THERE is a huge variety in the level of success achieved in sport by individuals, yet there is a key common factor shared by truly successful sports stars: their belief about possibility.

If you look at your sport with a sense of possibility that is of a completely different magnitude than that shared by your competitors, then you're on the right road to success. What I've learned from my experiences from being around professional sports stars is that the really top players will believe it is possible for them to become successful and will take action accordingly.

In your dressing room this weekend you will see a lot of your team-mates who want success, but very few will have the belief that they are capable of achieving it.

In my time as physio at Darlington, Craig Liddle was the best I've seen at this, in fact he was so good he was capable of instilling belief in others with his commanding performances.

When things go wrong for you in sport, which happens no matter how good you are, something has to get you through the tough times. Belief does that and is created by learning all that you can to improve your game. One sports star that has unquestionable belief in his ability is David Beckham.

As you may know if you're a regular reader of the Local Heroes I spend some of my time in California working with a soccer academy and on this trip I managed to get to an LA Galaxy game to take a closer look at Becks and his preparation and recovery techniques.

Although the standard of football in the MLS is questionable - I'd say that you'll likely see better players at Middlesbrough and Hartlepool this season - Beckham's technical quality and fitness stand out magnificently.

Last weekend, the former England skipper took to the field approximately 45 minutes before kick-off and what followed was a perfect 30 minute warm up.

I've broken down his warm up routine for you to do it like Becks:

If you're 18 or over you need to be warming up for at least 25-30 minutes before a game and as you'll see it is broken down into three parts.

Beckham began with 7-8 minutes of jogging which aims to increase the body's temperature and as it suggests, warm the muscles up.

One thing I did note, and this is vital, Becks did not kick any balls in this first stage of the warm up. It's ok for you to dribble with a ball, but no striking.

Phase two is about stretching. Beckham's routine lasted for 10 minutes and involved mainly dynamic stretching with a little bit of static.

As a general rule you should be doing more dynamic stretching and never finish with static. You need to be 80/20 in favour of dynamic.

In phase three, lasting about 10-12 minutes, Beckham began the football specific work such as passing, heading, shuttles, twisting and turning and importantly, running backwards.

In this phase your body is warm and loose and is ready for you to mimic the role that you are about to play out in the next 90 minutes. Warm up times change according to age, if you would like to know how to adapt , please contact me paul@paulgoughphysio.com.

Next week I'll look at the secrets of Beckham's cool down routine.