---
title: 'Exercise Scientist Critiques Erling Haaland’s Freakish Athleticism'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=4-o4WwmfaeE'
video_id: '4-o4WwmfaeE'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 1179
---

# Exercise Scientist Critiques Erling Haaland’s Freakish Athleticism

> Source: [Exercise Scientist Critiques Erling Haaland’s Freakish Athleticism](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4-o4WwmfaeE)

## Summary

Dr. Mike Israetel critiques Erling Haaland's freakish athleticism, training regimen, and dietary habits. He explains the science behind soccer-specific strength training, debunks common performance myths (like hypoxic chambers and wobble boards), and separates genuine best practices from mere routine.

### Key Points

- **Introduction & Haaland's profile** [00:18] — Haaland is a 6'5" soccer star with a muscular build; Dr. Mike will review his training, daily schedule, and diet.
- **Sport practice is paramount** [02:36] — Sport training (drilling/playing) is the primary way to get good at a sport. Gym work is for strength, flexibility, and injury prevention.
- **Three lower-body training priorities** [03:10] — Anterior chain (abs, hip flexors, quads) for kicking power; vertical pushing (squats) for sprinting/jumping; posterior chain (hamstrings, glutes, back) for acceleration and injury reduction.
- **Flexibility & volume management** [05:58] — For flexibility, regular intense holds (20–30 seconds) are needed; taper volume gradually after season, don't go from zero to high volume in preseason – a known injury predictor.
- **Debunking wobble board & activation** [08:24] — The wobble board and glute activation claims are pseudoscience; the only way to build strength is with maximal intent/resistance.
- **Hypoxic chamber critique** [10:21] — Hypoxic/high‑heat training depresses performance, so you cannot push systems to their adaptive threshold. Psychologically it may help, but physiologically it's inferior to training in optimal conditions. Separate passive hypoxia exposure if needed.
- **Raw milk vs. pasteurized** [14:07] — Raw milk offers no proven benefits and carries a small risk of infection. Pasteurization kills bacteria – a good thing.
- **Milk's nutritive value** [14:44] — Milk is a superfood – high‑quality protein, carbs, fats linked to disease reduction and longevity, great for muscle building.
- **Animal welfare** [15:52] — Ethical treatment of animals and ethically raised meat/animal products are good; factory farming is likely to be viewed negatively in the future.
- **Critical thinking & RPU promotion** [16:50] — Some athletes' methods work, others don't; critical evaluation using sport science is essential. Promotion of free RP University lectures.

## Transcript

Oh, he's somehow pulled that.
>> Whoa. That's like using your feet like
tennis rackets.
>> Bonado Silver arriving. HOLLAND
ARRIVING. HOLLAND.
>> I'M SORRY. I don't even know what
happened that time. How do you train to
do those things?
[music]
Hey folks, Dr. Mike here for RP Strength
and a longtime professor of exercise
sport science. And my most glorious
achievement is that back in Russia when
I was a little kid, I played a little
bit of soccer at preschool.
>> Okay.
>> But somebody who played a lot more
soccer is Mr. Erling Holland. And he is
a giant soccer star from Europe. So for
the Americans, this is a sport that they
call football. Which I tell you what,
brother. I've seen me some football.
That ain't it.
We're reviewing this young man because
he is physically insanely imposing. 65
and pretty jacked for a soccer player.
Let's find out what he can do, what he
does for this daily schedule, how he's
training, maybe how he's eating, and uh
see if we can't make some sense of shit.
You know what I'm saying? Talk a little
smack about how good I would have been
if I was allowed by the powers that be
to go up the ranks and eventually play
for Man City, which is the proper way to
say the name of that soccer team, which
the other one is Man, you know it. You
know it.
Bernardo Silva arriving. Harland
arriving. HARLAND. [screaming]
>> You just kind of have to know where the
goal is, huh? Intense.
>> Why are you pretending? I knew you were
that coordinated.
>> This time into the penalty area in
towards Harland.
>> I'm sorry. I don't even know what
happened that time.
>> Oh, he's somehow put that.
>> Whoa. That's like using your feet like
tennis rackets.
>> That was like the back of his side of
his shin.
>> Incredible. How on earth did he score
that? He might well smile. Incredible.
