Manchester City Midfielder Stephen Ireland Reveals How Martial Arts Improved His Form

Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland had a fine campaign for the club over the last season, with a new-found consistency and maturity helping him to fulfil the potential he had shown only in flashes over the last few years.

Ireland spent last summer training in Glossop, the small town that borders Manchester and the Derbyshire Peak District, engaged in intensive martial arts training, and thinks that his new fitness and strength, both physical and mental, is due to the effort he made a year ago.

Ireland has thanked the personal trainer who got him through it, and also revealed that it shook him into finding a new lease of life in his playing career.

"Basically, we got battered by Middlesbrough at the end of last season, and at the time my girlfriend was due a baby," he explained to the club's official website.

"I wasn't able to leave the country, because we were waiting for the baby, so I thought I'd make use of my time. Ususally, I just laze about."

Last year, though, he decided to do something different, and made contact with the gym in Glossop, and planned a fitness programme.

"I was up every morning [at] 7.30, and shooting up to Glossop to do my sessions [of] two to three hours, and then back again.

"It's totally different to football, it's all explosive and [related to] power. You need to be really sharp.

"It was a shock to my system. I'd get there at nine o'clock and we'd do a fifteen to twenty minute warm-up. Then a weights session and then a kick-boxing session.

"Then we'd do some hill sprints or up steps - you really get worked out!

"I think it's the pain of doing it. Of going to Glossop and getting in the car. It's not just about the fitness. It's helped me as a person as well.

"It's helped me an awful lot. In pre-season I felt really good."

As for whether anyone else in the City squad would be following his lead, Ireland concluded by affiriming that there was some interest from another young player, adding, "Nedum [Onuoha] was really interested. He's interested in stuff outside of football."

Zack Wilson, Goal.com