The 3 Planes of Movement & Conditioning for Football

We have touched on the 3 planes of movement elsewhere, when we were discussing squatting and deadlifting. So lets now expand on this a little more, as it also ties in well with running, which we have discussed a fair bit of late. So what are the 3 planes of movement (or motion) and why are they relevant to what you are doing with your strength training preparation for footy?

For starters, as you move around, you are moving around and operating in a 3-dimesional existence, where your movements operate in one of, or a combination of, 3 planes of movement. Most everyday movements will require movement, or at the very least some stability, in all 3 planes. As footy is a very dynamic part of life, it would make sense that this point is particularly important.

Footy requires movements in all 3 planes of movement, only with the added factor of more complex movements, executed at a breakneck speed, all whilst other people around you are trying to flatten you. Therefore, it is important to condition and strengthen in all 3 planes of movement. So firstly, what are the 3 planes?

The 3 planes of movement (or motion) are;

- Frontal Plane: The frontal plane divides the body into front and back, and all movements in this plane are movements along this plane. The easiest movements along this plane to picture are known as abduction (limbs moving further away from the body) and adduction (limbs being brought in closer to the body.) The most well known example of an exercise like this would be a lateral shoulder raise (dumb bell out to the side.) The easiest movement to think of in footy would be moving sideways in one direction and explosively pushing off 1 leg and moving in the opposite direction when trying to get around an opponent in front of you. Indeed, this movement in footy actually requires movements in all three planes, but the sideways movement and push off the leg is very much frontal plane dominant. So a lateral lunge would be a good functional exercise to think of that mimics this movement, and is in this plane. Step ups require pelvic stability in the frontal plane, whilst most of the movement itself is sagittal. Cable Woodchops are also another good example to think of – the sideways movement of them are very much in the frontal plane.

- Sagittal plane: The sagittal plane divides the body into right and left, and the primary movements in this plane are the up and down movements known as flexion and extension. This is the most commonly exercised plane in just about all strength training programs. There are plenty of common examples of exercises in this plane, but a squat or a bicep curl are 2 of the most commonly known ones. Deadlifts are another common functional example, but as mentioned, most of the commonly performed strength exercises will fall into this category.

- Transverse Plane: The transverse plane is also sometimes referred to as the horizontal plane, and divides the body into upper and lower halves. All movements in this plane are rotational in nature, and occur in all the joints throughout the body. This is the least exercised plane, and is hardly worked at all in most routines. This is the plane of motion in which the most common injuries occur, such as ACL tears, hamstring strains and ankle sprains. A cable woodchop pattern would be the best-known movement that fits this plane, although woodchops also provide for movement in the other 2 planes as well. Tackling would be the easiest type of footy movement to visualise this transverse plane.

When considering the 3 planes of movement, refer to the pictures below, and imagine a big sheet of glass splitting the body in half, and imagine your body and limbs having to move along the glass whilst performing a particular movement. This is how to determine which plane/s you are moving in.

So how is this relevant and why is it important?

The reason that this is so relevant to a strength training program as it applies to footy is because most strength training programs that are being done around the place involve exercises and routines that are very sagittal plane dominant. This is despite the fact that footy certainly isn’t sagittal plane dominant. Kicking isn’t a sagittal dominant movement (but requires stability in all 3 planes, particularly around the hips) and has a large rotational (transverse) component (hence why leg extenstions do not have a very high carryover to kicking at all), tackling certainly isn’t sagittal dominant, and requires a great deal of rotational movement (so therefore a lot of transverse plane here), changing of direction requires stability and movement in all 3 planes, and even something as seemingly simple or trivial as pivoting on one leg as you change direction will send a great amount of rotational force through the knee joint, which so often is simply trained in the sagittal plane. In other words, to properly prepare the knee (as just one example) for the rigors of footy, strengthen it with movements in all 3 planes.

Key Point: Movements and tasks in footy occur in all 3 planes of motion at the same time – so condition accordingly

Just a quick extension as an example; You may be thinking ‘I do squats and deadlifts for my legs, they are functional’, and indeed these 2 exercises have become synonymous with ‘functional training’ in recent times. And they are great exercises. However, despite being fantastic full body exercises that work your whole body from head to toe, and require your core and stabiliser muscles to control the weight as well as require you to provide for the movement, these 2 exercises are performed almost entirely in the sagittal plane.

Another little interesting fact is that the majority of non-contact injuries that occur in sports occur in the transverse and frontal planes, yet the number of exercises that are done to train in these 2 planes are almost completely inverse, or opposite (that is the majority of strength training is done in the sagittal). A very interesting relationship to say the least. In some texts and papers, the number of non-contact injuries occurring in these 2 planes are up around the 80% mark, whilst the number of exercises or time spent training in the sagittal plane is also up around a similar level. In fact, I would estimate that 90% of strength training I see done at the gym are exercises done in the sagittal plane. This figure is obviously made worse as a result of all the bodybuilding or useless ‘mirror training’ that occurs by people only interested in the look, but even the athletes that I see training are only marginally better in terms of the 3 planes, despite the fact that their exercises are more movement focused.

Its not only about injury reduction, but also performance too

When it comes to developing strength, and then more specific expressions of power, these abilities are very movement specific or task specific. It would go without saying that just because you are very strong on the bench press, doesn’t mean that you will be very strong on the squat – as they are very different movements. This is probably obvious as they are different parts of the body. But more closely related are squats and lunges – and it has been shown that the carryover from double-leg strength to single leg strength is not particularly high. That is, just because someone is powerful in the squat movement, does not mean they will be powerful in the lunge movement. Similarly, just because someone is quite proficient with step ups or walking lunges, does not mean they will have a similar level of stability, strength and coordination in lateral step ups and multi-directional lunges. In other words, if building a base of functional strength in which you can power to improve on movements such as decelerating and changing directions when running, or jumping sideways off 1 leg to take a mark (strong frontal plane component), you must condition with movements that train in this same plane, rather than purely squatting for example, which as we mentioned earlier, falls very much into the sagittal plane. This is not saying squats a re not good, they are – and they will allow you to lift more maximal weight that lunging or stepping variations will, but they should be combined with exercises that also hit the other planes.

This is relevant to running too

This discussion point also applies not only to the strength work you do, but also will carryover to running – running by its very nature is a multi-planar movement – even when running in a straight line, you require hip stability/pelvic stability in the frontal plane, and there is also a considerable rotation component (transverse) in running also. So don’t think that even if you are running in a straight line, that this is a sagittal movement only. Additionally, much running movement in footy will also be sideways, and require decelerations, rotations and changing of direction. We have covered these things in more detail elsewhere, but this again shows the importance of conditioning in all 3 planes, given that that is the situation you will face in a game. And once again, it is important not only from an injury prevention point of view, but also a performance point of view.

So keep the images of the 3 planes imprinted in your head, and with every exercise, think about which plane or planes you are in, as well as how many planes you are using, because the more planes that are incorporated into training program, the more carryover to game day it has, and the better it is.

Strength Coach