What Sprinting in Soccer Really Demands From Your Athlete’s Body

When most parents think about sprinting in soccer, they picture their child chasing down a loose ball or making a breakaway run on the wing. What often goes unrecognized is the sheer physical force behind every one of those sprints—and what it means for injury risk, strength training, and long-term development.

We’ll break down the actual forces involved in sprinting, how they stack up across a game, and how they compare to something more relatable: lifting weights in the gym. Our goal is to help you better understand why we take strength training and load management seriously at Ground Force, and how we use this data to keep your child strong, fast, and injury-free.

Before we go further, if you’re a parent or athlete that works with a trainer, be aware of how they program their workouts, including sets and reps and the total weight used.

When your child sprints, their foot hits the ground with a tremendous amount of force—often up to four times their bodyweight in a fraction of a second. For a 70 kg (154 lb) athlete, that equals about 616 pounds of force every time one foot contacts the ground at full speed!

And that’s just the vertical force (pushing down into the ground). There’s also a horizontal component—braking and pushing forward—that adds another 154 pounds or more per step. These two forces combine to help propel the athlete forward explosively.

What’s important to understand is that these aren’t casual movements. They are high-intensity, high-load, and performed repeatedly in a game environment.

Based on GPS data from elite youth soccer players, athletes may sprint 17 to 30 times per game, depending on position and playing style. If we use 25 sprints as an average, and each sprint includes about six steps at full speed, that’s:

• 25 sprints × 6 steps = 150 sprint steps per game

So, if each step generates over 600 pounds of vertical force and over 150 pounds of horizontal force, the cumulative force over a single game can exceed 115,000 pounds.

That’s a lot. Is your body ready to sustain that amount of force every game? By the way, this information is only game day demands, not practice.

Most parents can picture a kid lifting weights in the gym—say a 150 lb athlete doing a 300 lb trap bar deadlift. It’s hard work, and coaches often program these lifts to improve strength and durability.

But here’s the surprising part:

The total amount of force your child experiences during sprinting in one soccer game is the equivalent of doing 373 reps of a 2x bodyweight deadlift.

Let that sink in…

That’s 373 heavy lifts’ worth of total force—except instead of slow, controlled movements in a gym, it’s happening on one leg, at high speed, within 0.1 seconds per contact!

Strength training isn’t going to stunt your child’s growth, yet build resilience in muscle tissue that allows for accelerated growth.

The muscles, tendons, and joints of youth athletes need to be prepared for these kinds of forces. If not, the body can break down. We see this most often in the form of:

• Hamstring strains

• ACL injuries

• Overuse injuries in the hip, knee, or ankle

What’s often missed is that these injuries don’t happen randomly—they occur when the forces of the game exceed what the body is prepared to handle.

Again, ask yourself, does my child pull their hamstrings or hip flexors when walking.. ?

At Ground Force, we don’t train for aesthetics or general fitness. We train to match and exceed the forces athletes will experience in the game. That means:

• Heavy strength training to build force tolerance

• Sprint exposure in controlled environments to develop neuromuscular coordination

• Eccentric loading and deceleration work to handle braking forces

• Individualized programming based on age, position, and sprint volume

This kind of training is not only about performance—it’s one of the most important strategies for keeping athletes healthy throughout a long season.

Why should you care?

Sprinting isn’t just “running fast.” It’s a high-force, athletic skill that challenges the entire body. When athletes sprint repeatedly in a game, they’re loading their body in ways similar to lifting extremely heavy weights—but without the control or structure of a gym environment.

If they’re not trained to handle those demands, their risk of injury goes up, and their performance ceiling stays low.

At Ground Force, our programs are designed to fill the gap between practice and performance. We ensure your child is not just fit to play—but built to thrive under the demands of the sport.

What can you do?

If you’re a parent looking to support your child’s development:

• Ask about sprint exposure in training—how often are they sprinting, and is it being tracked?

• Value strength training as part of injury prevention—not just as an add-on.

• Work with programs that individualize training to match your athlete’s sprint load and position.

We use these exact metrics as part of our Perform First app and in all of our in-person training sessions at Ground Force.

By understanding the true demands of the game, we build athletes who are faster, stronger, and safer on the field.

References:

1. Weyand, P. G., et al. (2000). Faster top running speeds are achieved with greater ground forces not more rapid leg movements. Journal of Applied Physiology, 89(5), 1991–1999. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.2000.89.5.1991

2. Clark, K. P., & Weyand, P. G. (2014). Are running speeds maximized with simple-spring stance mechanics? Sports Medicine, 44(5), 559–565. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-014-0192-1

3. Morin, J. B., et al. (2011). Sprint Acceleration Mechanics: The Underlying Relationships Between Ground Reaction Force and Performance. Journal of Applied Biomechanics, 27(6), 586–594. https://doi.org/10.1123/jab.27.6.586

4. Mara, J. K., et al. (2017). Quantifying the high-speed running and sprinting profiles of elite youth soccer players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 31(6), 1500–1506. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002033

5. Buchheit, M., et al. (2010). Match running performance and fitness in youth soccer. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 31(11), 818–825. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0030-1262838

6. Timmins, R. G., et al. (2016). Short biceps femoris fascicles and eccentric knee flexor weakness increase the risk of hamstring injury in elite football (soccer): A prospective cohort study. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(24), 1524–1535. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2015-095362

7. Hewett, T. E., et al. (2006). Understanding and preventing noncontact ACL injuries: a review. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 34(2), 299–311. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546505284183

8. Opar, D. A., et al. (2015). A novel device using the Nordic hamstring exercise to assess eccentric knee flexor strength: A reliability and retrospective injury study. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 45(7), 528–535. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2015.6048