>> He bounced it.
>> Yeah. He's like, I like what they did.
Why is this man hanging on me? I don't
like that.
>> It had to be pre-ordained.
>> Unreal.
>> Say what you like. You just knew that
Erling Harland WOULD HAVE THE FINAL
WORD.
>> One thing also that's impressive is the
sacrifice the body instinct. He didn't
so much care how he was going to be
landing. He just kind of went for it.
Unreal.
>> So, how do you train for that, Mike? In
ideal world, how do you train to do
those things?
>> How do you train to do those things?
You just get real strong in the
weightlifting movements and at some
point you can just do that. You get huge
and get on steroids and get a
bodybuilder and then your soccer
abilities just skyrocket. No, wait, I
said that backwards. The way you get
better at any sport [music] is
predominantly playing and or drilling
and or using some kind of subsection of
technique from that sport. Sport
training is what gets you good at
sports. There are ways to be able to
become more flexible, to be able to kick
harder, to be able to sprint faster, and
to be able to jump higher, and to be
less likely to get hurt after landing
and after getting kicked and shoved by
other people. That is resistance
training in the gym. Mostly sets of five
to 10 reps, just a few sets a few times
a week. For the large muscle groups of
the body, especially for soccer, what is
really, really critical is to train
three qualities of the lower body. You
can train the up body a little bit in
soccer. That's totally cool. But the
lower body needs three training
qualities to happen. Three training
priorities. One is the anterior chain.
[clears throat] It is your abdominal
muscles and your hip flexors and and
technically the muscles that lift the
front of your foot. And so these you can
train with a variety of things. Leg
lifts, crunches, all sorts of ab
machines. And especially if you involve
the hip flexors to a large extent, this
can improve your technique and running
speed and it can make you less prone to
injury kicking and it can make your
kicking power massive. So by the way,
quad extensions, leg extensions are a
part of this execution of the chain,
which you know is a lot of the
musculature involved in kicking a ball
really hard. But remember, kicking a
ball hard also because you pull your
foot really far back before it stretches
out the abs. So the first muscle to
contract is your abdominal muscles. The
next muscles to contract are your hip
flexors, bringing your hips forward. The
last muscles to to contract are your
quadriceps in order to get that ball
kicked at the very end of that chain.
So, that's priority number one. Priority
number two is most running and jumping
is limited by vertical forces. And so,
getting as much as you can uh in
squatting, basically vertical pushing
movements with your legs. You can leg
press, you can hack squat. Squatting is
probably a really, really good choice
there. deep squats for sets of five or
so increase that number and all of a
sudden you're going to be just faster
and you're going to be able to jump
higher. And lastly is the posterior
chain. That is your calves to some
extent, but especially your hamstrings,
your glutes, and all the way up your
entire back, especially lower back. That
is what allows you to pull along the
track as you run. It's really, really
critical in changing directions. And so
posterior chain also reduces hamstring
injuries a ton. So those are three
priorities for lower body that are
critical for becoming the best soccer
player you can be. That is something
we're looking for in very very good
ancillary strength and conditioning
training to regular sport soccer
training. Remember strength conditioning
for soccer can be like 2 hours a week
total and that's really all you need.
Maybe some of these folks do it, maybe
some don't. It gets really wacky
training professional athletes. At the
end of the day, they're in charge of
their training and not you as a strength
conditioning professional. So a lot of
them really kind of do sort of a pick
and choose. So his motion when he come
in the team was that you remember
>> go further than this.
>> Yeah, man. That's a problem. It's a
problem because in the in the soccer
field, your feet and legs will be put
into positions randomly, maybe not
randomly, but as part of the game game
play that can overstretch some of your
muscles. And so if you're more flexible
and more mobile, you're going to have
lower injury rate and more capability,
especially in his case to kick with all
those weird kicks we saw earlier. You
need to have good mobility or
flexibility to score these crazy goals.
No, Mario. So, we need to keep this.
This is really important.
>> The important thing for flexibility
training is that it has to be very
regular like most days of the week. And
it has to be pretty intense. You know,
30 second holds at a time, 20 second
holds at a time, relatively painful.
That that's how you do that if you want
to push the pace on flexibility,
mobility.
>> Today, I feel extra stiff in both
hamstrings, so I'm going to do both.
