Soccer Coaching Drills

You might disagree, but hear me out on this. While coaching players on games that involves great strength, and, or explosive power weight training soccer is very useful. For player who do not require strength and power that much can also take advantage of strong abdominal and lower back muscles.

Here are the basic principles of weight training for soccer displaying simple activities to describe 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. For instance: Runners run and swimmers swim.

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

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

In order to develop physical conditioning such activities should be planned which improves specific training. You see workouts like running and weight exercises are also performed by swimmers to enhance their aerobic and strength and power fitness.

Injury prevention is another aspect of weight training soccer that is often overlooked. The effects of injury prevention are not evident directly but  they are essential in player’s performance and confirm that the player is fit to play at the most important occasions of the calendar.

A sport like soccer includes activities such as running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, going for a hit. The muscle chain that is required in these movements named as the “anterior and posterior chain,” should be exercised to build strength, stability and power.

Hence the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts are essential working out for building these muscles. An all-round soccer fitness program may also help, but these two core lifts work wonders for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

To concentrate on the shoulders, arms and back muscle areas the program should also include swimming.

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.

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

So this is it. Always remember these points while weight training soccer since in sport like soccer weights may not give much advantage. 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.

What if I told you that weight training soccer is aimed at enhancing strength rather than the building of muscle mass, especially the growth 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.

This will result in improved mobility and flexibility for enhanced swiftness and power.

Core: The abdominals, titled as the ‘core’ is the area first area to concentrate upon. “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.

In other words, the core is where all physical actions of the body are initiated 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 leg muscles called quadriceps are vital in pumping the heart. Hence they are the major muscle groups of the body and provide enormous amount of blood volume. Walking can also be helpful in weight training soccer as each step pumps blood supply to the entire body.

The hips, knees and the ankles need balanced and strong leg muscles in order to endure all the force and energy produced in hitting the ground.

Back, Chest and Neck: This portion of the body provides relationship between the core and the ends (legs, arms and the head). During soccer strength training, these parts should be given a lot of importance as their development is directly proportional to the growth 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. Throwing your arms in the air adds force to a jump.

Plyometric: You should combine weight training with well-organized plyometric program for great results. Using this technique such players will be produced who will show good results in the first half of the season.

The key again is going back to the core, because only a well-developed soccer fitness program to develop the core will naturally bring these areas into focus.

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.

Finally it should be said that weight training soccer can be useful by first preparing the players; as it requires the players and the team to own the program. You are invited to become a member of 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.

You’ve probably heard it a hundred times that weight training soccer is a major part of sports training these days as it creates stronger 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.

Soccer weight training requires muscles to be strong, speedy and resistant instead of adding pounds of useless bulk in muscles. 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.

You should start your fitness training with the legs first. Begin with the squatting exercises. After a light warm-up set, load the bar to a weight you think your players can get 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.

Now they must stand keeping their shoulders and feet width apart. Then they should come down while holding it till their hips are only marginally lower than the top of their knees. In weight training soccer, after coming to this point the players should quickly stand up fully and breathe out. Encourage them to repeat this for 20 reps even when they are dead tired.

Soccer Fitness

A 5-10 minutes break should be taken before moving on with the leg curl machine to work on hamstrings. They are required to perform 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. Since hamstrings are very important to a player’s speed, so you want them to be very strong.

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

Begin with using the Incline bench press, for the upper body workout.
After a warm up exercise, guide players to add enough weight so that the next set of 10 reps gets difficult. 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. They should work out on their biceps and back by making their palms facing their body. Finally the upper body exercises include abdominals and performing 5 sets of 20 or more reps of leg raises. The last in this work out are the crunches do 5 sets of 50 or more.

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.

Let’s face it. If you train your team with weights there’s no reason why should not fine-tune their weight training soccer routine as the year progresses. You will be losing numerous advantages of soccer-specific fitness if you ignore it.

Soccer strength training is only understood correctly by selected coaches. Players of youth soccer teams are supposed to be “complete athletes” now days.

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. If you get your players to simply lift weights just like the bodybuilders, you are doing yourself, your team and your game a great harm.

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

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.

We will now see the reasons

Kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting and turning as well as good speed during soccer comes from lower body strength. Upper body strength, on the other hand, is needed for shielding the ball, and keeping the opponents off.

“Strength” can be divided into three categories, when we talk about weight training soccer.

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

In soccer, good maximal strength is advantageous in holding off the opponents and defending the ball. Most essentially, it is the basis for muscular pace and potential.

Muscular Power: It is the outcome of both absolute strength and the speed of movement. If you increase either of these, without lowering the other, the explosive power of players will increase.

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: It is the capacity of a muscle group to make repetitive and high-intensity movements. Strength endurance and power both are essential for soccer.

A great significant should be given to include strength endurance in your program. 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 can gain more from the reserve of soccer resources like articles, periodic newsletters, and videos at our youth soccer coaching community. So subscribe today.

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.