- What's up guys?
Matt from the Football Boots Team
and today we are going to be showing you our top power hacks
to give your ball strike a bit more venom.
So let's do it.
The first power hack that we've got for you guys today
are hot shot gels.
Now what these essentially are is a silicone like material
that sits on top of the foot
to give you more energy transfer.
Now if we actually take them out of the bags,
now what hot shot gels say they actually do,
is when shooting, the gel increases power by
transferring the energy back to the ball.
Therefore, reinforcing the shooting sweet spot.
As you guys can see, these silicone gel pads
are incredibly sticky.
Now the idea is you can wear these two ways.
You can either put them on top of your socks
so they stick to that underneath the tongue.
Or you can put them above the tongue
and they're secured by the laces on top.
So these hot shot gel pads come in a few sizes,
small, medium, large.
Because I've got like UK 10.5 we're gonna use the large ones
and we're also gonna show you a demo of how to actually
use these on your football boots.
So the first one is gonna be above the tongue
secured by the laces.
So the first thing you need to do
is take out the laces near the bottom.
Secure that in there.
And then you need to put this hot shot gel in place
starting right near the bottom of it.
Once you've got it in place,
it can be a little bit fiddly
especially because it is so sticky.
But once you're happy with it in place,
you then need to tie the laces above.
As you guys can see, I've now finished lacing the boots up
and I've got the hot shot gel pad above the tongue
and underneath the laces.
And it does feel a little bit more different.
Because we've now got that extra sticky material
above the tongue and beneath the laces,
it gives me a more cushion feel.
The second technique is now putting the hot shot gel
above your sock underneath the tongue.
So once you've got it in place as you want
on top of your sock, carefully slide it inside the boot
and then once you're happy,
put that tongue down to stick on top
and then once again just like the first technique
you need to lace up your boots.
So guys I'm just finishing off the lacing
of the technique number two with the hot shot gels,
but which one feels better on the feet first?
Well there is a slight difference.
I feel these ones the laces feel a little bit tighter
just because its more padded.
But on this one it just feels a little bit looser.
But let's give them a full test out.
Boots are on feet with the hot shot gels,
so let's start by doing some keepie uppies
to see if I can actually feel a difference.
Well on my right foot, to be honest,
I can't really feel much difference.
And on my right foot as well, the hot shot gel
is underneath the tongue.
But on the left foot I can just feel like
because the hot shot gel is exposed,
I get a little bit more of a springy sensation.
Ball striking time and the first one is going to be
with the hot shot gel underneath the tongue.
And to be fair it just felt like a normal shot to me,
so the hot shot gel underneath the tongue hasn't worked.
Strike two with the exposed hot shot gel.
Aw do you know what, I actually could feel a little bit
of a difference there, to be honest,
just because of the sticky-ness of the hot shot gel.
It felt like the ball just had a little bit more feedback.
So hot shot gels, do they work?
Well I'm going to say,
if you use the hot shot gels underneath the tongue,
then I couldn't feel much difference whatsoever.
So I think that's going to be the same as you guys.
But if you do have them exposed,
so above the tongue and underneath the laces,
then I think these pads just give you a little bit more
compared to just having a normal pair of football boots.
Next hack, do you guys know what this is here?
Well this is actually lead tape.
And it's made for tennis rackets.
But you can use it on your football boots as well
to try and give you some more power.
Now it's very similar to what we found on the
Adidas Predator Power Swerves back in the day.
Which came with a composite inside the sock climber
to give you more power when striking the ball.
So what you can do with this lead tape
is put it onto the sole plate of newer football boots.
You can get your hands on some of this lead tape
from pretty much any sports shop and its not very expensive.
So what you need to do is flip your pair of boots over,
undo a little bit of the lead tape, and although it looks
very thin it is incredibly heavy, trust me.
And that is gonna obviously give you that power
that you want.
So you just need to undo that back strip,
put it onto around the toe box region of that sole plate,
because that's where you want the power to come from.
And you can just keep building up adding more lead tape.
The lead tape itself is incredibly sticky
so it won't come off when you do wear them
even on a 3G pitch like this.
And the idea is to stick on this and give you more power.
So this is how they look compared to the standard version.