I've seen so many people that come in in
preeason, work crazy hard, after two
weeks, you don't see them anymore.
[music]
>> Yeah. I mean, a lot of those people in
preseason work crazy hard. This is a
real big problem in soccer. A lot of
folks just don't do very much before
preseason starts and then preseason
coaching staff decides it's going to be
really hard cuz you want to kind of
toughen the guys up and the volume
skyrockets from almost nothing to
something really high. One of the most
reliable predictors of injury in sport
science is alterations in volume,
escalations in volume. So, if you go
from very little volume to very much
volume, the probability you're going to
have a bad time is high. It's very high.
And so, what he's talking about here
makes perfect sense because a lot of
guys go super super hard in preeason and
then just get so mangled up and so
injured in small ways and sometimes
large ways that by the end of preseason
they're just kind of washed out. Not
what you want to do. The real secret to
sport is to never back away completely
from sport. you know, outside of 2 weeks
after the end of your season, just go on
vacation to wherever these guys go. But
most of the time, you should be keeping,
if it's soccer, you got to keep your
feet on the ball most of the year. What
you don't want to do is just like go
months without doing the sport
altogether. And then when you are ready
to come back and let's say preseason's
pretty tough, take a couple weeks to
slowly ramp up how much volume and
intensity you're doing. Take a little
bit of um very easy half week before
preseason starts and then they're just
going to try to kick your ass in
preseason, but you're already in good
shape. So, we want to do is do less of
this, right, in the yearly volume
intensity fluctuations and more smooth
curves. Smooth curves are going to keep
you in shape more. They're going to have
you're going to have a better time. Your
skill and technique development is going
to progress better and your probability
of injury is going to be way way lower.
Is it always fun? No. But if you're a
pro alete, you got to do what it takes.
And if you want to be the best athlete
you can be, you got to do what it takes.
>> I need to have good balance and I need
to have good stability in my ankles.
>> That's why I like to work with this kind
of thing. Don't think of anything. Just
stand a bit on it and work the brain and
the ankle. Make the ankle work, not the
body.
>> Cool. So, ankles don't uh are actually
composed of muscles. Those are the
muscles in your leg that do that. Um,
this kind of thing might work, but it's
highly unlikely it does a whole lot of
anything. This isn't specific at all to
soccer whatsoever.
um just moving around dynamically in the
field of play uh with doing various
drills and just playing soccer is going
to take care of this way better and it's
going to be more specific to soccer.
It's not really clear that general
balance improves in adults outside of
with lots of volume of exposure.
Specific balance, you can get better at
this task, but does that transfer to
soccer play? The answer is probably not.
>> This is actually good for [music] my
glutes as well. My glutes are strong
now. They are working good. they're
really activated, which is
>> Yeah. So, that's just total BS right up
front. And uh, you know, Erling's not
the only person who thinks that, so I'm
not trying to come down on him super
hard. It's just the vast majority of
people think that like when you can feel
a muscle being active, that's a good
thing. You know, like if you write with
a pencil, your forearms uh something you
can feel being [music] active. We don't
exactly recommend like book authorship
manually with a pencil as like the best
form growth routine. Um, just cuz a
muscle's active doesn't mean it's being
pushed to its limits. The only way it
can be pushed to its limits is if you
ask it to move as quickly as possible
for speed or as as much resist against
as much resistance as possible with
maximum intent to move for strength. And
so none of these things are happening
here. So really it's just kind of like
practice doing a neat trick that's not
so neat. Folks, there is still more
video to come, but we have a juicier,
lengthier, girthier, vanier version of
this video in our member section. We
also have tons of other amazing content.
It's a super small amount of money, but
a great value. Go ahead and give it some
clicks and we're going to be back to the
video right now.
>> Going in the hypoxic chamber. 40° in
there. 3,500 m above sea level. So, I
need to have this on for a bit better
[music] breathing.
>> 40°. So, it's really hot and there's not
a ton of air.
>> Er, can you tell me what the benefits of
training at altitude and heat are?
>> Yes, I can. I struggle more in here. Go
out on the pitch, I can run even more.
