To perform optimally and prevent injuries, it is even more important for female footballers to train diversely. On the eve of the final crucial group matches in the Nations League, a conversation with René Wormhoudt, the strength and conditioning coach of the Netherlands national team.
In women’s football, things are becoming increasingly intense. The demands on the players’ bodies are growing. Therefore, training needs to be adjusted accordingly, says national coach Andries Jonker. That’s why he added René Wormhoudt as strength and conditioning coach to his staff in the summer, someone with a long track record with men’s teams and a refreshing perspective on the physical aspects of female footballers.
What Wormhoudt has particularly noticed over the past six months is that the body of the average female player is not in balance. The upper body is relatively underdeveloped, which causes women not to perform optimally and to be more prone to injuries. Because, as he promotes, football is not just played with your legs.
A different perspective on movement
This imbalance translates into overall coordination, which is the foundation for executing the complex movements required by modern athletic football. “There are enormous opportunities there, but we need to start thinking about sports and movement in a different way.”
The traditional practice of kicking and shooting is no longer sufficient. Of course, that remains very important, but training needs to be approached differently: it should be more versatile, in particular. This is especially important for women, as they have generally been less active in certain fundamental movement patterns during their youth, such as falling, climbing, wrestling, and fighting.
"You need to make the right choices; more is required than just stronger upper legs."
Wormhoudt is the creator of the Athletic Skills Model, an innovative and scientifically based talent development model. For many years, he was involved with the youth academy and the first team of Ajax. In 2012, it was then national coach Louis van Gaal who brought him to the men’s national team.
Generalists become better specialists
What motor skills does someone need to excel on the football field? Wormhoudt cites a study among badminton players, gymnasts, and cyclists, which shows that the difference between the sub-top and the top lies not in sport-specific skills but in general coordination. Generalists therefore become better specialists. Translated to the number one popular sport, he once said: “I saw that they were good footballers, but not yet athletes. It was as if they could play a beautiful piece on the piano but were not yet musicians.”
In his office in Landsmeer, Wormhoudt, trained as a physiotherapist, speaks passionately about his mission: to help the Dutch move better, at every level, resulting in better performance and improved health. Enjoyment is important in this process, even in elite sports. That’s why he often trains certain skills implicitly and in a playful manner.
Laughter in Qatar
On his laptop, he shows a video from last year in Qatar during the Men’s World Cup. On a rest day, he has the players from the Netherlands go paddleboarding. There is a lot of laughter. It’s relaxing, but in the meantime, it’s also a great exercise for balance.
Now, he sometimes has the women do a cartwheel when they score a point in a game. A gymnastics movement on the football field? “Of course, you don’t do a cartwheel during a match, but practicing that movement helps you orient yourself well in space. It makes you agile and stable. It improves your coordination, which ultimately helps you become better at other complex movements that are necessary in elite football.”
To explain his philosophy, he draws a comparison to learning to read or write. “You need the complete alphabet, right? If I leave out a few letters, you won’t become proficient. Similarly, there are ten fundamental movement patterns, but the strange thing is that not all of them are typically offered within a sport. How can you perform at your best then? Versatile movement is the foundation for specific movement.”
Less power to engage in duels
In traditional training for field players, six fundamental movement patterns are addressed, meaning four are not. For example, swinging and throwing are excluded, as well as catching, even though these skills are important for developing a good sense of coordination. “Spatial orientation is important in games sports, and it is not only related to eye-foot coordination but also to eye-hand coordination.”
According to Wormhoudt, it is particularly urgent for women to avoid training in a one-sided manner, given the rapid pace at which the sport is developing internationally. This imbalance in the average Dutch female footballer, resulting from a less developed upper body compared to the legs and torso—he emphasizes that he is speaking in general terms—has consequences. “That means she has less power to sprint, to start, and to run, because much of that strength comes from the upper body. It means she has less power to engage in duels, both on the ground and in the air, as you need to use your arms for that. It is also important for positioning yourself and protecting yourself in duels.”
Different physical starting point
“There is still progress to be made, and it doesn’t start with strength but with control. How do you position yourself in space? How can you adapt to situations? Do you have multiple rhythms in your system to anticipate and be more creative than your opponent? To prevent injuries—a hot topic now that the match schedule is becoming increasingly busy due to commercialization—it’s important to make the right choices; more is needed than just stronger upper legs.”
Football is football, but a woman’s body provides a different physical starting point, explains Wormhoudt. “As a woman, you are slightly more susceptible to knee injuries. Women have a wider pelvis, which makes the angle of the knee a bit less favorable. They have looser ligaments because they need to soften during pregnancy. Additionally, women naturally have less muscle mass. To reduce the risk of injury, there is a greater need for versatile training.” For Wormhoudt, all these elements make working with Jonker’s team particularly interesting.
We move too little and too unilaterally
The Athletic Skills Model, developed by Wormhoudt in collaboration with movement scientist Geert Savelsbergh, was not only designed to help elite athletes excel. It is also applicable in education and healthcare. There are now numerous training spaces across the country based on the ASM philosophy: from the indoor gardens at the Princess Máxima Center, where children with cancer rehabilitate, to the gymnasium at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, where the gym teachers of the future are being trained. What characterizes all these spaces is that they encourage versatile movement through the use of colors, equipment, and different types of surfaces. When someone sees a smooth strip, they will want to slide. When they see a ball hanging from a string, they will want to jump.
“The lack of movement in the Netherlands is a societal problem. We sit too much, and when we do move, it is often more one-dimensional than in the past. This is also true for children, who play outside less and therefore climb, wrestle, and fall less. To prevent massive health damage, we need to move more and in a more varied way. We hope to contribute to that.”
