Ade Mafe part one: from athlete to football fitness coach
With football pre-season training now in full swing, spikesmag.com caught up with former European Indoor 200m gold medallist and 1984 Olympic 200m finalist Ade Mafe to talk about his work as fitness coach with Chelsea FC and Championship side West Bromwich Albion. Catch part 2 on spikesmag.com tomorrow.
Mafe retired from athletics in 1993. He has since worked as fitness coach with Chelsea, Millwall and MK Dons.
How did you become involved in football?
AM: When I stopped [competing in] athletics I became a personal trainer in London for three years. I was a lucky man; I had done a training day with Ron Roddan [former coach to Linford Christie] at Chelsea Football Club when Bobby Campbell was manager in 1988. When Ruud Gullit was appointed, he wanted a personal fitness coach, at a time when the English game had no fitness coaches. A guy called Gwyn Williams, who I had known, rang Ron because he knew I was a personal fitness coach. Ron put my name forward and I arrived at Stamford Bridge in 1996.
What was the change like from athletics to the world of football?
AM: Immense, absolutely immense. From scraping a living for ten years as an athlete to then getting a cheque every month was amazing. They made me very welcome, but I didn’t have a clue about football so I asked questions and stored as much information as I could.
I quickly realised that footballers are not the same creatures as athletes. The demands of the game are different, they are very gifted individuals and can do things with a ball that you have to respect. Not all of them had the same attitude to training as athletes because football is a team game and there is a lot of reliance on natural talent. The need to work at that talent is not as prevalent as in athletics.
Why is this the case?
AM: Footballers have been kicking balls against walls since they were four and once you have the technique it stays with you. As an athlete it’s always about improvement. You can have a bad game at Chelsea and you are not going to suffer for it. The only thing you are threatened with is not starting the next game – you will still be paid. Whereas in athletics if you don’t win a race, you don’t get paid and you slide down the rankings.
Did footballers’ attitudes frustrate you?
AM: For the first two months it was very frustrating. I was like ‘do you know how hard people out there are training and you are saying you don’t want to do one more run?' Then you watch them in the dressing room after the game and you know they have given everything. Most people on the outside don’t see that. It’s very easy to criticise. I think football ages you prematurely, too. It’s very stressful, physically and mentally. It’s 10 months of grind.
You were one of the first fitness coaches in football – were they initially suspicious?
AM: Yes, you have to be very diplomatic. You have to explain to them what is good for them and what is not. The only thing I wouldn’t make any comment on was football. I couldn’t even keep up the ball 6 times when I first joined Chelsea, so for the first 6 months I worked on keeping the ball up. I wanted to keep the ball up at least 10 times, to gain their respect.
How does the athletics training differ from what you do with the footballers?
AM: A few things are similar but a lot of it is different because the demands are so different. The average distance sprinted in a game can be between 800m to 1500m in maybe 60 to 80 sprints – but the average distance sprinted at any one time is about 6 metres. Training is based around this and is largely about acceleration rather than extended speed.
I do loads of sled work but weight training and Olympic lifts have a place, too. I tend to find a lot of the players aren’t physically in the right condition because for years they have been kicking a football across their bodies. This makes them dominant on one side and quite imbalanced, meaning one side is passive and they can’t get themselves in positions to do the weights that you want them to do. They could never cope with lifting 200-300kgs that an athlete has to lift. I can count on one hand the amount of footballers who can squat what they weigh.
****Read part two of our Ade Mafe feature tomorrow right here on spikesmag.com****
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