Soccer Training

Would you answer this simple question? Many soccer coaches design their player’s training programs without considering the soccer training tips only to go through the motions and make up the numbers. Are you doing the same thing?

Before you design your next training programs, make sure you set some specific goals for your team. Decide on what you wish to achieve from the training program and then take all steps necessary to realize your goals.

Add to your training program such soccer drills that are new, innovative, and fun to perform so as to add variety. It will allow the players to try something new instead to repeatedly doing the same drills every day. Once the kids enjoy participating in the training sessions, their performance will improve drastically.

Make your players learn to respect you and listen to you, irrespective of their age or the level at which they play. Respecting each other feelings promotes a friendly atmosphere for both the kids as well as the coach.

Soccer Training

Soccer players always have an advantage of the level of flexibility is high. It’s been categorized into 3 parts.

Dynamic flexibility: It refers to a player’s capability to perform fast movements within the full range of motion in the joint, like twisting from side to side.

Static active flexibility: The ability to stretch a tough muscle by using the tension within that muscle is termed as static active flexibility. Holding one leg out in front of you as high as possible is an example of this. Here, your hamstrings are stretched when your quadriceps and hip flexors hold your leg up.

Static passive: Ability to use your body weight or some outside force to hold a stretch is termed as static passive flexibility. For example; you can hold your leg out in front of you and then rest it on a chair.

Let’s now move on to the next step in following soccer training tips. Here, you need to check if the kids are clad in appropriate clothes that suit the weather conditions.

Training for soccer should be followed by a fitness program that focuses only on those areas that need maximum help. When designing this training program, keep the following factors in mind.

Age of the player: With age, there is a decrease in the flexibility of soft tissues in the body that is directly related to the reduced range of movement, no matter what the gender. But, if we remain active, the flexibility will always remain.

Gender: Girls are more flexible regardless of their age.

Movement: In demonstrating soccer skills, active kids show a better range of movement that the inactive kids.

Injury: Injuries also get in the way the range of motion in a joint.

Pain: There is a decrease in flexibility as pain increases that result in muscle spasms. But, strength training does not slow down flexibility if you do the exercises correctly and in full range of motion.

Genetics: A player’s genetics also have an effect on the amount of flexibility that his or her body possesses.

Therefore, soccer training tips like these should always be a part of the training program that makes it more useful and effective. You can perk up your coaching skills by joining our youth soccer coaching community that has a lot of articles, newsletters, and pertinent videos.

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 Drills For Kids.

If you also share similar thoughts as I do, you’d know that soccer training tips for goalkeepers have a great importance as he/she is the only player that has the freedom to touch the ball with hands and arms both.

Therefore, it’s the soccer skills of a goalie that set him apart in a better position, in comparison to others. But this makes a coach’s job tougher and more complex when training goalkeepers for soccer.

Based on the method of play in soccer, goalkeepers are the first line of offense and last line of defense. These players don’t think twice before putting their body in harms way to stop or block the ball from getting into the goalpost. They are always prepared to grab hold of the ball by pitching into any direction whatsoever.

A goalie’s training for soccer can be very challenging, keeping in view their specific role requirements and their level of play. You must also keep in mind, his mental state when you are training him/ her on all important skills and techniques.

Soccer Training

The only player in the team who can match the vigor of a goalkeeper is the striker. Almost all goalies have essentially played as goal hungry strikers at one point or the other in their soccer careers. You’ll observe that very often, it’s the goalies and forwards that get into a direct battle on the field, no matter what the level of competition.

In soccer training tips, it’s necessary for a goalkeeper to stay balanced and know the center for gravity of the body. This will benefit a game setting by enhancing the activity of a goalkeeper and the promptness of other players.

Even though most of the goalkeepers are tall, have long arms, and big hands, but even if it isn’t so, they can compensate for it with good vertical and lateral mobility.

It is important for a coach to realize that goalies have a great sense of worth but still need to be motivated on a regular basis. Goalkeepers should perform soccer drills that improve upon their skills specific to their role in the game once they have finished doing regular warm up exercises with the team.

Goalkeepers are the leaders of the team as both their role and their personality is quite dominating. When goalkeepers are supported by their teammates and are put in a demonstrative capacity, they are able to achieve the desired results.

The goalie can handle the ball only in the 18 yard box. When the ball gets touched by the arm of any player other than the goalie, the opponent team gets a free kick. It’s a penalty shoot from “the spot” in case of a goalkeepers’ team member.

Your next step? To take what you’ve just learned and apply the above soccer training tips as goalkeepers are definitely leaders in the 18 yard box, and should get due respect from their team. For more such training tips and coaching skills, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community and get access to thousands of videos.

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 Drills.

Does it sound familiar when I say that stretching forms an integral part of soccer training tips and is widely recommended and practiced by almost all sportspersons? Talking about soccer, it is constantly growing and developing in its difficulty.

There are two kinds of stretching; static and dynamic, that are slotted in planning training for the soccer season.

Static stretching requires the kids to extend their muscles as far as they can and hold for a given duration of time. Recurring motions, rebounding, and rhythmic bouncing are performed by the players while doing dynamic stretching. Generally, static stretching is considered as more effective and involves less risk than dynamic stretching.

In this article, you’ll find some good points of stretching that can help average players become great players.

Soccer Training

Stretching reduces injuries: Stretching helps bring down the risks of injury when performed over a period of time by stretching the muscles daily, thus promoting their growth. Stretching provides a way of growing the muscle mass and strength as well.

Stretching influences flexibility: Stretching puts off the loss of flexibility. But, stretching is more beneficial in the long run when performed continuously rather than during the shorter periods of time.

Stretching increases flexibility when it is performed for a few minutes before any soccer activity. When it comes to soccer training tips, the best bet is to distribute a stretching program over a predetermined length of time to continuously increase the range of motion.

Stretching perks up performance: When stretching program is designed specifically to suit soccer needs of the players, their performance improves.

Stretching can be a lot of fun: For this, you need to add variety in your soccer drills and focus a lot on performing them. Keep changing the warm up activities that are performed before stretching. Try games like the tag game, ball tag, and keep away.

Focus mentally on stretching exercises, feel and recognize each stretch, whilst checking for body soreness.

For almost all players, one single 15-30 minute stretch for each muscle group is sufficient but some may need longer stretches and more repetitions.

The reason is that when the temperature of muscles is higher than normal, tension decreases and extensibility increases. Kids who hope to retain or boost their flexibility can somewhat reach this goal by stretching. When their body temperature is higher as against normal, it makes it safer and more productive to stretch.

This is the reason why some coaches make kids stretch even after a workout. If your kids stretch for 5-10 minutes after performing soccer skills, their muscles will not tighten too fast.

In general, players who do an active warm-up before stretching get an improved range of motion than kids who only stretch. So if injury prevention is your aim, stop stretching before exercise and increase the warm up time.

When feeling stiff or inflexible, the most important soccer training tips is to allow kids to warm up sufficiently, as doing stretches would not help them become flexible, and will become boring and futile. You can get more such tips and tactics by subscribing to our youth soccer coaching community that has several relevant articles, videos, and periodic 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: Youth Soccer Drills.