A few weeks ago, a young Academy football goalie got in touch with me – he needed help to shout louder to get his voice heard on the pitch.
With defenders playing the ball in a dangerous area, it’s the goalie’s job to communicate key instructions to help them get the ball safely back into the attacking half.
This young footballer is extremely fit with a high level of expertise and skill in his ability to play football and goalkeeping in particular. But one factor in fitness training appears to be missing from the football coach’s handbook. Fitness training for your voice.
Fitness is often taken to mean the good condition of your body.
Experts define physical fitness as “one’s ability to carry out daily activities with optimal performance, endurance and strength – with the management of disease, fatigue and stress and reduced sedentary behaviour.”
We set to work to tackle the task of bringing the goalie’s voice up to match-fit level, using a range of voice exercises and breathing techniques.
Over the last weeks, we have worked on getting the maximum breath into the lungs, employing special stretches and breathing exercises. We have worked on warming up the voice, so it is ready for high volume, short sharp shouts. We have worked on ‘belts’ the brief bellow of instructions aimed to reach the ears of team defenders.
The vocal pitch is vitally important on the football pitch.
It’s a bit of a Goldilocks pitch, really. Pitching the voice too low and it doesn’t carry, pitching the voice too high and it isn’t heard. Finding the ‘just right’ pitch is essential and takes practice.
After a few weeks of specific voice training, has this helped?
My young client has built in the list of exercises I have developed for him and has created a confident daily regime. Each morning, he kicks off his voice coaching action list with a professional zeal. The goalie warms up his voice, warms up his articulators and warms up the muscles around his lungs using all the exercises we have worked on together. He also uses visualisation to project his voice and pass his sharp instructions down the pitch.
Here are some of his comments:
“I played on Saturday and I definitely felt my voice was stronger – I didn’t lose my voice at all.”
“Two weeks ago I lost [my voice] in the first half. I used my voice the whole game this week and I didn’t lose it.”
How do you feel about shouting at your team mates now?
“I’m getting more comfortable with that – and I’m remembering to drink more water to help lubricate my voice.”
If you need help to tackle a new situation and use your voice in a new way, there are a lot of techniques that can get you scoring the winning goals.
Whether it’s on the football pitch, in the courtroom or in the boardroom, it’s possible to access new ways of using your voice to help you win the match.
For more information or an informal chat about developing your speech skills with a voice coach, please get in touch.