The FIFA 11+ is a complete warm-up program to reduce injuries among male and female soccer players. Also, it is simple, easy to implement and once again it helps prevent sports injuries! It was developed by a group of international experts to be performed as a standard warm-up at the start of each training session at least twice a week. It takes roughly 20 minutes to complete while an adapted version should be performed before matches.
Okay so now that we have a basic idea at what the FIFA 11+ is, let's look to see if it's effective:
The Research
The short answer is yes, it is an effective tool as it reduced the risk of injury by 30-50% for those athletes who performed the warm-up program twice per week. This is great, but more importantly it works with amateur soccer players. So given the large number of people who play amateur soccer (roughly 1,500 in Innisfil alone), the 11+ program would be 20 minutes well spent, especially since teams always warm-up before a game or practice.
In addition to significantly reducing the rate of injury in soccer players, completing this warm-up exercise improved neuromuscular control, which is a fancy way of saying quicker stabilization of the legs and core. A study focused on young Canadian female soccer players over the course of a season found they improved their functional balance as well. Youth male players were studied over 2 months and found that in such a short period of time they had enhanced knee strength plus superior balance and agility.
So just to recap, performing the FIFA 11+ warm-up was found to have the following benefits:
Reduced injury risk by 50%
Improved leg strength
Improved jump & sprint speed
Increased balance and agility skills.
Great, so the FIFA 11+ works! But what does it consist of?
The Structure
The FIFA 11+ has 3 parts for a total of 15 exercises, which should be performed in the correct sequence at the start of every training session. To get the most out of the program, it is key to use proper technique, which includes correct posture and good body control.
Part 1: Consists of running exercises at slower speeds combined with active (dynamic) stretching Part 2: Exercises focused on core and leg strength, balance and plyometrics (agility) Part 3: Running exercises at medium to high speed with planting/cutting moves
For Part 1 the running is done at slower, controlled speeds and is designed to prime your joints for movement. The 6 exercises in part 1 are straight-ahead jogging (2x 30-60 meters), actively stretching the hips, side shuffling, jumping and quick forward-backward change of direction jogging. Again, the goal of this portion is to prepare your body for more intensive exercise.
Part 2 has a focus on strength and continuing to activate the muscles. The program gives a few different options based on how far advanced the group is. This way the participants are always being challenged without ever being exposed to more difficulty then they can handle. Exercises and their variations included are common ones like planks and side planks to target the core, hamstring curls and squats for the upper leg, as well as focusing on the hip and glutes using single leg standing, sideways lifts and jumping.
Lastly, Part 3 is when we crank up the speed and give the body a more realistic test like it receives during drills or a game. It starts with running across the field at higher speeds then from Part 1 (roughly at 75% your top speed). Next is a bounding run while trying to be light on your feet. Finally it ends with cutting while moving at nearly full speed.
Conclusion
Now the FIFA 11+ is an excellent program for soccer warm-ups, especially for amateur athletes and youth players, but it's not the only exercise program created for this purpose. Other warm-up strategies have been created and researched with positive results.
Obviously cutting down injury rate by almost 50% is a massive amount and the benefit to that is clear to see. For the coach it means having your full compliment of players for more of the season, which likely would increase your team's chance of success. But from a player and athlete's standpoint the benefit is even greater.
Take, for example, an ACL tear. Unfortunately, female soccer players are 3x more likely to have this knee injury then their male counterparts. In the US alone, females suffered from 30,000 serious knee injuries annually. This injury will likely put you out anywhere from 6 months to well over a year depending on a number of factors and then another few months of rehab with your chiropractor or physiotherapist. If that wasn't bad enough, the risk of re-tearing the ACL again is approximately 10% within the first 2 years. And the icing on top of this horrible, horrible cake is the fact that arthritis is found as early as 10 years after the initial injury.
An ACL injury is just the tip of the iceberg. Lower extremity injuries are most common in soccer. Ankle injuries account for up to 29% in males while various knee injuries occur 36% and most frequently in females. Calf (5%), thigh/hamstring (22%) and groin (5%) are less common but still affect players. It's for this reason that a program like FIFA 11+ is so valued, as it seeks to prevent these injuries from occurring in the first place.
References
Barengo NC, et al. (2014). The impact of the FIFA 11+ training program on injury prevention in football players: a systematic review, Int J Res Public Health 11(11):11986-12000
Koutures CG, Gregory AJ (2010). Injuries in youth soccer, Pediatrics 125(2): e281
