It only seems yesterday that Arne Slot was confirmed as Jurgen Klopp’s replacement following his retirement from being manager at the club for 8 years. Slot takes charge of a squad that features some very big names, with Salah still on the team’s roster ahead of the upcoming season. He is rumoured to have the same open-style attacking/pressing style of footballing philosophy that Klopp made synonymous with the club. And of course he has other approaches that separate him from the rest. Liverpool are not favourites to win this season, but you can check more about the odds here at EPL Index (https://eplindex.com/116822/things-to-look-out-for-when-betting-on-premier-league-matches.html).

Who is the new manager?

Arne Slot was announced as the successor for Liverpool back in May after Klopp announced that he was leaving the club. He takes over a Liverpool squad that finds themselves back in the Champions League at the top flight of European football following a season out of it where they only qualified for the Europa League. And also off the back of a season that saw them pick up no silverware. So he does indeed have quite a tough task ahead of him, and he also has some very big boots to fill, as Klopp during his time at the club won all that there was to win. This also included the club’s first ever Premier League title and also their sixth Champions League title. And so going forward, it’s going to be interesting to see how he handles the pressure that is no doubt going to befall him and how he gets on with his new squad in his first season. 

A brand new approach

Although going back to the different approach that Slot has compared to other managers and most certainly Klopp is when it comes to training. Although there is one particular aspect of his training philosophy that has turned a few heads, and that is the fact that he has started to implement kickboxing training as part of the training routine for his new squad. The reason this is turning heads is for obvious reasons; kick boxing is typically for boxers and people who compete in MMA rather than people who play professional football for a living. And so today what we’re going to look at in more detail is why he has started to implement this and what the benefits are. 

What are the benefits?

Well, when someone is training kickboxing, they are in fact working on their leg muscles and also increasing the kicking power of that particular leg, in addition to helping with an aim. And so if you look at how this can transfer to football, the more that someone trains through kickboxing, the more they are going to increase their kicking power. And so when you transfer the benefits of this to football, this means they have a more powerful kick, projecting the ball further. At the same time, it can have a big benefit when it comes to penalties. As power is one of the key characteristics of any successful penalty, a lack of power and no matter which direction you aim the football, the goalkeeper has a chance of saving it. 

Instills confidence 

Another purpose of the kickboxing training is that it also builds confidence and aggression, two things that he will want from each of his players when they are trying to regain possession or chase down the enemy. Although this isn’t something new, it may seem to those of us who mainly follow the Premier League. At his former club, Feyenoord, he likewise implemented kickboxing into the training regime for his squad there, which proved to be beneficial and could in part be credited as contributing to the teams and Slots success during his tenure at the club.

In Summary

Hopefully today this has shed a bit of light on the benefits of kickboxing training in general and the applications and benefits it can have for professional football players. Today was aimed at explaining and justifying when Slot has felt the need to include this within the squad’s warm-up training program, and it might go some way to show some hope and promise to the following of Liverpool football club that he likes to do things differently and could be a huge part of a totally new approach to football training that we could even start to see emulated at other football clubs in the Premier League and also beyond.