Strength training model - suggestions for tweaks

I think everyone who's played the game a bit is pretty well aware that Strength is the fastest attribute to train. On one level this is realistic as it is possible to bulk up quite easily in real life, but there are a few other factors that should be taken into consideration.

- There should be some sort of brake put on strength development once you get to about 14. Otherwise young players that start with, say, 12 Strength can end up with 17 or so after a few seasons without paying any special attention to strength. 17 is as good or better than most well-built premiership defenders and it's not entirely realistic for players to end up becoming so strong so easily.

- Excessive bulking up should slow a fast player down slightly once they have increased strength beyond a certain level. This should be especially the case for shorter players who won't be able to put as much muscle on in as efficient a way.

- It should not be possible to go from 5 strength to 15 strength. I have seen this over the course of a career and it's just excessive. No-one who is that slight to start with is ever going to become '15' strong while keeping up the rest of their more directly football-related work.

Introducing some tweaks such as this would help prevent strength training from getting out of control - I think it is too powerful at the moment and too easy to create too many strong players without even trying.

I''d just like to get a few more eyes on this, apologies for the bump.

I agree with you that players should lose pace ( or rather more importantly - they should lose acceleration, and above all agility) if they bulk up too much, but I don't necessarily agree with your proposed limit on strength growth.

C. Ronaldo, whilst simultaneously becoming the best player in the world (which he was for a season at least), managed to go from what I'd say was certainly sub-10 strength, though maybe not quite as low as 5 (close though), to maybe 6-8 points above that. And that was across a period of only a few seasons at utd.

They could lower the growth for people not specifically focusing on strength, but if someone is intent on gaining muscle, it's one of the easiest things a footballer can do. Working on your passing might not pay off with great leaps and bounds in your playmaking, and some players' will struggle with their decision-making or movement regardless of what training they do, but if you sit in a gym and lift weights every day, you WILL get stronger. Maintaining your agility, your pace, and your stamina when you gain several kilos of muscle is another issue, but you will get stronger.

And football player's are so skinny to start with, that the first few pounds of muscle must come very easy.

The strength attribute isn't simply how strong a player is - its also how well they use their strength in a footballing situation, so not just a matter of 'bulking up' as opposed to being 'slight'.

The strength attribute isn't simply how strong a player is - its also how well they use their strength in a footballing situation, so not just a matter of 'bulking up' as opposed to being 'slight'.

This is a great point. There are a lot of 'slight' players who perhaps aren't very tall or don't look strong but are surprisingly strong particularly in the core and difficult to knock of the ball.

But your general point is good, particularly smaller players slowing down with excessive bulking up.

This is a great point. There are a lot of 'slight' players who perhaps aren't very tall or don't look strong but are surprisingly strong particularly in the core and difficult to knock of the ball.

But your general point is good, particularly smaller players slowing down with excessive bulking up.

The question is where does this stop being represented by strength in the game and start being represented by balance?

I have to argue with your conclusion that strength decreases speed. If we ignore the anomaly that is Usain Bolt, all the other top 100m sprinters are very bulky, very strong, and very fast.

When you think about it from a physics perspective, yes a bulky person has more weight to shift, but considering that speed = force x time, assuming the strength training the performer is doing is speed specific, they a) will not lose speed of muscular contraction, and b) will therefore not lose total speed, even though their mass has increased.

Maybe you're right to an extent. I do think it would affect acceleration over the first ten yards though, particularly for players with a naturally smaller frame.

How do you feel about the strength development in the game in general? That was the main idea of this thread, but I seem to have unintentionally put a bit too much emphasis on the question of strength + pace.