>> Yeah. This is a common logic that's not
entirely wrong and it's very sensible on
on face value. And the idea is that if
you make your training really difficult,
then you go out on the pitch, you go out
on the soccer field and it feels much
easier. But there are two things going
on here and we have to separate them.
One is the physiological and one is the
psychological. Psychologically is
absolutely a valid thing. If you train
like, you know, in total shitty
conditions, very uh like low oxygen,
very high heat, it's going to make your
training miserable. And then when you
actually go out and do the thing in real
life, you're like, man, this feels easy
and it's confident building and it's
empowering and I love it. It's a great
idea. The physiological thing is where
the problem is. When you train your
physiology, you want to train in
conditions that push your physiology as
much as possible. Imagine this. Imagine
you were training a powerlifter. just to
keep it super simple. And his job is to
try to squat as much as possible. If you
give him a bar that's wobbly and you
give him a t-shirt that's slick, so the
bar keeps moving on his t-shirt. You
give him no chalk so he can't even grip
the bar properly when it's on his back.
You give him sandals instead of
weightlifting shoes and [music] you make
the floor slippery as well. What he's
going to do is he's going to find that
kind of training incredibly difficult
and frustrating, which psychologically
is awesome because when he gets a really
good locked in setup with proper gear,
proper bar, proper floor, proper shoes,
he's going to be like, "Oh my god, I
feel like aing machine." The problem is
that when he's in that really nasty
training situation where he's doing
everything wrong and everything is all
wrong with bad shoes, bad grip, bad
floor, bad bar, bad shirt, he's his load
that he can use for the reps that he
wants to do is lower than otherwise.
lower even than his adaptive thresholds
main hump. So he's training so easy now
it feels hard but it's so easy that it
he's not even getting a good training
effect in a hypoxic climate you get less
oxygen. Um that is training high
training at altitude or or or basically
simulated altitude. And if you're
training with high heat conditions,
those both depress your performance,
which means that you're not training the
systems at close to their full capacity,
which is how those systems get better.
So the better idea is to train in a
very, very pleasant condition. So you
caning just go and reach maximum
velocities, maximum endurance outputs,
maximum backto-back performances, the
whole thing. That's how you have to
become uncomfortable in a way. the
discomfort has to be concordant to you
doing better, to pushing those systems
to become better. That's awesome. And
then if you want the extra
cardiovascular ability, you can spend a
few hours a day in a hypoxic chamber
that doesn't cost you nearly as much
fatigue, it's not interfering with your
sport training, and you get a little bit
of the best of both worlds. To be
completely honest, if you just train
really, really hard in normal
conditions, and you also get lots of
great recovery, this whole hypoxic super
high heat situation, not ideal. There is
a situation in which you would want to
train in high heat and that's this. If
you know for a fact your schedule
includes going down to play the World
Cup or some shit in like Saudi Arabia or
like Brazil and it's going to be like
45° Celsius or like 110° F. Yeah, man.
You better get some practice runs in
really high heat cuz otherwise it can
shock the out of you. And if you're used
to it, heat adaptation takes typically a
few days, few weeks to catch a little
bit of a drift for you. Once you've
caught it, man, the heat doesn't bother
you as much. But that would be real
smart. this. Yeah, I'm not so sure about
this.
>> I think a lot of things is logical. You
should have a early start with fresh
[music] daylight and fresh air. Ideally,
go out for a small walk.
>> Andrew Huberman,
I go for a little walk in my perfectly
[music] white kitchen. Everything's pure
and Nordic looking. He's uh drinking raw
milk.
white people.
Raw milk has no known advantages or
hypothetical advantages over pasteurized
milk except one advantage. White people
have a lot of feelings about it. Whites
stay calm. All love and respect. Um, raw
milk does have the very low but known
probability to get you substantially
more sick because pasteurization does
this crazy thing called killing
bacteria. It's great. You should look
into it.
>> I think it's a really [music] beneficial
thing to do and this is a logical thing.
We need a little bit of this in milk.
>> Milk. I love it. I can't get enough of
that accent.
>> Superfood as well.
>> Milk is absolutely a superfood. Milk has
the highest quality protein known to
man. It's got excellent amounts of
carbohydrates. It's got amazing fats
that even if you have lots of milk fat
that uh it's been shown to reduce your
probability of all kinds of disease and
help you live longer. Milk, minimally
processed milk products [music] areing
unbelievable for health and for getting
you jacked and for everything. As long
as you're controlling your calories,
man, even whole milk is amazing. And you
know, the Nordic peoples drink lots of
milk and boy are they fun to look at.
