HOW SLIDE BOARD EXERCISE BENEFITS SOCCER PLAYERS

With Spring sports seasons quickly approaching, many soccer players are picking up the pace on their training and preparations. It’s important that throughout training, players are not only strengthening and conditioning their bodies for the field, but also protecting their muscles and joints from impact and injuries. Training with an UltraSlide can help soccer players to prevent injuries, improve their balance and coordination, and to strengthen their groin and hip muscles. (To view our blog post that specifically addresses slideboard benefits for goalies, click here.)

How Slide Board Exercise Benefits Soccer Players

• Prevent Injuries: Using slide boards builds the muscles and tendons surrounding joint structures to help them withstand impact or strain.
• Balance and Coordination: Slide board exercise strengthens the stabilizer muscles that support dominant muscle groups, improving balance and coordination.
• Strengthen Groin and Hip Muscles: Using a slide board engages and conditions the muscles that help to prevent injury to the groin and hip muscles.

Prevent Injuries

Exercising with an UltraSlide is a great way to prevent injuries and keep your body from experiencing unnecessary traumas. Slide board exercise helps to strengthen the muscles and tendons surrounding important joint structures in the hips, knees, and feet that aren’t frequently exercised, helping them to withstand impact or strain. For example, lateral exercises on a slide board help to build the outer hip muscles as well as those in the inner and outer thighs, which stabilize the knees and can minimize joint pain and injury.

Balance and Coordination

Many moves and frequently performed exercises in soccer call upon the same dominant muscles repeatedly and regularly place stress on those same muscle groups. Neglecting the stabilizer muscles can lead to imbalance, and in worst-case scenarios, injury or degeneration. Lateral exercise helps soccer players to work the stabilizer muscles, allowing athletes to enjoy more balanced and coordinated movement on the field as well as lateral strength and flexibility.

Strengthen Groin and Hip Muscles

Some of the most frequently experienced pain and injuries that soccer players endure happen in the groin and hips. This is often due to weak core muscles, greater hip abductor to adductor strength ratios, and a lack of training in the off season. Training with slide boards can significantly reduce the likelihood of injury to these areas. Slide boards are an ideal tool to use for core strengthening exercises as well as full body workouts. Using slide boards to exercise can engage all of the muscles supporting the hip joints, helping to even out the abductor to adductor levels of strength. An UltraSlide can also be used year-round, making it a great option for training between seasons.

As spring soccer seasons approach, make sure you are ready for the field by training with an UltraSlide slide board. Preventing injuries, improving balance and coordination, and strengthening groin and hip muscles will help to get your body is in the best shape possible to safely dive into training.

UltraSlide slide boards have benefited teams, athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and rehabilitation patients worldwide for more than 25 years. Relied upon by professional and collegiate strength and conditioning coaches, sports medicine professionals, leaders in fitness, personal trainers, and home fitness enthusiasts, UltraSlide slide boards provide fun and challenging lower-body workouts and are highly effective functional training tools.

10 EXERCISES FOR A FULL BODY SLIDE BOARD CARDIO WORKOUT

Routine exercise is important to everyone, whether you’re an athlete or not. Regularly performing aerobic exercises improves your cardiovascular health, lowers your blood pressure, regulates your blood sugar, helps you to manage your weight, and improves your sleep, among many other benefits. An UltraSlide slide board is a one-stop training tool that you can use to perform a full-body and cardio-focused workout that will make you sweat at your gym, training facility, or even in your home!

10 Exercises for a Full Body Slide Board Cardio Workout

1. Burpees
2. Plank Jacks
3. Slide Board Sprints
4. Alternating Slide Lunges
5. Inch Worms
6. Curtsy Lunges
7. Squat Jack Slides
8. Lunge Running
9. Skater Squat Circles
10. Glute Bridge & Curls

1. BurpeesEveryone’s favorite (or least favorite!) cardio exercise translates to a challenging yet effective slide board exercise. Stand toward the end of your slide board with your feet close together, then squat and bend your body forward, placing your hands on the ground off the slide board. Slide your feet back until you are in a push-up position, ensuring your hands are beneath your shoulders. Move your feet to meet your hands and then stand up.

