Anaerobic power/speed
The opposite pattern appears in terms of the anaerobic capacity needed to succeed; as weight lifting and javelin require very high anaerobic power where as footballers require less in comparison. Although ideally footballers would like too have very high anaerobic power and speed as it would give them an obvious advantage, but this would limit their aerobic capacity (in terms of percentage of slow twitch too fast twitch muscle fibres) and therefore would lower their standard of play over 90 minutes. For example by having 70% fast twitch muscle fibres they would be able to present a good physical presence on the pitch in also a lot of speed, but this would mean they would only have 30% slow twitch muscle fibres which would mean they probably couldn’t work at a high standard for a full 90 minutes.
Whereas sports like weight lifting and javelin throwing are fully anaerobic as they don’t have to worry about conserving their energy as each time they take part in their event it’s likely to be their maximal (or very close to) effort. This is because weight lifting and javelin throwers will have predominantly fast twitch muscle fibres which work purely anaerobically; thus making slow twitch muscle fibres (which work aerobically) quite useless.
Explosive leg power
Weight lifters and football players both require very high explosive leg power, but both for completely different movements and reasons. A weight lifter will be producing a maximum, static effort; which if they tried to reproduce a lot of times in a short space of time they probably wouldn’t be able to; this is because weight lifters produce their explosive power with FTG muscle fibres which give the fastest and more powerful contraction possible. Yet footballers produce their explosive leg power through FOG muscle fibres which allow them to be able to produce this explosive leg power many times throughout 90 minutes and still be doing a lot of non explosive running in between.
The same theory I put forward for weight lifters also applies for javelin throwers but I didn’t say they needed very high explosive leg power simply because they don’t need to be as explosive as a weight lifters because the throwers throwing power comes mainly from the rotation of the body and the upper body. Yet without any leg power at all someone wouldn’t make a very good javelin thrower but it doesn’t affect the success of a thrower as much as it would for a weight lifter who had weaker explosive leg power.
Arm and shoulder strength
Weight lifters and javelin throwers obviously both need a very large amount of strength in their arms and shoulders because they are in use so much to carry out such explosive movements. A javelin thrower with a great amount of fast twitch muscle fibres and great anaerobic capacity has the potential to be very successful yet without enough arm and shoulder strength they are going to restrict how far they can throw the javelin.
Weight lifters and javelin throwers both require very high strength in arm and shoulders to produce the explosive contractions that are required, so if a football player tried to compete in a weight lifting competition for example their arm and shoulder strength might look low at best. Yet on the football pitch players do need high upper body strength, especially at a professional standard where your strength can be the determiner of your success or downfall.
Good examples of players who are dominated by stronger players are when team bring youth players through into first team football. For example players such as David Bellion who are obviously very talented and have achieved a lot through the youth teams of Manchester United, but when they come into the first team they look no more than average players. The main factor affecting this is strength along with experience, because a younger and not as strong player can easily be over powered and intimidated by older players.
Arm and shoulder strength and endurance
The same theory applies too arm and shoulder strength and endurance, weight lifters an javelin throwers have to produce a maximum effort and then be forced by their opponents efforts to try improve the distance of their javelin throw or the weight lifted. To do this various amounts of times usually in a short period of time weight lifters and javelin throwers must have very good endurance in terms of FOG muscle fibres which can work anaerobically but with endurance.
Whereas football players must have high endurance in terms of aerobic endurance in their arms and shoulders, as constantly throughout the match they will be not only pumping their arms to run but also battling for the ball and always suing their upper body to try and win that battle. To do this they must not only be powerful in terms of fast twitch muscle fibres but also well enduring in terms of slow twitch muscle fibres.
Abdominal strength and endurance
Football players only really need abdominal endurance in order to aid their breathing as when they work anaerobically for short bursts of time (which they will do regularly throughout the match) they will need to repay the oxygen debt created by that anaerobic work, aerobically; and to do so quickly they need not only their internal intercostals and diaphragm but also their abdominals.
Yet weight lifters and javelin throwers need abdominal strength and endurance for actually carrying out the task they are set to do, unlike footballers who use it quite indirectly to aid their play. In particular weight lifters must use it directly in order to bring the weight from a wait height position up into a shoulder height position and then eventually having the weight above the head.
Joint mobility/flexibility
The comparison between the three sports in terms of flexibility is quite interesting as you might expect footballers to need a much better flexibility than javelin throwers on weight lifters but when you think about think about flexibility in terms of what the joints must be doing in each sport you can then see that in weight lifting the lifters are putting their joints under a huge amount of pressure throughout the whole body, for example if a footballer suddenly put all his joints under the same pressure that a weight lifter was experiencing during their lift they could easily strain and snap the ligaments and tendons in their joints (in particular in the ankles, knees and shoulders). So in comparison a weight lifter has to produce a wider range of strenuous movements in terms of joint flexibility. Javelin throwers also require flexibility for the same reasons, in particularly their shoulder joints need to be strong and flexible enough to create a long lever for distance and also a good angle of propulsion.
Agility
Although weight lifters and javelin throwers have had very similar requirements throughout, in terms of agility all 3 sports differ. Weight lifting in particularly because at no point do they actually have to move dynamically; weight lifting is a static exercise and therefore doesn’t need any agility what so ever.
