Kids Soccer Drills

You might disagree, but hear me out on this. 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. For player who do not require strength and power that much can also take advantage of strong abdominal and lower back muscles.

This article will teach you the basic theories of weight training for soccer using simple methods for presenting those theories.

During soccer strength training, Specificity is a very important concept. The idea is that to train your players to practice in a manner which is similar to that when they play on the fields. Like running is a good drill for runners and swimming for swimmers.

With a view to develop power, the speed of the training or exercise is vital. 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.

Such exercises should be planned for physical conditioning 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. 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. 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.

The best exercises for developing these muscles are the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts. 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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. And if you don’t, you’re giving up some great benefits of soccer-specific fitness.

Soccer strength training is only understood correctly by selected coaches. Youth soccer players are required to be “complete athletes” now.

The players are supposed to be speedy in their actions along with the upper body strength to meet challenges. These players are required to have exceptional level of aerobic and anaerobic resistance to last that period. A coach should know that he is hamming himself, his team and the game if he just insists his players to do weight lifting as the body builders do.

Bodybuilders, and athletes whose sports are mainly strength based, train to increase size, bulk and utmost 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.

The reasons are as follows:

Kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting and turning as well as good speed during soccer comes from lower body strength. Whereas the upper body strength is required for stopping the ball and keeping the opponents away.

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

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

In soccer, good maximal strength is advantageous in holding off the opponents and defending the ball. Fundamentally it’s the foundation for muscular speed and power.

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.

Only power will be enhanced if you just simply use the common trainings that almost all of the popular fitness magazines advocate. While those traditional soccer fitness programs can also be altered increasing the speed of contraction.

Strength Endurance: Muscular stamina is the potential of a muscle group to perform continues and high-power activity. The game of soccer requires strength endurance which has similar importance as power.

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.

Make a favor to yourself and put some time in improving your weight training soccer program correctly and I assure you that it will pay back 10 times in the game. 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.

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. The soccer fitness plan discussed in this article will help you prepare your players for playing soccer at a higher level.

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

My suggestion is to focus your fitness training beginning with the legs. It should be started with the crouching exercises first. When you are done with this warm up activity players are supposed to do 20 reps, so bar to be loaded should be according to their capacity. Let’s say they are pretty strong, so tell them to begin with 220 pounds. 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. Next they move downwards keeping hold of the bar up until their hips are just below the upper part of their knees. In weight training soccer, after coming to this point the players should quickly stand up fully and breathe out. Tell them to continue this practice for at least 20 reps even when they are completely exhausted.

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. They are required to perform 4 sets of 15 reps each. In between each set of Leg Curls, they’ll also be doing 4 sets of 15 reps on the Stiff-Legged Dead lift. Since hamstrings are very important to a player’s speed, so you want them to be very strong.

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

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. A total of 5 sets of 10 repetitions are required with the weights, while stretching their chest and shoulders, yet pausing to relax for 2 minutes in the middle of each set.

Now we move to the second workout of this session of soccer strength training which are the pull-up exercises. Their palms must be facing their body so that they can exercise their biceps and back muscles. The final part of the upper body work out involves working on abdominals and doing 5 sets of 20 or more reps of leg raises. 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. You should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society to know more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer; the community also provides 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.

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? 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.

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

Core: The number one part to be focused named as “core”, refers to abdominals. The area of the body ranging from under the breast bone up till the end of the pelvic region is called the “core”. This area is the basis of strength, the gravitational center, and the balancing point of the body.

Thus the core is the center point from where all the physical action originates. A strong and a well developed abdominal core also ensures a well-balanced back, especially the Lumbar region. It also improves the posture.

Soccer Fitness

Legs: The quadriceps are helpful in pumping the heart. Thus being the biggest muscle groups of the body pump great volumes of blood. Walking can also be helpful in weight training soccer as each step pumps blood supply to the entire body.

Strong and balanced leg muscles are required for the hips, knees and the ankles to stand 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). 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: Arms facilitate in the balancing of the body through weight distribution, especially when jumping to head a ball or changing directions. Throwing your arms in the air adds force to a jump.

Plyometric: For excellent result you should use both weight training with carefully planned plyometric program. 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: Typically a program which is measureable and precise to an individual’s requirement should be functional at the opening 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 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 are welcomed 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.