Drills Soccer

You may not agree, but check this out. You can greatly benefit from weight training soccer when coaching your players in a sport that requires a lot of strength, and, or explosive power. If player do not need strength and power to a large extent even for them, strong abdominal and lower back muscles are helpful.

This article explains the basic principles of weight training for soccer using common activities for demonstrating those principles.

A vital principle in soccer strength training is, Specificity. The concept of this is to coach the players to put more time in working out in a way resembling their play on the field. Take for example running and swimming, a great exercise for runners and swimmers respectively.

In order to enhance strength an essential thing to be stressed upon while exercising is speed. A number of thing which are important while planning weight training programs are the players role in team sports, their age, physical and mental capacity to take stress, and the level at which they are to play.

Soccer Fitness

Having this information when preparing a fitness training program, can lead to a good start.

For over all physical conditioning you should arrange those exercises which develop specific training. For example: swimmers also run and lift weights to improve their aerobic and strength and power fitness.

Injury prevention is also something which is commonly overlooked although it is an important part of weight training soccer. It is necessary to prevent injury although it is not the direct factor to contribute towards to the play however it enables the players to maintain their fitness in order to perform their best at the special times of the season.

The movements executed in soccer are running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, preparing for a goal. It is therefore necessary that the chains of muscles used in these activities, called the “anterior and posterior chain,” are worked upon for strength, stability and power.

So for creating these muscles core lifts, like squats and deadlifts are important exercises. The normal soccer fitness program should useful if special importance is given to these two core lifts that are crucial for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

Swimming can also help to add strength to shoulders, arms and back muscles.

Ordinary strength program comprises of doing pretty heavy weights but only a few times. You know by now that soccer is a sport which requires sufficient strength with mobility, speed and stamina not just building bulk and mass like other sports.

Working on very special muscle groups can also enhance the performance even if primary strength, power or endurance gains are lacking. These muscle groups are the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that direct knee joint function.

This is it. Please try to consider these areas while weight training soccer as you know now that football unlike other sports do not require weights essentially. You can also join our youth soccer coaching community that has a plethora of informative articles, weekly newsletters, and videos to help you better understand the concepts of youth coaching.

Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn  how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Soccer Practice Tips.

It is very commonly heard nowadays that weight training soccer is a major factor of sports training in today’s times as it creates tougher and quicker muscles. The soccer fitness plan discussed in this article will help you prepare your players for playing soccer at a higher level.

The new theory of soccer weight training is to have strong and fast muscles with higher stamina rather that to keep on adding pounds of muscle bulk. Upper body weight training for soccer is not as important as is for the legs, but we still do it for overall conditioning and strength.

You should start your fitness training with the legs first. Begin with the squatting exercises. Now place the bar with which your players can make 20 reps. Considering that they have good strength, hence give them 220 pounds to start with. The exercise involves getting under the bar then placing it on the upper back and finally standing up with it.

They should then get out of the stands and stand with their feet and shoulder width apart. After that they must lower their body while holding on to the bar till their hips are a little bit below the top of their knee. At this point in weight training soccer, players should quickly rise to the full standing position and exhale. The players must be encouraged to continue even when they are worn-out till they do 20 reps.

Soccer Fitness

They should be given a break of 5-10 minutes before switching to the leg curl machine to work on hamstrings. Your players will be doing 4 sets of 15 reps each. The Stiff-Legged Dead lift with 4 sets of 15 reps should be completed between each set of Leg Curls. Hamstrings are vital for players speed, thus we would want them to be strong enough.

Finish the leg workouts on Standing calf-raise machine and doing 3 sets of 25 reps

Now for the upper body work out begin with the Incline bench press.
When they are done with the warm ups, they should continue with extra weights so that the next set of 10 reps becomes tougher. The players must repeat the 5 sets 10 times with weights, while stretching their chest and shoulders and at the end of each set stop and relax for 2 minutes.

Now we move to the second workout of this session of soccer strength training which are the pull-up exercises. Players should do this with their palms facing their body to work their biceps as well as the back. The last part of the upper body portion of this workout is to work out the abdominals and 5 sets of 20 or more reps of leg raises would do well. Conclude with 5 sets of 50 or more crunching exercises.

We would say in the end that to make quality players of soccer, weight training soccer is only a small fragment of the entire training program. To know more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community that has videos, articles, pod casts, and newsletters available for you.

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: Soccer Practice.

It’s very true, that while training your players with weights you should also consider improving their weight training soccer practices as the year goes by. And if you don’t, you’re giving up some great benefits of soccer-specific fitness.

Only a certain number of coaches’ know the correct ideology of soccer strength training. Today’s young soccer players must be “complete athletes”.

