Youth Soccer Drill

How about if you get to learn that weight training soccer targets improving strength instead of just increasing muscle mass, particularly the development of muscle groups that support the joints? For this reason fitness training session should be arranged off the field and away from the ball so that the players pay attention to some special muscle groups.

By this technique those areas will give better movement and flexibility resulting in increased pace and strength.

Core: The abdominals, titled as the ‘core’ is the area first area to concentrate upon. 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 part of the body is responsible for power generation, maintain the center of gravity and balancing the body.

So, the core is the place from where all the physical activities start from. A strong and a well developed abdominal core also ensures a well-balanced back, especially the Lumbar region. This in turn creates and enhances a better posture.

Soccer Fitness

Legs: The quadriceps are helpful in pumping the heart. Therefore they are the largest muscle groups of the human body and supply vast amount of blood to the heart. 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: This portion of the body provides relationship 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: Arms facilitate in the balancing of the body through weight distribution, especially when jumping to head a ball or changing directions. A powerful jump is made by throwing the arms in the air.

Plyometric: For best results, weight training should go together with a well-planned plyometric program. 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.

Programs: Generally, a program that is quantifiable and specific to an individual needs to be applied at the beginning of the season. The complete development of the player involves targeting specific areas of the body starting with the core and then toward each section of the body.

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 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.

You may not agree, but check this out. The play which requires excessive power, and, or explosive power, Weight training soccer is vital while coaching these players. Strong abdominal and lower back muscles are also essential for players for whom strength and power is not the main issue.

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

Specificity is a common principle in soccer strength training. 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 Example: Runners practice through running and swimmers through swimming.

With a view to develop power, the speed of the training or exercise is vital. Weight training programs should be prepared explicitly for individuals taking into consideration their 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.

For over all physical conditioning you should arrange those exercises which develop 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. 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.

Soccer is a sport which involves running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, and setting for an attempt. 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.

So for creating these muscles core lifts, like squats and deadlifts are important exercises. A comprehensive soccer fitness program giving due stress upon these two core lifts should work miracles for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

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

Usually strength enhancing programs include heavy weight lifting with few repetitions. Some sports require bulk and strength while some others have to ensure they combine adequate strength with mobility, speed and stamina like a mid-fielder in soccer.

Establishing strong muscle groups can also improve to the performance even if the primary strength, power or endurance gains are absent. Thus the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that aids the knee joint function are such muscle groups.

Now having equipped with knowledge always keep in mind that in weight training soccer doing weights might not give much benefit. 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.

It’s very true, that while training your players with weights you should also consider improving their weight training soccer practices as the year goes by. One might be missing out great benefits of soccer-specific fitness if he/she overlooks it.

Only some of the coaches understand soccer strength training correctly. Players of youth soccer teams are supposed to be “complete athletes” now days.

They have to be quick off the mark and have to have the upper body strength to defy challenges. Both aerobic and anaerobic stamina are needed at an extra ordinary level to keep going till the end. You are harming yourself; your players and your game if you make your players to do weight lifting like body builders.

Bodybuilders, and athletes whose sports are mainly strength based, train to increase size, bulk and utmost strength. They’re not very much troubled if it damages their aerobic endurance levels or even their quickness and flexibility.

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.

Let’s look upon the reasons.

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.

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

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

A good absolute power is useful in soccer to keep the opponents off and defending the ball. More importantly, it forms the foundation of muscular pace 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.

But, if you just follow a generalized weight training routine that most of the popular fitness magazines advocate, you will increase power. Those traditional soccer fitness programs can also can be amended if you intentionally increase contraction speed.

Strength Endurance: The capability of a muscle group to carry out frequent and high-power actions. The game of soccer requires strength endurance which has similar importance as power.

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.

If you just put some time in altering your weight training soccer accurately you will see that it will improve your game 10 times . 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.

It is very commonly heard nowadays that weight training soccer is a major factor of sports training in today’s times as it creates tougher and quicker muscles. Using this soccer fitness strategy discussed in this article, your players will have an opportunity to play soccer at higher level.

During soccer weight training the aim is to improve the strength, speed and stamina of the muscles instead of just increasing the muscle weight. 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 recommend you begin your fitness training with the legs. Begin with the squatting exercises. This session should be followed by putting the bar to a weight with which the players can perform 20 reps with. Let’s say they are pretty strong, so tell them to begin with 220 pounds. They have to get under the bar, with it resting across their upper back, and stand up with it.

They should then get out of the stands and stand with their feet and shoulder width apart. After that they must lower their body while holding on to the bar till their hips are a little bit below the top of their knee. 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

A 5-10 minutes break should be taken before moving on with the leg curl machine to work on hamstrings. Your players will be doing 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. Hamstrings are vital for players speed, thus we would want them to be strong enough.

Then conclude your leg workout with 3 sets of 25 reps on the Standing calf-raise machine.

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. They should continue with that weight for 5 sets of 10 repetitions total, while stretching their chest and shoulders, and resting for around 2 minutes between each set.

Next are the pull-up exercises in this section of soccer strength training. This exercise should be done with the palms facing their body so that their biceps and back can become strong. 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. 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 welcomed to our youth soccer coaching community coming up more information about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer; it also 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.