Although javelin and football need ratings of agility, they use them for different things; in football for example the players will have to change direction while moving quite quickly. Whereas javelin throwers have to combine agility with balance much more as they must be weary of the throwing line as if they step over it they will foul. Javelin throwers won’t be running particularly fast but the movement they have to carry out in doer to get a good distance on the throw is very rapid and very forceful and so they need agility to be able to run and then carry out the throw but stay on their feet and be aware of the throwing line.
Co-ordination
Both javelin throwers and weight lifters don’t require much co-ordination although it helps them both in terms of helping them carry out explosive contractions with varies parts of their anatomy. It also helps javelin throwers to see where the throwing line is so they can judge their throw to get the maximum distance they can up the run way without stepping over.
Footballers on the other hand use co-ordination for totally different reasons; they key one for footballers being foot eye co-ordination, as they must be able to carry the ball while looking up at the playing environment so they can react to any movement to create a passing/shot opportunity. Another important factor of co-ordination for footballers is knowing what’s happening all around you as it may effect you, for example if your going up for a header you must know if a player is challenging with you for it and if so what direction they are coming from so you can prepare your self and try and get the advantage.
Reaction time
Again javelin throwers and weight lifters necessitate the same type of requirement levels for reaction time, because they’re individual and self apced events meaning that at no point during their throw/lift are they actually reacting to any relevant stimuli. Whereas being successful in football is based around reacting too many stimuli, despite the amount of stimuli footballers have to deal with, only very few of these situations will you gain an advantage by having exceptional reaction times. For example it’s very unlikely a central mid fielder would specifically work on their reaction times because every person has a certain reaction time which for football is adequate. Only do increased reaction times come into play when playing sports such as table tennis or batting in cricket; in which having a better reaction time than your opponent is almost certainly going to give you a massive advantage.
Timing
The timing needed for these 3 sports varies throughout; weight lifters needing the least simply because they have to worry about the least in terms of timing. They have to self pace them selves and be able to time accurately the sequence of contractions which will make the lift easiest for them selves. Yet weight lifters would worry more about their technique rather than their timing.
Javelin throwers also have to self pace them selves but they need better timing than weight lifters because they also have to time their throw in terms of their position on the running area and the throwing line, as obviously they either risk stepping over the line or throwing far too early. Yet both javelin throwers and weight lifters don’t have to think about their timing in terms of reacting to a stimulus and timing something in relation too it, yet footballers do.
A central mid field player in particular must require good timing in order to be able to react to the movements of the opposition too either tackle them/intercept a pass or take the ball past them; another good example is timing headers, as it’s easy to miss judge their flight and jump too early or too late leaving an easy header for any opponent. Yet there are two categories of timing for central mid field players, being able to time attacking play and defensive play. A good example of a player who shows the two categories is Paul Scholes as he is renowned for his impeccable timing when it comes to making late runs into the box and often picks up goals through this very good attacking timing. Yet on the other hand he is also known for his ability or lack of timing when it comes to tackling; he often picks up yellow cards for late challenges simply because he has bad timing when it comes to defensive play.
Summary
All 3 of the sports differ in many departments, although there were many similarities between weight lifting and javelin throwing. This is un-surprising because both are individual, self paced sports played in which they play in a non changing environment (closed environment). The differences between these two sports were mainly seen in the fitness components involved with movement (agility and flexibility) as weight lifting is a static exercise and javelin throwing is a dynamic exercise. Yet the basic requirements for the two sports are similar, in both they are essentially trying to carry out the most explosive and most effective movements they can to try and win; and thus they call for very similar requirements.
Football differed quite dramatically from both javelin throwing and weight lifting, which there are obvious reasons for. Such as football being a team sport, externally paced, very dynamic (compared to javelin which is a dynamic sport but not on the same level as football) and played in open/ever changing environment. Although football would seem quite similar in terms of health related fitness to both javelin and weight lifting on my comparison graphs, in actual fact football usually uses the health related fitness components in different ways. For example although all the sports require good anaerobic power/speed football uses this to be at it’s most dynamic (i.e. sprinting and kicking very powerfully) whereas sports such as weight lifting require anaerobic power/speed for static exercises which require a maximal effort. If footballers could only produce one very fast sprint each game then they’d not be very useful players whereas weight lifters and javelin throwers would be fine.
A good way of comparing the 3 sports is in terms of what percentage of the 3 muscle fibre types (slow twitch, fast oxidative glycolitic and fast twitch glycolitic) an elite player of each sport would have. As every sport will have varying muscle fibre needs to participate successfully in each sport. This table compares the 3 sports in terms of muscle fibre type usage:
From this you can see an obvious similarity between the two more anaerobic and individual sports weight lifting and javelin throwing. From my over all comparison I can see that javelin throwing and weight lifting are quite similar sports in terms of the requirements needed to do them, from this picture you can see that weight lifting is slightly more anaerobically intense though as it requires more FTG muscle fibres. Whilst football players muscle fibre needs tends to be quite opposite to weight lifting and javelin throwing; I think this difference is mainly down too the length and style of the 3 sports, as weight lifting and javelin throwing are both over very quickly while football games last from 90 too a maximum of 120 minutes. This extra time requires more slow twitch muscle fibres and thus differs it greatly already from the two individual sports.