps (3-5), higher load (80-90% 1RM).
- Weeks 5-6 – Power conversion. Lighter loads, explosive intent. Plyometrics take centre stage.
By week 7 (start of season) you’re strong, fast, and fresh. Then it’s maintenance for the next 9 months.
THE PRE-SEASON PROGRAMME (3 Days/Week, 6 Weeks)
Three sessions a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Football sessions and running slot around them.
Every session starts with a proper warm-up – 5-10 minutes of dynamic mobility, glute activation, and a couple of build-up sets of the first lift. Use the FIFA 11+ if you don’t have your own routine (Bizzini & Dvorak, 2015).
Day A — Squat Focus (Mon)
| Ejercicio | Sets × Reps | Load |
|---|---|---|
| Back squat | 4 × 5 | Weeks 1-2: 70% · Weeks 3-4: 82% · Weeks 5-6: 75% (fast) |
| Sentadilla búlgara con las piernas separadas | 3 × 8 each leg | Moderate DBs |
| Nordic hamstring | 3 × 5-6 | Bodyweight, slow eccentric |
| Push-up (or bench press) | 3 × AMRAP (or 3 × 6-8) | Bodyweight or 75% |
| Front plank | 3 × 30-60s | — |
Day B — Hinge Focus (Wed)
| Ejercicio | Sets × Reps | Load |
|---|---|---|
| Trap bar deadlift (or RDL) | 4 × 5 | Weeks 1-2: 70% · Weeks 3-4: 82% · Weeks 5-6: 75% (fast) |
| Barbell hip thrust | 3 × 8 | Moderate-heavy |
| Peso muerto rumano a una pierna | 3 × 6 each leg | Light DBs, focus on balance |
| Pull-up or inverted row | 3 × 6-10 | Bodyweight or add load |
| Pallof press | 3 × 10 each side | Light band or cable |
Day C — Power & Plyometrics (Fri)
| Ejercicio | Sets × Reps | Notas |
|---|---|---|
| Jump squat (unloaded) | 4 × 3 | Max intent |
| Broad jump | 4 × 3 | Full recovery between reps |
| Depth jump (30-45cm box) | 3 × 4 | From weeks 3-4 onwards |
| Med ball rotational throw | 4 × 5 each side | Explosive |
| Turkish get-up | 2 × 3 each side | Light KB |
Total plyometric foot contacts stay under 100 per session – that’s the sweet spot from the literature (Váczi et al., 2013). Do plyos on grass or a soft surface if you can.
THE IN-SEASON PROGRAMME (2 Days/Week)
The rules change once the season starts. The research on this is very clear.
Rønnestad et al. (2011) tracked professional footballers through a 12-week in-season block. Players who lifted once a week maintained their pre-season strength and sprint gains. Players who lifted only once every two weeks lost them. One session a week is the minimum. Two is optimal for most amateurs.
Bigger picture: a survey of 49 professional football strength & conditioning coaches found that 74% leave 48 hours or more between a strength/power session and a match (Silva et al., 2022). Almost nobody lifts hard within 24 hours of kick-off. This is the single most important rule of in-season programming.
For a Saturday match, that means your two sessions should look like this:
- Tuesday (MD-4) – Main strength session. Full body. Heavy but low volume.
- Thursday (MD-2) – Neural / power maintenance. Light. Fast. No grinding reps.
If your match is on a Sunday, shift everything one day earlier.
Tuesday (MD-4) – Strength Maintenance
| Ejercicio | Sets × Reps | Load |
|---|---|---|
| Back squat or trap bar deadlift | 3 × 3-5 | 80-85% 1RM |
| Bench press or push-up | 3 × 5-6 | 75-80% |
| Nordic hamstring | 2 × 5-6 | Peso corporal |
| Peso muerto rumano a una pierna | 2 × 6 each | Luz |
| Bent-over row or pull-up | 3 × 6 | 75% |
| Pallof press | 2 × 10 each | Luz |
Whole session should take 45 minutes. Get in. Get out.
Thursday (MD-2) – Neural / Power
| Ejercicio | Sets × Reps | Notas |
|---|---|---|
| Trap bar jump | 3 × 3 | Light load (20-30% BW) |
| Sentadilla búlgara con las piernas separadas | 2 × 5 each | Moderado |
| Broad jump | 3 × 3 | Full recovery |
| Face pull or band external rotation | 2 × 12 | Prehab |
| Copenhagen adduction | 2 × 5 each | Groin prehab |
| Dead bug or Pallof | 2 × 10 each | Core control |
30 minutes total. Sharp, snappy, no soreness the next day. If you finish the session and your legs feel heavy, you went too hard.
The General Principles In One Paragraph
Build a base of maximum strength with compound lifts – squats, hinges, presses, pulls. Once you can back squat 1.5-2x bodyweight, convert that strength into power with plyometrics and lighter, faster lifts. Train single-leg movements because football is played on one leg at a time. Train the posterior chain hard – hamstrings, glutes, back – because they drive sprinting and prevent injury. Do the Nordic hamstring exercise regardless of what else you do. Never fry yourself the week of a match. Recovery is a training variable.
What NOT To Do
Every one of these is a mistake I’ve seen amateur players make. Every one of them is backed by evidence that says stop.
