Michael Carrick

 It is a given fact that footballers need to be fit, now more than ever, but no one player needs to be fitter than the central midfielder. Michael Carrick, the Manchester United and England star, can vouch for this.

“I’ve no idea how far I cover in one match but it will be many miles, and a fair amount of that distance is a series of sprints from a standing start,” explains the 26-year-old, who picked up a Premiership League winners’ medal in his very first year with United in 2007, as well as appearing in a Champions league semi-final, and a losing FA Cup final at Wembley, after his high-profile transfer from Tottenham Hotspur. Last season he went even better, winning a second league title and a coveted Champions league winners medal.

“The point about playing in the centre of the park is that you need to be able to do a bit of everything, from helping out your defence by tackling, to supporting your attackers. This means that your main area is from one eighteen yard box to the other, and getting from one to the other as quickly as possible can sometimes make the difference between scoring a goal, or conceding one.”

But that’s not all. The modern day central midfielder needs to be able to sport a complete array of footballing skills in a manner that, say, a defender, or centre forward does not need to so much.     

“Well, you need to be able to tackle for a start, and make headers at both ends of the pitch,” Carrick, the former West Ham and Spurs player continues. “You should be able to cross the ball, have different levels of speed, stamina, the ability to be able to recover almost immediately from a sprint and be able to do it all over again almost instantly, be able to shoot, and come up with a fair quota of goals each season. It makes you a jack of all trades.” And, in Carrick’s case, a master of them all.

The physical requirements, then, are many and varied to be a modern day footballer, and especially a central midfielder. “Even in the eight years I’ve been playing as a professional footballer the game’s become much more physical,” he explains. “The main required ingredients are stamina, core stability, upper body strength and also leg strength. The stamina speaks for itself. You need to be as fit in the 90th minute as you are in the first. The core stability is for balance, and also injury prevention. The upper body strength is for the various times you are fighting an opposing player for the ball while the power in the legs, apart for shooting, is needed to make the bursts.”
Carrick’s season usually starts on July 1st. Depending on international requirements, he would have had four weeks off in which he chooses to holiday, play some golf, and visit the gym only a couple of times. Pre-season, like everything else in football as it becomes better educated in its player preservation, has changed since Carrick’s early days as a footballer at West Ham.

“Back then you might not even see a football for the first ten days because the emphasis was on running laps of the pitch or going on cross-country runs,” he explains. “Now it’s different. It’s still physical, but you rarely get to run for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Less is more, but the less is very physical and intense. We do shuttle running, and a great deal of strides, with maybe 30 seconds on, 30 seconds rest, then a minute on, a minute off, and so on, as well as going for sprints with a sledge tied to your back carrying weights. We focus a lot more on technique these days, playing keep ball or five-a-sides, but it all works on our overall fitness as well.”

Then there’s the gym. “For core stability I use a ball to balance on and perform various exercises and weights. We also use large, elastic bands to tie to walls or around our waists to perform step ups, or perform quick feet exercises through ladders with a weight tied to your back. We also need to work on our legs using weights again. Every weight exercise we do – squats, power cleans, jerks etc – are in moderation. I need as much strength as I can get, but without having to carry extra, unnecessary muscle. I need to be strong, but quick, so there’s no point looking like a body builder.”

Pre-season is traditionally the time when the fuel is put in the player’s tank for the season but even at the start of the season Carrick admits to not being ready. “It takes you three or four games into the season before I’d say you are completely match fit,” he says. “It’s because, for all the pre-season training and friendly matches you don’t get the intensity or the edge that you do in a Premiership game.”

A player like Carrick’s week begins the morning after a Saturday game when he reports to training for some warm-down. “I come in on a Sunday to work on an exercise bike or have a splash around in the swimming pool, just to warm down the muscles from the day before,” he explains. “If I’ve been a sub the day before and only had ten or 15 minutes on the field, I may well do some sprint exercises with one of the physiotherapists on the pitch after the final whistle so that I haven’t wasted the chance to keep ticking over.”

When United have a game each weekend Carrick has a 90 minute training session each morning at their Carrington training ground which lasts from 10.00 until 11.30 and usually involves five-a-side and keep ball games, as well as working on the next opposition. “Then I tend to go straight to the gym for a 20 or 30 minutes to keep my upper body and legs in shape. In the unusual event of no midweek game the boss will give us a day or two off. I tend to do very little as I realise rest is as important as exercise.”

Most of the time, though, it is a case of Saturday, Tuesday or Wednesday, then Saturday or Sunday again for Carrick and his United teammates, with Champions League, and possible FA and Carling Cup commitments. “When that happens you have little time to do anything except play, recover and travel,” he adds. “You can’t sleep on the night of a game because of the adrenalin, then your body needs to recover, say, on the Thursday, you’re still not right on the Friday, and then you play on the Saturday again. It’s even harder if you’ve flown back through the night from a European trip midweek, but a combination of the adrenalin and your high level of fitness sees you through.”

Indeed it does, and with the controlled stretching during training, and the 20-minute static stretching in warm-down that always follows, the modern-day footballer is fitter and less susceptible to injury than ever before.

Which is just as well if, like Michael Carrick, you are a box-to-box fox.         

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Fitness Box:

Pre-season:
Shuttle running and strides: 30 seconds on, 30 secs rest, then 1 min on, 1 min rest, then 90 secs on, 90 secs rest etc.
Core stability: Swiss ball exercises with weights.
Harness exercises: step ups.
Ladders: sprinting through ladders using high knee action.
Weights: squats, power clean and jerks in moderation.


Season: When 1 game in week.
Sunday: 1 hour recovery from game on bike or in swimming pool.
3 days of the week: 90 minute football skills training session, which incorporates fitness: 5-a-sides and one touch games in small squares of the pitch. At least 20 minutes of stretching exercises to prevent injury. 30 minutes moderate weights in gym, working on upper body and legs.
2 days rest.
Match day: Pre-game warm-up: stretches, sprints, ball skills. Post-game: warm down if not involved or played just a few minutes from the bench: series of sprint shuttles from goal line to half way.