When’s the last time you’ve seen a professional soccer player and thought to yourself, “Wow, that player is out of shape,” or “Wow, that player is just unathletic”?
Most likely never, because unlike being a lineman in football or being 7’0″ in basketball, you need to be lean, athletic, and in shape to excel at soccer.
My former roommate is a professional player, a regular starter for his club. He says he typically practices from about 7 -8 am until 1-2 pm during the season. That includes anything from stretching/warming up, individual training, team practice/scrimmage, dining at the club’s cafeteria, having trainers work with him, etc.
Normally, it’s followed by an afternoon rest/nap and a healthy dinner, then a fairly early bedtime after that. That applies to pretty much all except game days, where he will arrive about three hours before the game. Usually, they don’t practice the day after the game, it seems, and obviously not much or at all on travel days.
That’s all fine, but I decided to do my own research on the frequency of professional soccer players’ training. I also tried to conclude how many hours per day/week they train and, most importantly – how.
They train almost every day. Including game days, for professional soccer players, an average is 5.5 training days per week with a rough average of five hours per session, so approximately 27 hours a week. Teams rarely train heavily on travel days. The off-season is an entirely different animal, hard to quantify how much each player works.
Let’s slide right in!
Why Do Professional Soccer Players Train Almost Every Day?
Soccer players train in a specific way to get their bodies ready to play, which shows in their physique. I’m not saying that every pro soccer player trains, nor looks like Cristiano Ronaldo, but the fact that most of them are in better shape than the rest of the population shows how much they train.
Soccer players tend to lose body fat through interval training and high volume lower body lifting with core work while building strong leg and core muscles.
I must add that the training intensity depends on a lot of things. It depends on the game they had before training and the game they have after, on the couch, on the club, and a few other things.
The day after a match, the players get a day to rest if the team does not have any match soon.
If they didn’t have any games for at least five days, the team would practice every day.
When the players are not out on vacations during the off-season, squads most commonly practice every day except Sundays for most clubs.
How Many Times per Day do Professional Soccer Players Train?
Let me give you an example of Real Madrid. They practice around five times a week, depending on the matches scheduled that week. They’re resting on day 2 and day 6 of the week.
From what I’ve been aware of from reading many autobiographies (Rooney, Gerrard, Beckham, various others), it seems that most teams will do two hours and of team training in the morning and afternoon.
Rooney specifically said that the shorter, sharper sessions at United, 1.30hrs morning and afternoon enabled him to be sharper on match days. They might do individual training around this in terms of fitness, but very rarely more than two hours a day.
Tottenham is a rarity in doing double sessions, usually lasting 3 hours. From the one person I know who has played professionally, he seemed to be finished by 3/4 most days. I highly doubt players are doing 6-8 hours of training daily, especially in football, which has shorter sessions than other sports like tennis.
Rest depends on match-days.
After one game is played, all players (or only the players involved) get a day off. Otherwise, they undergo training sessions every day in an active season.
Now daily practice sessions depend a lot on managers. Few prefer twice per day. Few prefer once per day while the season is ongoing.
In pre-season many managers like Jurgen Klopp, Diego Simeone, Antonio Conte even organize three practice sessions per day!
And last but not least, the day before the match-day, the training is generally mild.
How Many Hours a Day Do Soccer Players Train?
On average, they train between two and four hours.
Graham Hunter had a great podcast episode with Paul Clement, who talked about Real Madrid’s training under Ancelotti.
The key thing he talked about was long, full-pitch tactical sessions were physically intense and not liked by the players, so they’d do it as far removed from the next match as possible.
He said those sessions could take two hours – add to that fitness/regenerative stuff they do in the gym/with physios, and you could see it taking three or more hours.
Clement also talked about a propensity for football tennis in that team, so much so that they had to stop the players from playing it because they used to play an hour or more per day, and things got highly competitive, which screwed over the training staff’s plans on closely watching the workload of the players.
Keep in mind that rest is essential to achieve peak physical condition – many professional footballers sleep much more than the regular person because sleep is one of the best things you can do for your body.
But it all depends. Again, the example of Real Madrid – on average, they train around 4–5 hours a day and follow a strict diet plan. In these 4–5 hours, they first run 25–30 mins for cardio, some short period intense sprinting drills, football tactical drills for improving understanding with teammates, and some gym exercises for muscle development and strength.
Also, according to studies, each player trains on average depending on how many years he plays. As the players are getting older, they must adapt their training regime to their age.
Examples of 3 best soccer players and how much do they train
Lionel Messi trains around five times a week, depending on the games scheduled that week. He rests on day 2 and day 6 of the week. On average, he trains around 4–5 hours per day and follows a strict diet plan.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s training routine includes working out three to four hours daily, five days a week. On top of that, he sleeps close to eight hours a day, with several 90-minute naps throughout the day. Ronaldo has constantly inspired people all around the world since he first started.
Neymar, along with regular soccer practice, trains on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He performs cardio, calisthenics, weights, and runs. On Tuesday and Thursday, it’s his cardio or activity day, which means he plays tennis, goes hiking, or something else. On Saturday and Sunday, he usually has a game day or rest day.
This also indicates that they all train almost every day (5-6 days/week).
How Do Professional Soccer Players Train?
On average, professional soccer players start with simple warm-ups and stretches. Usually a short run or jog.
But it really depends on what they will do on that specific day. Sometimes they practice possession play and passing. Other days they will move on to shooting and set pieces. Passing is generally included in most training sessions (this is usually done under pressure from a defender trying to get the ball).
Dribbling and skills are also usually done straight after the warm-ups. This all depends on which team, though. Not all football teams do the same training routine.
Here’s a simplified illustration of a pre-season weekly plan based on a piece from Football Medicine.
Interval Training
In terms of cardiovascular fitness levels, soccer players are usually at the top of the game. Not only must soccer players be able to run 5-10 miles per game, but they also must be able to accelerate to a high-speed sprint instantly. So pro soccer players’ cardiovascular arsenal must range from long-term stamina to short-term power and everywhere in-between.
High Volume Lower Body Lifting + Core Work
Although interval training will surely work the legs, soccer players require very powerful legs to sprint faster, hold off defenders, and kick the ball harder.
Soccer is additionally a contact sport, and contact sports ask for lots of agility, so having a strong core is priceless. Strong legs and core are not only for athletes, though, because everyone can profit from a strong foundation. And also, who doesn’t like having a nice butt, nice thighs, and some washboard abs to show off at the beach?
The ultimate aspect of training like a soccer player is core work. Your core is defined as all muscles in your trunk and torso that help support the body, so this involves your lower and middle back, glutes, abs, and obliques.
Core stability and strength play a huge role in athletic agility, so soccer players can assign some of their agility to the core strengthening they do many times per week.
Crunches, planks, sit-ups, Russian twists, leg raises, and back extensions are necessary exercises that can be done daily to strengthen the core. These core exercises, coupled with the fat-burning abilities of interval training, have the stomach of professional soccer players looking better than ever.