2. Plank JacksPlank jacks will not only get your heart pumping but will also work your inner and outer thigh muscles. Move into a plank position with your feet together on the slide board and your hands off of it on the ground. Engaging your core to hold your body in straight plank form, slide your legs open as wide as you can comfortably can and then move your feet back together. Repeat as many repetitions as you can, sliding your legs open and back together.

3. Slide Board SprintsSprinting isn’t just for the ground or turf – slide boards allow for a challenging sprint drill that will leave your heart racing! Stand on one end of the slide board with one foot touching the bumper. Push off the bumper and slide across the board, bending your knees and gliding until your other foot meets the other bumper. Swing your arms in the same style a skater would and add more force and speed as you become more comfortable with your balance.

4. Alternating Slide LungesPerforming alternating slide lunges not only get your whole body moving for a great workout, but they engage the large leg muscle groups that help you to move quickly and with power. Standing with one foot off the end slide board and one foot on, begin by lunging forward with the foot that is on the slide board until that leg reaches a 90-degree angle at the knee. Slide the foot that is on the board as far onto the board as you can, until your knee is close to touching the board. Complete as many repetitions on each leg as you are able to while maintaining proper form.

5. Inch WormsFor a core-focused cardio move, try doing the inch worm on a slide board. Begin by standing on one of the slide board with your legs straight. With your hands on the board, walk them out until you are in a plank-like stance. Drop your hips and lift your chest to assume an upward-facing-dog position before pushing your rear into the air and sliding your feet to meet your hands. Stand up and repeat the exercise, keeping your legs as straight as possible in order to achieve a maximums stretch of your hamstrings.

6. Curtsy Lunges
Curtsy lunges are not only a great cardio exercise, but an excellent challenge to your legs and glutes. To start, stand with your feet together on the slide board and slide one foot backward behind your other leg, sinking into a lunge. Drop your back knee to the ground and bend your front knee as close to a 90-degree angle as possible. Return to a standing position and slide your back foot forward. Perform repetitions on alternating sides, or on the same side until fatigue before switching.

7. Squat Jacks SlidesSquat jacks are notoriously tough and performing them on a slide board adds a challenge! With your legs close together on the slide board, lower yourself into a squat and sink your rear backward, reaching your hands up to the ceiling. Once you are in the squat position, slide your feet out to the sides until they are at least shoulder width apart, then slide your feet back together. Repeat this movement, sliding your feet out and back together, and maintaining a low squat. As this is a challenging move, you might try beginning with one foot out at a time before getting comfortable with doing the exercise sliding both legs.

8. Lunge RunningLunge running on a slide board is an excellent low-impact cardio exercise and will make you feel the burn! Begin by standing on one of the slide board with your feet together. Sliding one foot backward, sink into a lunge, dropping the back leg’s knee toward the ground. Lift the arm opposite the back leg forward for stability, then explode out of the lunge, sliding the back foot forward and moving the front foot backward. Sink into a lunge once again, bringing your back arm to the front and your forward arm to the back. As you switch sides, your feet should not leave the ground but instead slide into its next position. Perform the move as quickly as you can, switching sides and sinking into a deep lunge with each repetition.

9. Skater Squat CirclesThis cardio move doubles as an exercise to improve your hip mobility and build stability. With your feet together at one of the slide board, assume a squat position, then move one leg out and forward, drawing a circle shape as you slide the foot to the side and back to meet your standing leg. Repeat the move, “drawing” as big of a circle as you are able to while remaining in your squat.

10. Glute Bridge & CurlsOur final move is a hard one, and some slide board users may find they need to begin with a variation using a single leg. Move into a starting glute bridge position, where your arms are at your sides and your elbows are on the ground. Begin with your feet close to your glutes and lift your rear and midsection to a bridge, then slide out your legs so they are straight in front of you. Though your hips will lower to the ground, your rear shouldn’t touch it. Pull your feet back toward your glutes and return to a bridge in one fluid motion – avoid pulling your feet back and then lifting to a bridge.

