It’s sad to know that people fail to appreciate the importance of warming up in kids soccer drills. It is something that being a coach, I would want to stress that warming up is obligatory and an important practice to lead the team towards a better start of the day. This issue is conveniently ignored as unimportant by the coaches in youth soccer drills. The consequences are then faced by the players when they suffer injuries in training.
This article gives you some nice tips on how to get the team warmed up. Teach the players to warm up by following those body movements that help all muscles to work up. This is the correct method of stirring up all the body parts. Rigorous sessions can result in stiffness and cramping of the muscles.
Tip 1: This requires the players to do an easy 5-7 minutes jog. It’s advisable to begin with a light jog and then move on to sprinting.
This must increase the pulse rate to at least 120 beats per minute. Still, measured growth is preferred. Then make them swing their legs forward cross-body for about 10 times each. Players should then finish by energetically stretching their body greater than 20 yards.
Tip 2: When we talk about this active stretching over 20 yards, a few warm up exercises of its own must go along with it. Like the players can bounce backward and forward. Teach the players cross stepping as well. High-knee carioca can also be taught to players. You can have these performed similar to sprinting.
Backward run is also a highly effective warm up drill in soccer drills for kids. But the best way to carry it out is to raise the heels up to the butt. It’s actually tough to practice it like this but there’s no choice as it’s the single most and right way of doing it.
Tip 3: There are other essential warm up exercises in kids soccer drills that build up the momentum to the actual session. Have your players bounce with rings and swings. These give an added element to the skipping exercises. You can also make them cross-over skip. Quick Hip Swings is somewhat difficult to practice but it highly useful and a tried and tested technique to warm up the body.
Subsequently the players can be made to do long shuffle with spins midway. The players should be made to practice moving their legs backward and forward. This activity is considered as extremely useful in body toning. In the same way, high leg forwards and backwards is also very effective.
Tip 4: Stretching should be adequate and correctly executed. For the legs, stretch hinging works the best. Make sure all players have worked out their quadriceps, calves, hamstring, and groin without fail. Stretching not only prevents injury but also increases the range of the muscles.
Also ensure that in soccer drills for youth, kids are discouraged from overdoing anything. They have the tendency to get carried away in excitement and injure themselves as a result.
Because all the relevant information on kids soccer drills is shared with you, please see that training sessions are always followed by warm up sessions. Our youth soccer coaching community is the place where you’ll many related news and articles. Become a member today and benefit from it.
Andre Botelho is known online as “The Expert Youth Soccer Coach” and his free ebooks and reports have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Learn how to skyrocket your players’ skills and make practice sessions fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Youth Soccer Drills.
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