Soccer Drills

It’s not necessary that you agree, but you should listen to this. While coaching players on games that involves great strength, and, or explosive power weight training soccer is very useful. 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 will teach you the basic theories of weight training for soccer using simple methods for presenting those theories.

Specificity is a common principle in soccer strength training. The idea is that to train your players to practice in a manner which is similar to that when they play on the fields. Take for example running and swimming, a great exercise for runners and swimmers respectively.

With a view to develop power, the speed of the training or exercise is vital. Weight training programs should be designed in a manner that takes in to account the individuals role in team sports, their age, physical and mental ability to take pressure, and the level at which they are to play.

Soccer Fitness

All this information is useful for a trainer in designing a fitness training program, to make a good start.

Physical conditioning usually requires activities that improve specific training. For instance, to improve the aerobic and strength and power fitness, swimmers also run and perform weight lifting.

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.

A sport like soccer includes activities such as running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, going for a hit. To develop strength, stability and power the chain of muscles titled as the “anterior and posterior chain,” involved in these activities should be given attention.

The best exercises for developing these muscles are the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts. An all-round soccer fitness program may also help, but these two core lifts work wonders for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

The program can also consist of swimming to highlight the areas of shoulders, arms and back muscles.

Strength programs normally consist of heavy loads and a small number of repetitions. As we have talked earlier some sports require mass and power but some others like soccer requires a good combination of strength with flexibility, speed and resistance; especially the midfielder.

Even if primary strength, power or endurance gains are absent, developing particular muscle groups would also help to increase performance. These muscle groups are the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that direct knee joint function.

So there you have it. Keep these points in mind when weight training soccer since football is a sport for which you may not initially consider weights to be an advantage. You should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society 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.

Weight training soccer is vital for sports training in today’s soccer world; you might be aware of that already, as it is required for creating tougher and faster muscles. Your players will have a chance to play at a higher level if they develop themselves using this soccer fitness plan discussed as follows.

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. For overall conditioning and strength we still continue with the upper body weight training however its significance is not as much as the leg strength.

I recommend you begin your fitness training with the legs. It should be started with the crouching exercises first. Now place the bar with which your players can make 20 reps. Let’s say they are pretty strong, so tell them to begin with 220 pounds. The technique is to get under the bar and standing up with it resting it across the upper back.

Now they must stand keeping their shoulders and feet width apart. They must hold it as they go down until their hips are slightly lower than the top of their knees. When they reach this level in weight training soccer, they should stand up quickly and exhale. They should be motivated to do this for 20 reps even when they are totally worked out.

Soccer Fitness

Give them a break for about 5 to 10 minutes and then start with the leg curl machine to work on the hamstrings. 4 sets of 15 reps each should be completed by them. The Stiff-Legged Dead lift with 4 sets of 15 reps should be completed between each set of Leg Curls. As player’s speed is greatly improves by strong hamstrings, so they should be very tough.

The leg exercises will be completed with 3 sets of 25 reps on the Standing calf-raise machine.

Now for the upper body work out begin with the Incline bench press.
Now when the they are warmed up they must go on by including enough weights so that the next set of 10 reps is harder to do. They are supposed keep on doing weights for a total of 5 sets of 10 reps, while stretching their chest and shoulders, however taking a break of 2 minutes between each set.

The second exercise for this portion of the soccer strength training is pull-ups. Their palms must be facing their body so that they can exercise their biceps and back muscles. The last phase of upper body exercises is to concentrate on the abdominals and leg raises of about 5 sets of 20 or more repetitions. The last in this work out are the crunches do 5 sets of 50 or more.

As a final point weight training soccer is only a minor portion of the comprehensive training program required. You are invited to become a member of our youth soccer coaching society to gain more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer; The society 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.

The truth is that if that you should concentrate on enhancing your team’s weight training soccer sessions when you train them with weights. You will be losing numerous advantages of soccer-specific fitness if you ignore it.