1. Don’t deadlift the day before a match. Heavy deadlifts recruit the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back – the exact muscles you need for sprinting. High-intensity lifts above 90% 1RM can require up to 72 hours for full CNS recovery. Muscle glycogen in type II fibres can stay depleted for 48+ hours. Deadlift on Friday, and your Saturday sprint speed is gone. Leave at least 48 hours, ideally 72, between heavy hinge work and kick-off. Don’t do any heavy squats or deadlifts 48 hours of less before a match. Don’t do anything brand new for multiple reps either – new exercises can cause a high amount of muscle soreness and ‘protective muscle tone/tension’.
2. Don’t do endless bicep curls. Ten minutes of pipe cleaners at the end of every session builds nothing that helps you play football. Your training time is finite. Spend it on movements that transfer – squats, hinges, pushes, pulls, plyos, and prehab. If you love an arm pump, do one set of chin-ups. You’ll get bigger arms y a stronger back.
3. Don’t chase soreness. DOMS is not proof a session worked. In-season, soreness on match day is a performance killer. If you regularly can’t walk down stairs on Wednesday after Monday’s lift, drop the volume.
4. Don’t ignore the shoulder and groin. Adductor and groin injuries are the second most common football injury after hamstrings. Copenhagen adductions and side plank variations take five minutes.
5. Don’t skip the warm-up. The FIFA 11+ programme cuts injury rate by 30-46% (multiple trials, systematic reviews). It’s 20 minutes. Do it.
6. Don’t run long, slow, steady state when you’re already knackered. The “interference effect” – where high-volume aerobic work blunts strength adaptations – is real when volumes get high (Wong et al., 2018). In-season, keep steady-state running short or drop it and let matches provide the aerobic stimulus.
7. Don’t add strength sessions the week of a cup final. In fact, do less. This is where periodisation matters. Taper the load in the 3-5 days before a big fixture. The gains are already banked.
8. Don’t stop lifting when the season starts. This is the most common one. Players build a base in pre-season, then hit round one and never see the gym again. Nine months later they’ve lost it all. Rønnestad’s data is unambiguous: skip in-season lifting and you lose the strength, sprint speed, and jump height you spent 8 weeks building.
En resumen
Strong footballers are faster, they jump higher, and they get injured less often. Two proper sessions a week in-season is enough to maintain everything you build in a 6-week pre-season. Never lift heavy within 48 hours of a match. Nordic hamstring, always. Copenhagen adductions, always. FIFA 11+, always. Everything else is negotiable.
The players who train this way play more, stay fit, and last longer. Just be mindful of the total volume of training – remember that 1-set training is highly effective, you don’t need to do 12+ working sets per session.
Downloads
Referencias
- Al-Balawi, Y., et al. (2025). The Impact of the FIFA 11+ Injury Prevention Program on Injury Incidence in Football Athletes: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. Cureus. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12856364/
- Bakhshinejad, J. A., Ramer, J. D., Dunsmore, K. A., Pelton, L. M., & Berglund, L. (2025). Effects of Intensity and Fatigue on the Kinetics and Kinematics of the Barbell Squat, Bench Press, and Deadlift in Experienced Lifters: A Systematic Review. Sports Medicine – Open, 11(1), 115. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41085612/
- Bizzini, M., & Dvorak, J. (2015). FIFA 11+: an effective programme to prevent football injuries in various player groups worldwide — a narrative review. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 49(9), 577–579. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25878073/
- Keiner, M., et al. (2022). The Influence of Maximum Squatting Strength on Jump and Sprint Performance: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of 492 Youth Soccer Players. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(10), 5835. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9140541/
- Rønnestad, B. R., Nymark, B. S., & Raastad, T. (2011). Effects of in-season strength maintenance training frequency in professional soccer players. Revista de Investigación sobre Fuerza y Acondicionamiento, 25(10), 2653–2660. https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Fulltext/2011/10000/Effects_of_In_Season_Strength_Maintenance_Training.3.aspx
- Silva, J. R., et al. (2022). Recovery time between training sessions and match — A survey of professional football coaches. Biology of Sport, 39(3), 779–791. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9331335/
- Styles, W. J., Matthews, M. J., & Comfort, P. (2016). Effects of Strength Training on Squat and Sprint Performance in Soccer Players. Revista de Investigación sobre Fuerza y Acondicionamiento, 30(6), 1534–1539. https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2016/06000/effects_of_strength_training_on_squat_and_sprint.5.aspx
- Tedeschi, R., et al. (2025). Strengthening football: The role of the Nordic hamstring exercise in preventing hamstring injuries. Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10538127251326736
- Váczi, M., et al. (2013). Short-term high intensity plyometric training program improves strength, power and agility in male soccer players. Journal of Human Kinetics, 36, 17–26. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3661889/
- Wisløff, U., Castagna, C., Helgerud, J., Jones, R., & Hoff, J. (2004). Strong correlation of maximal squat strength with sprint performance and vertical jump height in elite soccer players. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 38(3), 285–288. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15155427/
- Wong, D. P., et al. (2018). Periodization in College Soccer. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 40(3), 33–48. https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/fulltext/2018/06000/periodization_in_college_soccer.5.aspx