They are required to have swift movements plus the strength of upper body to resist challenges. Both aerobic and anaerobic stamina are needed at an extra ordinary level to keep going till the end. One would be destroying his players, the game and even himself if he just tells his players to lift weights like any body builder.

In body building and the sports which need strength primarily, players struggle to develop themselves in terms of size, bulk and ultimate strength. If it really reduces their aerobic endurance levels and even their speed and flexibility they will not be bothered much.

Soccer Fitness

In case you are planning to follow the typical 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions all year round, you are not going to get the best from your fitness training programs.

Let’s look upon the reasons.

In soccer, lower body strength is needed for kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting, and turning and also lays the foundation for great speed. Shielding the ball and making the opponts to stay away, requires upper body strength.

In weight training soccer, “strength” can be divided into three categories.

Absolute or Maximum Strength: It is the greatest force that a muscle group can exert in a quick, single contraction. A player for example doing 250lbs leg press has mightier strength than another doing 200lbs only.

A good absolute power is useful in soccer to keep the opponents off and defending the ball. Fundamentally it’s the foundation for muscular speed and power.

Muscular Power: Absolute strength and the speed of action both add up to produce power. Increasing any one of them, without reducing the other will generate a value added power called explosive power.

A large number of the magazines promote generalized weight training programs that will merely increase power. While those traditional soccer fitness programs can also be altered increasing the speed of contraction.

Strength Endurance: Strength or muscular stamina is the ability of a muscle group to carry out repeated and high-intensity movements. Strength endurance, similar to power is very vital to the game of soccer.

If you are a coach you should concentrate on increasing strength endurance during your soccer routine. General weight programs are not very useful if you use the common 3 sets of 8-12 reps each.

Do yourself a favor and invest some time to plan your weight training soccer program correctly and it will certainly pay off ten-fold on the field. You should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society for you can gain more from the reserve of soccer resources like articles, periodic newsletters, and videos at our youth soccer coaching community.

Andre Botelho is a recognized expert in youth soccer coaching. He influences well over 35,000 youth coaches each year with his unique coaching philosophy, and makes it really easy to explode your players’ skills and make training more fun in record time. To download your free youth soccer coaching guide visit: Weight training soccer.

How about if you get to learn that weight training soccer targets improving strength instead of just increasing muscle mass, particularly the development of muscle groups that support the joints? It calls for special fitness training sessions off the field and off the ball with a view to segregate and concentrate on certain muscle groups.

Focusing on these target areas will generate superior movement and flexibility causing higher velocity and strength.

Core: Technically the first area to focus on is the abdominals, commonly known as the core. “Core” is the portion of the body which starts from the breast bone till the lowermost part of the pelvis area. This part of the body is responsible for power generation, maintain the center of gravity and balancing the body.

Hence all the physical actions are initiated from the core A good and established abdominal core also leads to a well-balanced back, mainly the Lumbar part. It also improves the posture.

Soccer Fitness

Legs: The quadriceps are helpful in pumping the heart. Therefore they are the largest muscle groups of the human body and supply vast amount of blood to the heart. So, even walking is good exercise in weight training soccer as each leg helps the heart push a lot of blood through the entire body.

A lot of energy is exerted in hitting the ground, thus it is very important to have powerful and well-balanced leg muscles required by the hips, knees and the ankles.

Back, Chest and Neck: These parts of the body work as a connection between the “core” and the ends (legs, arms and the head). In soccer strength training, these areas should not be neglected or thought of as irrelevant, as they will develop as the rest of the body grows.

Arms: Arm is a useful part in playing soccer as they help in maintaining balance like when you jump to head a ball or when you suddenly alter directions. A powerful jump is made by throwing the arms in the air.

Plyometric: For excellent result you should use both weight training with carefully planned plyometric program. With this method you will see progress within the first half of the season.

The significant point is to give importance to the core as only a well-developed soccer fitness program to develop the core will certainly target these areas.

Program: Normally such a program should be designed which is measureable and specific to an individual’s requirement and used at the introduction of the season. The thorough improvement of an individual consist of aiming specific parts of the body first with the core and then heading for every section of the body.

In conclusion, this concept of weight training soccer can be better understood through mental training of the team where both the team and individual players encourage each other to own the program. You can subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community and find an answer to all questions as the site offers loads of information in form of articles, videos, and newsletters.

Andre Botelho is the author of “The Expert Youth Soccer Coaching Guide” and he’s a recognized expert in the subject of youth soccer coaching. Learn  how to explode your players’ skills and make coaching sessions fun in less than 29 days! Download your free pdf guide at: Kids Soccer Drills.