No, I think that comes also with age.
Ah, OK!
Should I be nervous?
Because I'm wondering
what you're going to put me through today.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm here at Manchester City to learn what
the everyday sports person can take away
from some of the world's best players and coaches
and how Gatorade fuels them forward.
I'm going to meet Simon Bitcon,
who's head of strength and conditioning here at the club
and learn about the
importance of pre-activation.
Simon.
What a pleasure.
Nice to meet you.
How are we doing? We alright?
I'm good, I’m good. How are you?
I’m alright.
Although, should I be nervous?
Because I'm wondering what you’re going to put me through today.
No, no, no, no, no.
We're just going to do some nice easy exercises.
OK.
I'm not going to expect you to jump over massive hurdles
or anything like that.
OK.
I’m not going to embarrass myself?
No, no, no, no, no.
I'll look after you, don’t worry.
Thanks Simon.
We're obviously focusing on pre-activation,
which I think sometimes gets forgotten about.
But how important is pre-activation before
any form of exercise?
I think it's really important.
It's about preventing injury,
which is massive.
You get injured, you can’t exercise
the next day.
When you're developing
any sort of fitness parameter,
consistency is a key thing.
Yeah.
So you need to be able to keep coming back
day after day
and I think part of pre-activation
is preventing injuries.
I think the second part is performance.
So you want to make sure
your body and your mind
is in the best state it can,
to perform as good as it can.
Nathan, absolute pleasure to sit down with you man.
How important is warming up?
Because I know
particularly young people,
we don't do it as much.
We don't stretch when we should.
But how important is it?
Especially as, you know, an athlete
at the top of the game?
For me, it's very important.
I'm a player who needs it.
Where I came from before, we mostly had
a game a week.
So you have a lot of time to recover.
Yeah.
To relax.
And then I came here and it's basically
every three days.
Yeah.
Yeah, after a few games,
like, your body starts to become stiffer.
When you go out on the pitch
and you train,
maybe you don't feel as loose
and everything starts to tighten up a little bit
and then if you do that
a couple of weeks,
you know, on the bounce,
then maybe the third week, you know,
you pull something.
You never know, you know, where it comes from
so that's why
we try to adjust it and so far it's worked.
It’s really, really worked man.
It's been so brilliant to see
and with that as well,
I guess then that gives you more of a confidence
when you're playing as well?
The fact that if you’re doing
all the stuff properly beforehand,
it can only make you better
when it comes to actually,
when it matters.
No, for sure.
For sure.
All right Simon,
I think the time has come.
I'm ready to be put through my paces
with a few exercises.
So this one is for the hips.
It's for the big
muscles that drive the hips
and it's what we call the sprint muscle,
like, the glute
and it's a really important one
we do with Erling.
Erling obviously does a lot of sprints,
high speed running in behind.
Yes.
To try and get in behind and stretch the defences.
So this is one we work on him daily
in terms of making sure that
that key sprint muscle is activated.
OK.
We have a very good team here and they really, like,
focus on you individually.
I think when you come in pre-season,
you do all kind of tests,
so they see what kind of areas
you have to focus on and yeah,
they work with you on that,
so most of the people have different programs.
I want you to start with just
create a little bit of space in your back.
So a lot of the pre-activation
will be based around them as individuals,
about what they need.
If we know a player like Erling Haaland is
going to be expected
to do a lot of
runs in behind,
a lot of speed type stuff,
then we need to
prepare his body to be able to handle that.
Argh.
Right in the glutes?
Yes.
This is the sprint muscle.
OK.
This is what drives your speed.
And off that, where does Gatorade come in to the routine then?
When they come and see me in the gym,
I want them to be ready to work.
OK.
So Gatorade would come in
in the proceeding time before that.
Is it sometimes hard to
listen to your body though,
where maybe sometimes you want to play,
or if you want to get out there?
You kind of have to go,
‘hang on, I need to give me what my body needs’.
Yeah, no I think that comes also with age.
Ah, OK. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
No, I think when I was younger as well,
you know, you always want to go out
and you always want to train
and I think now
when you get older
you take care of
your body a little bit more.
Yeah.
Listen to your body a little bit more.
Yeah, so important.
Yeah.
If you had one top tip,
what would it be?
What would be a go to
do you think, we should be all focusing on?
But for me, my activation
is very important.
So yeah, I think the one thing
I would say is activation
is very important
to make sure you're ready to
attack the session and the game.
Yeah. Nathan, absolute pleasure man.
We’ll take that away.
Thank you.
Cheers, thank you very much.
Hydration is one of the main things
for a football player and
I just try and keep myself as hyrdated as possible and
then your body starts to feel good.
Two passes to me!
Yeah.
One,
two.
Next one’s off the board, take two touches.
Good, a little bit further round.
Excellent, well done.