Soccer Performance Through a Holistic Lens: Interview with Erica Suter

If you are a soccer player trying to get faster, stronger, and more resilient, this is the interview for you. Erica Suter is an experienced soccer player, coach, and specializes in strength and conditioning for soccer players. She has a firm grasp of what it takes to succeed in the sport and in addition to her knowledge of training also has a lot of powerful messages that transcend what soccer players do on the field. I hope you enjoy the answers as much as I did. To learn more about Erica and her services (including her podcast) check out her website:

https://ericasuter.com/

and her Instagram where she posts loads of good content: https://www.instagram.com/fitsoccerqueen/

1. Please give readers a bit of your background and how you got so interested in strength and conditioning for female soccer players? Who were or are some of your main s&c influences?

I have been training young female athletes for almost 9 years. I began my s&c journey at age 12, and learned how to lift weights, sprint properly, and condition myself well enough to last the entirety of the game. I saw amazing physical benefits for my soccer performance, but I also fell in love with how awesome training made me feel. As a performance coach now, my mission is to inspire young girls to love movement, challenging their bodies, and taking care of their health through a holistic lens.

My main influences when I started my career were Tony Gentilcore, Michael Boyle, Dawn Scott, Dave Tenney, and Lee Taft.

2. What are your staple lower body exercises for soccer players in the weight room that you feel have the best carryover to the pitch and why?

Deadlifts are the movement I call the "ACL reduction powerhouse." They are so great for not just the hamstrings and glutes, but the entirety of the trunk, and ensuring it has the stability, as well strength to handle high amounts load so the lower extremity joints are also stable (knee and ankles). I am also a huge fan of Single Leg RDLs, Pistol Squats, and Lunge variations for single-leg strength as well as trunk stability.

3. A great quote of yours "Allowing children to discover through trial and error boosts creativity, develops all muscle groups, encourages them to learn from failures, and adapt to new stimuli and problem solve in new environments" from your piece on Joel Smith's site called The Dominance of Skills Training Is Destroying Youth Athletes ( I will link in my blog). I definitely agree, but to play devil' advocate - skills with the soccer ball are extremely specific to the task. How will playing dodgeball or doing an obstacle course that involves elements like crawling, climbing, and hurdling really translate to the game?

Kids learn through yes, repetition. It is one of the best methods of skill acquisition, but in order for them to progress, they have to add in variety. The young human thrives off of new challenges so their bodies and brains adapt and become more resilient. Dodgeball is amazing for developing agility in a fun way, as well as encouraging them to pick their heads up and be aware of their bodies in space. Staring down at their feet and doing soccer work over and over again does not necessarily teach them to scan the field properly. Crawling, climbing, and hurdling and running through obstacle courses are also great for that added variety so their muscles get exposed to new stimuli, which helps them to develop balance, coordination, and rhythm, rather than being bogged down by potential overtraining of one muscle group all the time.

4. In your powerful article HERE https://ericasuter.com/body-image-food-and-fueling-the-female-athlete/ on body image, food, and your relationship to the scale. I guess you guys broke up! I still rely on the scale to make sure my bodyweight stays in a certain range otherwise I know playing soccer will bring on knee pain and I start changing directions slower than a week in jail. Considering the importance of relative strength to run fast and move well, can you speak on how you guide athletes who need to get or stay lean for the sake of their soccer performance in a safe and healthy way?

I always tell athletes to look at their performance improvements, both quantitative and qualitative. As long as their numbers continue to improve over time, whether that is vertical and broad jumps, 10-yard, 20-yard, 30-yard dash times, deadlift, pull-ups, etc, they are getting better. But also, they need to continue to check in with qualitative measures too. Are they moving in a healthy way? Are they coordinated? Are their weaknesses and compensations worked out? Athletes must listen to their bodies. The issue now is, humans have become so disconnected from themselves, they rely on scales and data to measure them. Sometimes, we just need to take a step back and simply ask, "how am I feeling about myself?" And take inventory of the categories: sleep, nourishment, friendships, purpose, stress management. I take inventory with my athletes weekly because they will need this tool to thrive when they become busy, stressed-out working professionals and parents.



5. You wrote a solid article and accompanying video on reducing ACL tears in female soccer players. I really like the balanced approach you took including things like the feet, pull ups, crawling, training the anterior and posterior chain, landing drills, etc. versus just slapping some mini-bands on. What is the relationship between strength and mobility and how they interact to help soccer players prevent injury?


An athlete must be able to interconnect mobility with stability first. If they cannot demonstrate a bodyweight Lunge ISO Hold, for example, we need to address that imbalance first if their trunk is shifting, or their posture is collapsing, we may need to resort to a bilateral movement and load that first. Strength training always needs to start general (bilateral) then progress to specific (unilateral). What I've found is, many strength bilateral exercises, like a Goblet Squat, or a Deadlift improve hip mobility and trunk stability as a nice byproduct. I like to hang out in the General Physical Preparation phase for 8-12 weeks, especially youth who are new to lifting.