So let's get them on feet and test out if we
can feel a difference.
Ball striking time with the standard Phantom 3.
Ball striking number two with the second Phantom 3
which of course has the lead tape underneath.
To me again, it just felt a little bit too similar together.
So the one thing you could do is just keep applying that
lead tape underneath until it's really really packed on,
but I think you'd have to use a lot of it
just to make a little difference.
Our next hack has been put forward by Ian
from the black and orange team.
He swears by this product. He's worn them himself.
And he says he feels like he does get
a lot more power in striking the ball.
Which is a little interesting because we all know
we love to strike the ball around the toe box
but the silicone patch on these MetaSox is
actually on the top of the foot.
So what the company MetaSox say is that
professional players use MetaSox,
the lead performance football socks,
to protect their feet and to give them additional power
and precision on the pitch through sweet spot enhancements.
Now to be fair that just sounds like a load of mumbo jumbo.
I don't think it's necessarily true
but let's get these on feet and give them the test.
Socks on feet, boots on feet,
let's give these MetaSox a bit of a go.
And do you know what the first thing that comes to my mind
is that I feel like I've got the fattest feet in the world.
They feel incredibly bulky in these Under Armour clutchfits,
just because it's got that silicone pad on top.
It just makes them so much more filled out inside.
First of all, keepie uppie time
to see how they actually feel.
And just like I imagined,
they just feel incredibly bulky.
So now to see if they give me more power
or just as if they're very bulked out inside the boots.
Ball striking with the MetaSox.
So that was a pretty silly strike to be fair,
but I wouldn't necessarily say that it was because
of the MetaSox probably more down to technique.
But what you could argue is that because the MetaSox
have that silicone strip that run across the midfoot,
you could argue that it may increase the
ball strike in the area.
And also a good positive is that it will
decrease the chances of injury.
Our next power hack is actually
the technique of striking the ball.
Now my own personal technique, and you can follow this,
is you want to find a spot on the ball to strike.
Place your left foot beside the ball.
Take seven steps back.
Compose yourself.
Then have a controlled approach.
Long back lift, body weight forward, eyes fixed
and strike through the ball with instep toes pointing down.
Then leave the ground with both feet for momentum.
Our final power hack is what boots you guys actually wear.
Now if you look at boots from the past,
we've of course got the predator from Adidas,
which had those power elements which actually exposed
onto the upper itself.
We're gonna also see that on the Puma Powercat,
which were both released back in the day.
Looking at some more newer types of power boots,
of course we have the evoPower.
And this time instead of the power elements being
on top of the upper,
this time its actually integrated within.
One who which I quite like myself is the remake Predators.
This is the accelerator version.
And what Adidas have done here is they've used
a modern type of upper.
But then used those power elements on top of it as well.
So it's a little bit of a hybrid between the old school
power boots and the newer versions,
like the evoPower and also the Accuro from Umbro.
In my opinion though,
the best power boot on the market of today,
has to be the Nike Hypervenom Phantom 3.
We've got the low cut model, I've been wearing them myself
and in terms of having a power themed boot in 2017,
these are your best bet for sure.
Guys, as a little bit of fun today, we've brought down our
Adidas miCoach ball and the app running.
So what I'm gonna do is take a shot with the
standard Phantom 3 and then after I've taken that shot,
we're gonna see what score I got in terms of
how hard I actually kicked it.
And then we're going to use every single one of our
power hacks on our second strike to see if we can
actually increase the power.
Alright so it's just downloading the result now.
It's working all out what is gonna be our power result.
66 miles per hour.
Strike right dead in the centre of the ball.
Strike number two, now I've got all the power hacks
on my feet and I feel so bulky.
I feel like I've got the fattest feet in the world.
66 miles per hour to beat.
I've got my whistle.
It's downloading, was it better or worse?
66 to beat.
72!
So it's gone from 66 miles per hour to 72.
In all honesty, was it the power hacks?
Probably not.
Most of the time with power and striking the ball,
it comes down to technique.
So guys, there's our power hacks video.
Hoping it's given you some nice little ideas
in how to give your ball striking a bit more venom.
Vote for your favourite in the poll cut above.
But guys, that's today's video.
Thanks for watching.
Cheers.
Hitting that, all the way.