Youth Soccer Drill

You would be surprised to find out that the objective of weight training soccer is to develop the muscles that support the joints instead of just focusing on growing muscle mass. 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.

Focusing on these target areas will generate superior movement and flexibility causing higher velocity and strength.

Core: The number one part to be focused named as “core”, refers to abdominals. 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. This also generates a good posture.

Soccer Fitness

Legs: The leg muscles called quadriceps are vital in pumping the heart. Therefore they are the largest muscle groups of the human body and supply vast amount of blood to the heart. So, even walking is good exercise in weight training soccer as each leg helps the heart push a lot of blood through the entire body.

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:The linking relationship between the core and the ends is provided by these parts of the body. These areas must never be neglected in soccer strength training because their growth is linked with the rest of the body.

Arms: For balancing the body arms are very helpful; example while jumping to head a ball or shifting directions. A good tip for power jump is to throw your arms in the air while you jump.

Plyometric: For excellent result you should use both weight training with carefully planned plyometric program. With this method you will see progress within 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: Typically a program which is measureable and precise to an individual’s requirement should be functional at the opening of the season. The comprehensive development of the player comprises of directing attention to specific areas of the body initiating with the core till each section of the body.

In conclusion, this concept of weight training soccer can be better understood through mental training of the team where both the team and individual players encourage 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.

It’s not necessary that you agree, but you should listen to 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. If player do not need strength and power to a large extent even for them, strong abdominal and lower back muscles are helpful.

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

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. The role of players in team sports, their age, physical and mental capacity to take stress and their player’s level must be considered when coaching them in weight training programs.

Soccer Fitness

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

For over all physical conditioning you should arrange those exercises which develop specific training. For example: swimmers also run and lift weights to improve their aerobic and strength and power fitness.

One more feature in weight training soccer often ignored is prevention of injury.Another area of weight training soccer which is commonly neglected in is injury prevention. Injury prevention even though not directly contributing to the play, is important as it ensures that the players are fit to play at the most critical times of the year.

A sport like soccer includes activities such as running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, going for a hit. The “anterior and posterior chain,” are the chain of muscles which are required to perform these actions must be given importance to develop strength, stability and power.

The most useful workouts are the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts for forming these muscles. The general soccer fitness program may be used commonly but these two core lifts are very essential for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

Swimming can also help to add strength to 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.

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

This is it. Please try to consider these areas while weight training soccer as you know now that football unlike other sports do not require weights essentially. 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.

Weight training soccer is vital for sports training in today’s soccer world; you might be aware of that already, as it is required for creating tougher and faster muscles. The soccer fitness plan discussed in this article will help you prepare your players for playing soccer at a higher level.

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. 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.

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. This practice is performed by getting below the bar, and putting it across their upper back and then stand up with it.

Now they must stand keeping their shoulders and feet 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. At this point in weight training soccer, players should quickly rise to the full standing position and exhale. They should be motivated to do this for 20 reps even when they are totally worked out.

Soccer Fitness

Next is working on hamstrings, but before that have a 5-10 minutes break. 4 sets of 15 reps each should be completed by them. They will be required to perform 4 sets of 15 reps on the Stiff-Legged Dead lift between each set of Leg Curl exercises. It is important for the hamstrings to be strong as the speed is significantly enhanced by them.

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

Now for the upper body work out begin with the Incline bench press.
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. 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.

In this segment of soccer strength training the second exercise is the pull-ups. Players should do this with their palms facing their body to work their biceps as well as the back. 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. The final exercise is sit-ups, complete 5 sets of 50 or more.

As a final point weight training soccer is only a minor portion of the comprehensive training program required. 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.

The truth is that if that you should concentrate on enhancing your team’s weight training soccer sessions when you train them with weights. And if you don’t, you’re giving up some great benefits of soccer-specific fitness.

Only a certain number of coaches’ know the correct ideology of soccer strength training. Youth soccer players are required to be “complete athletes” now.

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. They will not worry if it destroys their aerobic endurance levels or their quickness 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.

Let’s look upon the reasons.

In soccer, lower body strength is needed for kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting, and turning and also lays the foundation for great speed. While the strength of the upper body, is also important. It is used to shield the ball keeping off the opponents.

Three broad categories can be made to divide “strength” in weight training soccer.

Absolute or Maximum Strength: The highest level of power your muscles can exert in a single, quick motion. For instance, a person who can do 250lbs leg press has greater power than the other player having the ability of doing 200lbs leg press.

This absolute strength helps to defend the ball and to keep off the opponents. Fundamentally it’s the foundation for muscular speed and power.

Muscular Power: Absolute strength and the speed of action both add up to produce power. A valuable power will be created that is “explosive power”, if you improve one of them without lowering the other.

Only power will be enhanced if you just simply use the common trainings that almost all of the popular fitness magazines advocate. But if you put effort to improve your contraction speed, even those types of soccer fitness programs can become useful.

Strength Endurance: Strength or muscular stamina is the ability of a muscle group to carry out repeated and high-intensity movements. Like power, strength endurance is also very important to soccer game.

Therefore strength endurance should be given importance to in your soccer training programs. However if you don’t alter your training programs and continue with 3 sets of 8-12 reps each, your training programs will not reap much of productive results.

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 should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society for you can 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.