Futbol and Heart Health: Study Explores Cardiovascular Benefits of Adults Playing Soccer

On an autumn Saturday morning, a small group of soccer players scrimmaged each other on the field of an Atlanta-area high school. Other groups sharing the field were seemingly more competitive and highly skilled, but this group was noticeably much happier—and older.

That is because these men and women, who ranged in age from 40 to 65, were there to not only participate in the sport but also a scientific study into the health effects of playing recreational soccer.

“Soccer has been very well studied, and we've shown in past studies that soccer can generate health benefits for different populations, but particularly for adults,” says Felipe Lobelo, MD, associate professor of global health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and principal investigator of the Heart Health United study, which is led by researchers from Rollins and the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

“Because of the nature of the sport, you do aerobic training while playing soccer, but you also do changes in direction, jumping, and loading of your bones and muscles. It’s also high intensity, meaning it is interval training. So it's a very efficient way to get different stimulus of exercise in a fun and engaging way.”

While some of the Emory team’s previous studies focused on other health benefits of soccer, such as diabetes prevention and cancer management, the Heart Health United study—which was supported by the American Heart Association—focused on improvements to cardiovascular health and opportunities to grow the Soccer for Health program Lobelo founded.

“Our previous studies have been controlled trials in which we asked participants to come to a university setting to participate in a research study. For this new project, we wanted to partner with community stakeholders—existing leagues and grassroots soccer associations—to see if we can train them to deliver recreational Soccer for Health programs in a way that is safe to deliver improvements in health and minimizes the risks of injuries, to see if we can scale the ability to do the programming in other cities,” says Lobelo, adding the Emory researchers collaborated with Sons of Pitches FC to deliver the program in Atlanta.

A Winning Proof of Concept

During the 12-week program, the study participants were asked to meet to play soccer twice a week and were provided basic information on how to improve their cardiovascular health, including information on healthy nutrition patterns, lipid, glucose, blood pressure and weight management, sleep hygiene, and stress control.

Average session attendance rate exceeded 60% among the study participants, who were also measured for specific biological indicators of cardiovascular health before and after the study. The researchers detected modest improvements in various areas, including:

• Blood pressure and cholesterol reductions
• Body composition (reductions in weight, BMI, waist circumference)
• Diet improvements (higher consumption of fruits, fish, beans, reductions in sweets)
• Higher participation in physical activity (outside of soccer sessions)
• Strength, agility and fitness improvements.

“We saw steady improvements, in a short period of time, for most of those participants who came to play soccer,” Lobelo says. “It’s a proof of concept that this program can be scaled up, so that it’s not just a research idea but it can also be a program in the future for a larger number of people.”

A Team Mentality 

To be eligible for the study, participants needed to be between 40-65 years old and must not have exercised more than twice a week or have taken part in other diet and exercise programs within the past three years.

Doraville resident Deena Wingard’s daughter played soccer through high school, so she had an interest in the sport for a long time but never expected to play it herself, especially after turning 57. This changed after Wingard responded to an advertisement for the Health Health United study.

“I’ve never played soccer before, but I’m hanging in there,” Wingard says. “One of the greatest things for me is that I can definitely notice it is increasing my cardio capacity in other aspects of my life, like when I do other activities and forms of exercise. I am not as winded at all, to where instead of just being able to go on long walks with people, I’ve been able to start running as well.”

Unlike Wingard, Buford resident David Massie played soccer for most of his life but thought study provided him an interesting opportunity to connect with the sport he loves in a different way.

“It’s kind of a standard practice. We go through the standard soccer warm-ups, we do some tactical drills learning the basics of soccer, and then we have a scrimmage for 20-25 minutes,” says Massie, who took part in the study at age 55. “But the beauty of this (program) is it sort of goes across all skill levels. I think the barrier to playing soccer as an adult is the leagues and the games that you play are with people who’ve played their whole lives. So as a newcomer, it can be daunting. Here, the team understands we have all different skills levels—the people are better skilled help the people who are just learning.

“And when you’re part of a team and you’re practicing, you have an accountability. It makes it easier to want to show up and participate, because you’re not just participating for yourself, but for your teammates as well. And participating is the biggest component for health.”