Career | When Matti Lindholm ended his sports career, he did 14 training sessions the very next week – and there was a good reason for that

Helsinki Matti Lindholm is one of those people who have done something first in Finnish sports.

Lindholm was the first Finn to play American football as a professional in the United States.

In 1987, Lindholm signed a contract with the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL league, went to the team’s tryouts and camp, and played in two training games. After them, however, a place in the actual team did not arise.

In the opinion of many, Lindholm, who played as a linebacker and distinguished himself with his athleticism, was the best Finnish player in the first decade of the sport in Finland.

In 1991, Lindholm played one season, i.e. ten games, in the Sacramento Surge team of the WLAF league (World League of American Football), which was founded alongside the NFL.

In his career, Lindholm achieved, among other things, two European Championship golds, three European Championship silvers and five Finnish championships in East City Giants (ECG). In 2004, he was the first to be elected to the Finnish Hall of Fame, along with four other men with merit in the sport.

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“Before that I was really bad at sports”

Lindholm’s the fact that he made it to the gates of the NFL, even though he only started the sport at the age of 17, says something about his potential in Yankee football.

Before that, Lindholm, who grew up in Roihuvuori in Eastern Helsinki, had practiced karate for three years.

“From there came coordination and everything else. Before that I was really bad at sports. Long limbs and a hunchbacked guy, and no coordination. When growth started and strength came, things started to happen,” recalls Lindholm, who will soon turn 60.

Lindholm started playing in the attack line, but ended up in the defense as a supporter, which requires speed and game reading skills in addition to strength.

“As a linebacker, I could move the way I wanted. It immediately felt like its own playground. It is said among coaches that the sport chooses its players. You go to a sport for which you have good qualities and in which there have been successes. That linebacker spot basically picked me. I was able to do things there that were natural and flowed easily.”

At his best, Lindholm’s result in the bench press was 200 kilos, in the leg squat 270 kilos, and he ran 40 yards in 4.66 seconds.

In the tests of the Minnesota Vikings, he was one of the strongest and fastest in his position.

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“I got spikes from Arto Bryggare”

Lindholm says that he practiced speed with Finland’s top sprinters. One of the training buddies was Jouni Myllymäkiwho won the Finnish championship in 200 meters in 1991.

“From Arto Bryggare i got spikes. I had a lot of contact with the sprinters of Viipur Athletes and especially Jouni.”

Lindholm states that for him the jump to becoming a professional player was huge.

“Even those players who came through universities said that the jump to becoming a professional was insanely big, even though they played in the starting lineups of big universities. Of course, in retrospect, you can say that university would have been a good experience, but it wouldn’t have been clear to become a professional either.”

In the last years of his career, Lindholm worked as a defense player coach at ECG. His career ended at the age of 33 in 1995.

Career the events of the week following the end of the game tell in part why Lindholm was nicknamed Ääri-Matti by his teammates.

“When I get excited about something, I have to do it immediately. I once had a sleeping bag that was intended for up to 30 degrees below zero. It had to be tested in 20 degrees below zero next to the cabin to see if you can sleep in it. It went well,” explains Lindholm about the nickname.

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“I did everything I wasn’t allowed to do before”

When he ended his sports career, Lindholm got excited about the freedom that had begun.

“When I finished, the following week I had 14 workouts.”

The reason for this contracting was that Lindholm wanted to enjoy exercise, which was not possible in the programmed life of an athlete.

“I did everything I hadn’t been allowed to do before. I roller skated, swam, climbed. Suddenly I could do anything. After a week, I thought that 14 is quite a lot,” Lindholm grins.

During his career, Lindholm systematically tried to gain muscle mass, and the maximum weight of a 185-centimeter man was 105 kilograms.

“Maintaining that weight was not smart from a health perspective. After that week of 14 workouts, I began to systematically lose weight. I did long, up to four-hour sprints to get my body to a certain size.”

At that time, Lindholm also went to a few mountain biking events.

“Then the skills ran out. When I had fallen once in Keskuspuisto and Fillari had fallen on my head, I decided to start running. Then I ran a couple of marathons.”

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“I collected the dancers performing on the weekend”

At the Helsinki marathon, he remembers that he ran a time of 3:52 and in Stockholm 3:42.

“Then the knee started to hurt.”

But the weight fell off. It was at its lowest around 85 kilos and settled around 90.

Playing on vacation, Lindholm had studied for four years in Stockholm to become a naprapath and then continued as a physiotherapist in Helsinki.

While living in Stockholm, Lindholm played American football on the local team in the autumn. The activity was a bit more relaxed, because in Sweden the sport gained a foothold later than in Finland.

During his working career, Lindholm had a reception on Friday afternoons at the National Ballet for 15 years.

“I sorted out the dancers performing on the weekend if they had any problems. Then there were musicians and singers, but the dancers had priority for those reception times.”

Is not it is common for an athlete to make a significant career in a completely different sport after quitting. For Lindholm, that sport has been golf. So he moved from a violent contact sport to an extremely sensitive skill sport.

In golf, he has worked for ten years as captain of the amateur national team, as a physical trainer and as a physiotherapist.

In Finland, the national amateur golf team can be compared to the youth national team of most other sports.

For example, practically all of Finland’s current top professional players have been in the national team before and are therefore familiar to Lindholm.

Lindholm got his first touch with golf through the top domestic players of the past years, when some of them visited him as clients.

“At that time I had a certain idea about golf, and it was a bit of a wrong idea.”

Lindholm started playing golf himself in his forties in 2002. He also went to talk about things like nutrition to the juniors of the Helsinki Golf Club, who themselves asked him for this help.

This group also included the current leader of the Finnish PGA, i.e. the association of professionals Teemu Laakso.

Guided by the tips he received, Lindholm applied to the United States for trainings organized by the well-known Titleist Performance Institute (TPI), which were related to golf physical training and body mapping.

In the national team Lindholm has cooperated with coaches Pasi Purhonen, Mikael Mustonen as well as now Jussi Pitkänen and Petteri Nykyn with.

Along the way, he has captained several women’s and men’s national teams that have achieved EC and WC medals.

The brightest medal came in 2018, when the men reached the European team championship. That group included, among other things, a player currently playing on the main European tour Sami Välimäki.

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“We walked two lanes together and didn’t say anything to each other”

“Every team is different, how its dynamics are created between people and what their common values ​​and operating principles are. Usually you try to create a certain state of mind in which you can operate”, Lindholm characterizes his job as a captain.

“You have to listen to the group, so that the team’s own thing can be achieved and that everyone can be themselves and get to a liberated space.”

Lindholm says he senses that his own background as an athlete – albeit from a completely different sport – has helped him in his work with the national golf team.

“I can identify with the situation a young athlete is in, and of course I try to help.”

Sometimes the help can even be without words. Lindholm remembers how now playing on the main tours of the United States and Europe Sanna Nuutinen asked him in the middle of the EC competition just to walk with him.

“We walked two lanes together and didn’t say anything to each other. Then Sanna said ok, now you can leave. It helped that someone was present,” says Lindholm.

Fresh ones moments of success in the national golf team, Lindholm got to experience at the turn of August and September, when the Finnish men finished tenth in the World Team Championships in France. It was a tough achievement in the competition of 71 countries and the best Finnish achievement in this competition in 20 years.