These 10 moves for a full body slide board cardio workout are sure to fire up your heart rate. Using a slide board for cardio exercises will provide you with variety in your workout, low impact exercise, and a fun way to achieve the aerobic movements your body needs to stay healthy and strong.

UltraSlide slide boards have benefited teams, athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and rehabilitation patients worldwide for more than 25 years. Relied upon by professional and collegiate strength and conditioning coaches, sports medicine professionals, leaders in fitness, personal trainers, and home fitness enthusiasts, UltraSlide slide boards provide fun and challenging lower-body workouts and are highly effective functional training tools.

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What to Expect...Out of the UltraSlide® (During Pregnancy)

From the perspective of UltraSlide® Master Trainer & pre/postnatal exercise specialist, Sara Haley.

I’m 34 weeks pregnant and still using the UltraSlide® . . . yes, I know it probably sounds a little surprising since the UltraSlide® is typically all about balance, speed & agility. However, I think if you read on, you’ll find that I actually use the UltraSlide®, especially being this far along, in a very conservative and safe way.  Follow my tips below to find out how.

First of all, keep in mind that one of my main pregnancy guidelines that I follow and advise is that you can do what you were doing prior to pregnancy at a moderate level for you. So guess what? Before this pregnancy, I was using the UltraSlide® ALL the time! So, once I became pregnant, I was very comfortable on the UltraSlide® and basically have had to alter my programming on it according to how I feel, which has definitely changed trimester to trimester. (So if you aren’t pregnant yet, get on the UltraSlide® NOW so you can keep it up during your pregnancy.)

In fact, for what it’s worth, for all of you in postnatal recovery . . . Although I had been introduced to sliding back in the 90’s, I became addicted and committed to it, right after I had my son Landon.  I used it to shed the baby weight and get my legs looking better than ever (Check them out in the UltraSlide® 6 downloads available here.) 

So, if you did not use the UltraSlide® prior to pregnancy, does that mean you shouldn’t use it? Not necessarily . . . you just need to use it conservatively and really listen to your body. 

Here are some tips or ideas for using the UltraSlide® while pregnant.  These are great ideas for modifying as you move through your pregnancy or if you are just starting out. 

1.  Shorten Your Stride  

If you have a longer UltraSlide® I suggest moving it down to the shortest options possible, or invest in the new UltraSlide® 6 board. By shortening the board, you won’t have to push off the bumper with as much force, thus recruiting less muscles, and requiring less effort. This can be helpful as you’re just starting off or needing to slow down throughout your pregnancy. Check out this video of Sara sliding in her 2nd trimester.

2.  Move to the Outside of the Bumper 

Sliding lunges & touch downs are great exercises for keeping your legs strong throughout pregnancy. However, we have a hormone called relaxin in our bodies during pregnancy that helps open up our joints for a successful labor, which also makes us a little (or a lot) unstable during pregnancy, especially in terms of balance. So, if your balance is feeling a little off, take one foot off the UltraSlide® to stabilize as you slide the other. If you find you still need something to assist you, feel free to hold onto a body bar or the back of a chair to help steady yourself. Also, make sure to check out my Lower Body Blast workout. Just remember to listen to your body and move to the outside of the bumper or hold a body bar for balance as needed.

3.  Think About Using Your Core in a New Way 

As you move through your pregnancy, your belly button will eventually disappear, so the idea of pulling your navel to your spine will seem impossible.  Instead, think of hugging your baby closer to your spine. This will be essential when doing any plank work or bridges. Squeeze your butt even more to help take some of the pressure and work off of your abdominals. Also, when you need to, make sure to bring your knees to the floor and eventually underneath your hips, for both planks and push-ups. By modifying the movement, you will also help in preventing or limiting diastasis recti (the separation of the abdominal wall during pregnancy). Feel free to check out the Upper Body Blast workout I created for the UltraSlide® but please make sure that you modify on your knees as soon as you need to. 

Best of luck!  Remember, first and foremost, ALWAYS listen to your baby and your body. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me at info@sarahaley.com.