Soccer Training

Probability you might not believe this, but just hear me out on 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.

Here are the basic principles of weight training for soccer displaying simple activities to describe those principles.

One of the key principles of soccer strength training is, Specificity. The theory is to design your training sessions to match the player’s activity on the field. For Example: Runners practice through running and swimmers through swimming.

Speed is the main factor to put effort to when training, so as to develop power. 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

While developing a fitness training program, all this information is helpful for a coach to ensure a good start.

Such exercises should be planned for physical conditioning which improves 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.

The movements executed in soccer are running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, preparing for a goal. 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. A comprehensive soccer fitness program giving due stress upon these two core lifts should work miracles for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

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

Usually strength enhancing programs include heavy weight lifting with few 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. They are the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that help knee joint function.

Now having equipped with knowledge always keep in mind that in weight training soccer doing weights might not give much benefit. You are invited to become a member of 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.

If you get to know that weight training soccer does not encourage on adding to muscle mass rather it stresses upon the strength of muscle groups that support the joints. 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 abdominals, titled as the ‘core’ is the area first area to concentrate upon. The part of the body below the breast bone till the lowest part of the pelvis area is referred to as the “core”. This portion of the body is the origin point of power, gravity and balance in the body.

So, the core is the place from where all the physical activities start from. Great abdominal cores also results in a well-balanced back, most essentially the Lumbar area. As a result a better posture is developed.

Soccer Fitness

Legs: The quadriceps are leg muscles which are essential in increasing blood flow to the heart. Thus being the biggest muscle groups of the body pump great volumes of blood. 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 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: The arm plays a vital part in soccer to help maintain balance while you jump to head a ball or when you suddenly change directions. Keeping your arms in the air makes a forceful jump.

Plyometric: A mixture of weight training with well-organized plyometric program must be practiced for quality results. Using this technique such players will be produced who will show good results in the first half of the season.

Always remember to give importance to the core as only a well-developed soccer fitness program to develop the core will positively aim 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. 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.

We conclude the session by saying that weight training soccer can be better comprehended by mentally preparing the players and the team where both of them motivate 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.

In soccer training weight training soccer plays an important role in creating tougher and quicker muscles, this you might have heard a lot of times. 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. Though the importance of upper body weight training for soccer is not as much as the legs, we still go on with it for general conditioning and strength.

I think fitness training should start with the legs. You can start the warm up session with squats. This session should be followed by putting the bar to a weight with which the players can perform 20 reps with. Supposing they are strong enough, so let them go with 220 pounds first. The technique is to get under the bar and standing up with it resting it across the upper back.

Next tell them to stand having their shoulders and feet width apart. Next they move downwards keeping hold of the bar up until their hips are just below the upper part 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

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. During each set of Leg Curls, Stiff-Legged Dead lift should be performed with 4 sets of 15 reps. As player’s speed is greatly improves by strong hamstrings, so they should be very tough.

After completing 3 sets of 25 reps on the Standing calf-raise machine your leg exercises will be over.

Begin with using the Incline bench press, for the upper body workout.
Once the players have performed the warm ups, tell them to carry on by putting more weights such that the next set of 10 reps get harder. 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.

The second exercise for this portion of the soccer strength training is pull-ups. This exercise should be done with the palms facing their body so that their biceps and back can become strong. 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. Conclude with 5 sets of 50 or more crunching exercises.

In short weight training soccer is only a small portion of the complete training program required to make great soccer players. 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.

You should know how true it is to work on your team’s weight training soccer program, while they are being trained 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. Players of youth soccer teams are supposed to be “complete athletes” now days.

The youth player of today needs to have the upper body strength to struggle with challenges and besides that he must always be quick and speedy. Players need to build their aerobic and anaerobic at the highest level to carry on until the game is over. You are harming yourself; your players and your game if you make your players to do weight lifting like body builders.

When we talk about such sports like body building and players whose sports involve strength, we would say that they should try to increase in size, bulk and extreme strength. It does not matter much to them if it harms their aerobic endurance levels or even their speediness and flexibility.

Soccer Fitness

If you are also thinking of implementing 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions the whole year, you should know that you’ll be missing out a lot from your fitness training sessions.

The reasons are as follows:

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.

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. An athlete who can do 250lbs leg press has more power than the one who can just do 200lb leg press.

During soccer, this kind of strength is helpful in keeping the opponent off and defending the ball. Principally, it establishes muscular quickness and power.

Muscular Power: It is the outcome of both absolute strength and the speed of movement. A valuable power will be created that is “explosive power”, if you improve one of them without lowering the other.

A large number of the magazines promote generalized weight training programs that will merely increase power. But even those generalized soccer fitness programs can be improved if you deliberately enhance the speed of contraction.

Strength Endurance: The capability of a muscle group to carry out frequent and high-power actions. Like power, strength endurance is also very important to soccer game.

If you are a coach you should concentrate on increasing strength endurance during your soccer routine. If you follow the simple 3 sets of 8-12 reps each, traditional weight programs are not very useful for developing soccer-specific strength endurance.

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 invited to become a member of our youth soccer coaching society to 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.