This video of Cristiano Ronaldo being tested on his performance is amazing. Seriously any athlete, personal trainer, sports performance coach should take the time out to watch the 4 part series.
I chose this video because I believe it’s important for all coaches and trainers to understand that every athlete, especially the highly skilled, have a very specific skill set for their given sport.
The coach must look at the sports demands and the athletes needs then make an assessment onwhat the focus should be on- strength, power, speed, agility, etc…
Linear Speed
Many performance coaches are focused on linear speed times, such as the 20 and 40 yard sprint tests. However in what sport aside from track and field does an athlete have the luxury to run in a linear line without any lateral deviation?
Assessing Cristiano Ronaldo’s linear sprint it was pretty sloppy. He stood up quickly out of the hole, hands side to side, choppy stride, leg drive going at a slight angle and so on. This just shows you how specific sport skill is extremely necessary to excel in your given sport. Just because you have greater absolute strength and/or power vs. another athlete, doesn’t mean that you’ll be a better athlete at their given sport.
With that said, would working on Cristiano’s start help him his on field performance? It’ll definitely help his test time but will do nothing for his on field performance. Granted maybe working on a few linear sprint mechanics such as his arm and leg positioning may have some carry over when he’s called upon to run in a linear line, which is very minimal.
Change of Direction
This next video takes Rodriguez (the sprinter) out of his comfort zone and places Cristiano in his. It’s a test of change of direction, where the athlete needs to accelerate, decelerate, lean, and then accelerate quickly. Maintaining momentum, balance, and speed in this test is a lot more specific to the needs of most on field and court athletes.
As the commentators state, Cristiano sits lower into the turns, takes much better shin angles, and places his feet and hips in a stronger position to drive out of during the turns.
Leg Power
It’s starting to become common where some sports performance coaches/strength and conditioning coaches will focus on just the lower body power via placing the hands on the hips, crossed over the chest, or behind the head. The concept is to focus on JUST the legs and hips, not allowing the athlete to use the extra momentum and power via the upper body.
While this can be useful, it clearly limits the athlete’s power output. In this case a significant amount for Cristiano. While he still has great leg power, he clearly knows how to utilize his full body to generate a greater amount of force.
With that said, testing is a good indicator but you must not forget that the athlete needs to understand how to use their WHOLE body vs. isolating their leg power output.
Wrap Up
Many athletes, especially high end athletes, naturally know how to move their body for the given sport demands. Soccer is a change of direction sport, therefore when you watch Cristiano do the angled sprint he knew how to place his feet and hips in an optimal position. This also goes for the vertical jump, Cristiano knew how to utilize his whole body to reach his head as high possible for a header.
Place Cristiano Ronaldo in a linear sprint and it clearly didn’t look crisp. Does that mean you should focus your training on his linear sprint mechanics? Knowing that soccer is a change of direction sport with minimal linear sprinting, you probably don’t need to spend much time on it.
The point of the post is that, while testing assessments are beneficial you have to look at the whole picture- athletes needs, sports demands, athletes limitation, and how they utilize their body.
Taking a static jump vs a counter balance jump will generally show a deviation for most athletes. However, if the counter balance jump is very high and the athletes overall leg strength is still solid, then the static (non-counter) jump number may not be very useful. This is especially true if the athlete is already competing at a very high level.
Food for thought.
Train smart,
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