Role Audience Format Topic

Sports Analyst Enthusiasts / Coaches / Article / Paper Factors contributing to

Analysts a good soccer kick
Unlike Figure 1.b, the base of support (the non–

Anatomy of a Soccer kick

kicking leg) relocates to a position directly below
the center of mass. This alignment of center of
mass and base of support increases the player’s
stability and prevents the player from losing
As a part of the preliminary
S occer is one of the most popular sports in thebalancemovements,
during or after the kick.
the player positions himself
world. Right now, soccer is played by over 250 million about 1m from the ball (Figure 1.a). This
players in over 200 countries. As a result of soccer’s position provides the player with enough
popularity, soccer teams around the world spend room to generate the desired amount of
billions every year to squeeze every last bit of force.
performance out of their players. Professional soccer
players spend hours every day, improving their
techniques for running, balancing their bodies,
endurance etc. However, the most complex and
important technique in soccer is kicking the ball.
Figure 2.a
A soccer kick might appear incredible simple at
The next set of movements is a
first but when further analyzed, the movements
combination of backward leg extension as well
involved are astonishing. Most people believe that the
as force producing movements (Figure 2.a). The
harder you kick a ball, the further it will go. Although
player fully extends both of his legs and his left
the basic physics principles behind this theory are
arm (refer to Figure 1.b for comparison). The
sound, it’s not entirely true. There is a lot more that
extension on limbs creates a force in the
contributes to distance the ball travels than just the
backwards, downwards direction. These forces
amount of force applied. Let’s analyze a soccer kick Figure 2.b
cause the player’s body to accelerate from
from the beginning.
0.7m/s to 1.5m/s in just 0.1s (8m/s/s of
While the player’s body is moving along
acceleration)(A force is required to move the
the sagittal and transverse plane towards the ball,
player’s body because of newton’s 1st and 2nd
the player’s kicking leg performs a backswing
law). The force is originally applied backwards Figure
movement to 1.b
prepare for the kick (labeled with
but because of Newton’s 3rd law, the player’s
green in Figure 2.a/b). The player flexes his knee
body moves in the opposite direction (forward). The player then moves his center of
joint and extends his hip joint in order to generate
The velocity of the center of mass is crucial to mass in the direction of the ball while
the backswing. The backswing movement is
the distance the ball will travel because the keeping his base of support steady (Figure
angular as the leg and the tight rotate about the
kinetic energy of the player’s body is also 1.b). This action results in a controlled fall,
hip joint (about the horizontal axis). The leg is
transferred to the ball during the kick. This is allowing the player to use the force of
swung backwards with a maximum velocity of 4
also why a running start could yield a better kick gravity to accelerate along the sagittal
m/s and reaches a maximum height of 0.6m from
than a standing start. While the player’s body is plane. This preliminary lean gets the
the ground. The height that the kicking leg
generating force by accelerating in the direction player’s center of mass moving at 0.8 m/s
reaches during the backswing is also an important
of the ball, the player’s base of support and forward. The momentum generated by this
contributor to the power of the kick. The more
center of mass (labeled with blue in Figure 2.a) action contributes to the velocity that the
the leg is swung backwards, the more it can be
shift positions (as compared to Figure 1.b) to ball will have at the end of the kick. Also,
Figure 1.a swung forward to create force.
stabilize the body for the critical instant. the player flexes his knee joints to prepare
for further accelerating himself towards the
 Theoretically, the higher the mass and acceleration
The next movement, swinging the of the kicking leg, higher the force produced will
kicking leg forward, produces the largest be. However, since the mass of the leg is almost
amount of force and contributes the most to impossible to manipulate, the acceleration is the
the distance the ball travels. only factor that determines the amount of force a
person can produce during the force producing
movement of a soccer kick. The acceleration can
be improved by exercise and training to make the
fast twitch muscles responsible for hip flexion and
leg extension stronger. Also, since the motion of
the leg is rotational, having a longer leg would also
result in a better kick.

While the leg is being swung forward along

the sagittal plane to produce force, the center of
gravity moves away from the base of support (it
moves backwards). This new configuration of
center of balance would normally cause a person
to fall backwards. However, in the case of the
player kicking the soccer ball, it does not cause the
person to fall backwards because of inertia. The
person’s body’s momentum allows for an off
balanced position.

Figure 3.a

The kicking leg is swung forward in an

angular fashion. The hip joint is flexed first
and the knee joint is extended after (from
larger to smaller). This action results in
tremendous amount of force to be produced.
Right before hitting the ball, the foot is
traveling at 10.36m/s (combined horizontal
and vertical velocity) along the sagittal plane.
During this force producing movement, the
leg accelerates from a combined velocity of
1.86m/s to a maximum combined velocity of
10.4 m/s in just 0.11s. The average
acceleration for this action is 77m/s/s. A
person’s leg is about 10% of their total mass
(80Kg as total body mass for the player being
analyzed). If we calculate the total force
generated during the force producing action Figure 4.a
using newton’s 2nd law (F=ma), we get a total
 Just when the leg reaches its maximum
velocity of 11.36 m/s, the critical instant takes
Having completed the kick, the player
place, the foot makes contact with the ball
then has to maintain his balance and bring his
(Figure 4.a). The kinetic energy of both the leg
leg to a stop. As a follow-through, the kicking leg
and the body of the player (both of which are
of the player continues to move in an angular
moving along the sagittal plane towards the ball)
fashion because of newton’s 1st law of inertia.
is transferred to the ball. The ball accelerates
The player has to extend his hip joint and flex his
from 0 m/s to its maximum velocity of 17.8m/s in
knee joint in order to bring his leg to a stop and
just 0.09 s (acceleration of 198m/s/s). There are
bring it back down. Doing this however, causes
two things about the critical instance which can
the player’s body to move up along the
be changed to improve the kick. The first one is
transverse plane (newton’s 3rd law – equal and
the amount of time the foot makes contact with
opposite reaction). At this point, the base of
the ball. The time the foot is in contact with the
support is very small as the player is on his toes.
ball is usually very small. This reduces the
In order to increase stability, the player also
amount of energy being transferred from the
abducts his arms and prevents himself from
foot to the ball. The time of contact between the
falling over.
foot and the ball can be increased by using softer
material for shoes and soccer balls, allowing for
better energy transfer between the two. The
second thing that could be improved is the angle
at which the force is exerted on the ball by the
foot. If the force is exerted at 45 degrees from
the ground, the best airtime to distance ratio will
be achieved. Angles lower than 45 degrees will
result in lower air but better distance whereas
angles higher than 45 degrees will cause the ball
to go higher but not as far.