Only a certain number of coaches’ know the correct ideology of soccer strength training. Youth soccer players are required to be “complete athletes” now.

They have to be quick off the mark and have to have the upper body strength to defy challenges. These players are required to have exceptional level of aerobic and anaerobic resistance to last that period. One would be destroying his players, the game and even himself if he just tells his players to lift weights like any body builder.

Bodybuilders, and athletes whose sports are mainly strength based, train to increase size, bulk and utmost strength. It does not matter much to them if it harms their aerobic endurance levels or even their speediness and flexibility.

Soccer Fitness

One would miss out a great deal from your fitness training sessions if he/she also uses the typical 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions the entire year.

Let’s understand why

While playing soccer, lower body strength is very important. It is required for kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting, and turning and also helpful in enhancing speed. While the strength of the upper body, is also important. It is used to shield the ball keeping off the opponents.

When it comes to weight training soccer, we can divide “strength” into three broad categories.

Absolute or Maximum Strength: The highest level of power your muscles can exert in a single, quick motion. A player for example doing 250lbs leg press has mightier strength than another doing 200lbs only.

During soccer, this kind of strength is helpful in keeping the opponent off and defending the ball. Most essentially, it is the basis for muscular pace and potential.

Muscular Power: Absolute strength and the speed of action both add up to produce power. Explosive power will be produced if one of them is enhanced while keeping the other one the same.

By just following the traditional weight training program that many popular fitness magazines promote; only power will be increased. But even those generalized soccer fitness programs can be improved if you deliberately enhance the speed of contraction.

Strength Endurance: Muscular stamina is the potential of a muscle group to perform continues and high-power activity. Like power, strength endurance is also very important to soccer game.

A great significant should be given to include strength endurance in your program. However if you don’t alter your training programs and continue with 3 sets of 8-12 reps each, your training programs will not reap much of productive results.

Your game is about to improve 10 folds if you just put a little time in planning your weight training soccer program correctly. You are welcomed to our youth soccer coaching community coming up with brand new methods and techniques it has thousands of relevant articles, videos and periodic newsletters.

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.

You would be surprised to find out that the objective of weight training soccer is to develop the muscles that support the joints instead of just focusing on growing muscle mass. For this purpose special fitness training programs should be designed to let the players have some time, away from both the field and the ball to work on target muscle groups.

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

Core: The number one part to be focused named as “core”, refers to abdominals. The area of the body below the breast bone up till the groin or the base of the pelvic region is considered as the “core”. This area is the basis of strength, the gravitational center, and the balancing point of the body.

Hence all the physical actions are initiated from the core A strong and a well developed abdominal core also ensures a well-balanced back, especially the Lumbar region. As a result a better posture is developed.

Soccer Fitness

Legs: The leg muscles called quadriceps are vital in pumping the heart. This means that these are the biggest muscle groups of the body and are responsible for pumping a huge amount of blood volume. Even walking is a beneficial exercise in weight training soccer because blood is pumped through the body by each leg.

Powerful and stable leg muscles are vital for the hips, knees and the ankles to hips, to bear all the power and energy produced in hitting the ground.

Back, Chest and Neck: These areas of the body serve as a link between the “core” and the ends (legs, arms and the head). These areas must never be neglected in soccer strength training because their growth is linked with the rest of the body.

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. Keeping your arms in the air makes a forceful jump.

Plyometric: You should combine weight training with well-organized plyometric program for great results. With this method you will see progress within the first half of the season.

Special attention must be given to the core as only a well-developed soccer fitness program to improve the core will definitely target these zones.

Program: Usually a program that is calculable and particular to an individual’s requirement should be applied at the start of the season. Concentrating on specific areas of the body starting with the core and searing outwards to each section of the body is vital to the total development of an individual.

In the end we say that weight training soccer can be applied by mentally preparing the players; because it is needed that the players and the team help each other to own the program. You should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society 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.