So, I think that's all a proof of what I
need.
>> It's [music] good for us. It's good for
our stomach. It's good for our skin.
It's good for our bones and muscles.
>> All true. I like uh fatty steaks the
most. It's good quality. That's what I
like the most. And they take good care
of the animals, which is also important.
>> A dude, the Nordic peoples are the best
peoples. We even care about the animals.
You filth the Americans and with your
slaughter fests. You couldn't care less,
could you? You just need a bag of
Cheetos and the bald eagle shaped soda
can and you're you're happy.
>> Bald eagle soda. Mike, if you want to
start that business, I am in.
>> Yes. Anyway, actually, cons all all due
respect, uh concerns about animal
welfare are super super awesome.
Treating animals properly and only uh
like for milk, treating them properly
all the time and for meat only
slaughtering them at the very tail end
of their life. Um, [music] and taking
care of them and having awesome free
pastures for them and protecting them
from sheepers
and protecting them from disease and
predators. It's just like a really swell
thing to do. I'm super super for it. I
think most people should be trying to
eat either lab grown meat, which is soon
to become available, or ethically raised
meat and and animal products. That's
awesome. Uh I think like factory
farming, the really gross kind where the
animals are super mistreated. I think
we're going to look back at it in a few
years, a few decades, and be like, "Holy
shit, this is really, really bad." Uh so
this is great that he's promoting this
sort of thing.
You guys, when good athletes do things,
some fraction of what they do is like
you can learn from because it's really
good stuff. And like with all of us,
some fraction of what they do just
doesn't make them any better at sporting
could actually be making them worse.
Figuring out which is which is a matter
of sometimes just like nobody knows. But
a lot of times just learning sport
science and stuff like that and learning
training and and and physiology to like
at least for the lowhanging fruit to
make sense of stuff that some athletes
are doing, it might not be a great idea.
But we actually have an entire channel
for that. If you just want to learn
ultra in-depth physiology, anatomy, and
well, really mostly just how to train
people and how to help them diet and how
to help them recover, especially if
you're a coach or personal trainer, but
not necessarily just for your own
edification. We have an entire channel
called RP University, RPU. People seem
to like the channel. It's really just me
on there twice a week yapping about an
entire curriculum. So, we recorded a few
summers ago, we recorded like 210
lectures for entire university level
curriculum to teach you how to do
exercise properly and teach you how to
impose it on others properly. It sounded
weird, but I guess that's what I meant
to be a great coach for yourself and for
others. And it costs a bit of money,
which is the money that it took for you
to establish your internet connection,
get a phone, cuz the shit is completely
free. And we're just going to be posting
all the lectures in sequence from now
until a couple of years from now until
we've posted all of them. And then we're
also going to buffer that out with
probably even more specific content, Q&A
and all this other stuff. So, cuz you
know, we've gotten to be pretty big as a
channel now. We do mostly bullshit
videos like it's just entertainment or
whatever. Maybe you learn something
maybe you don't. Some people seem to
like, we are still science pill and and
and all that shit completely. And so, an
RPU channel, if you miss the old school
RP style of just me lecturing about
technicalities and making a couple of
dick jokes every now and again, you're
gonna love RPU. So, go ahead and check
that out. And um Early Holland gets a
very imposing Norwegian man out of 18
and uh go and buy all the raw milk you
can get naked.
>> Okay?
>> Just douse yourself with the raw milk.
Record that. Send it to me. Mike's nasty
webcam videos.com.
And I will see you guys next time.
>> Okay, hear me out, Mike. A raw milk ice
bath inside a sauna wearing mouth tape.
>> Only if we reduce the oxygen of the room
as [laughter] well and I have to breathe
the milk.
>> Money.
>> Look at me. I'm perfectly recovered in
one second. [laughter] That's how it
would work. These homies.
[music]
All right, that was fun. Scott, I feel
like my generic Nordic accent is back
and feels pretty good. What do you think
about that?
>> I love it.
>> Good. If you love other things, they're
right here for you to click on. See you
next [music] time.