Soccer Instructions

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. 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.

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

Core: Technically the first area to focus on is the abdominals, commonly known as the core. “Core” is the portion of the body which starts from the breast bone till the lowermost part of the pelvis area. This portion of the body is the origin point of power, gravity and balance in the body.

In other words, the core is where all physical actions of the body are initiated from. 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 leg muscles called quadriceps are vital in pumping the heart. This means that these are the biggest muscle groups of the body and are responsible for pumping a huge amount of blood volume. 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.

A lot of energy is exerted in hitting the ground, thus it is very important to have powerful and well-balanced leg muscles required by the hips, knees and the ankles.

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. A good tip for power jump is to throw your arms in the air while you jump.

Plyometric: A mixture of weight training with well-organized plyometric program must be practiced for quality results. This will create individual or teams who will show growth during the first half of the season.

The significant point is to give importance to the core as only a well-developed soccer fitness program to develop the core will certainly target these areas.

Programs: Generally, a program that is quantifiable and specific to an individual needs to be applied at the beginning 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.

It’s not necessary that you agree, but you should listen to this. The play which requires excessive power, and, or explosive power, Weight training soccer is vital while coaching these players. For player who do not require strength and power that much can also take advantage of strong abdominal and lower back muscles.

This article explains the basic principles of weight training for soccer using common activities for demonstrating those principles.

A vital principle in soccer strength training is, Specificity. The theory is to design your training sessions to match the player’s activity on the field. For instance: Runners run and swimmers swim.

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

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

Physical conditioning usually requires activities that improve specific training. For example: swimmers also run and lift weights to improve their aerobic and strength and power fitness.

Injury prevention is also something which is commonly overlooked although it is an important part of weight training soccer. Although it does not contribute directly to an increase in a player’s performance, injury prevention can positively support a player’s performance by ensuring that he or she is fit to play at crucial times in the event calendar.

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.

So for creating these muscles core lifts, like squats and deadlifts are important exercises. The general soccer fitness program may be used commonly but these two core lifts are very essential for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

You may also include a swimming program to focus added attention on the shoulders, arms and back muscles.

Typically strength programs involve heavy masses with only some 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.

Strengthening highly vulnerable muscle groups could also add to the performance benefits in the absence of primary strength, power or endurance gains. These include the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that direct 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 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. Using this soccer fitness strategy discussed in this article, your players will have an opportunity to play soccer at higher level.

Soccer weight training requires muscles to be strong, speedy and resistant instead of adding pounds of useless bulk in muscles. Upper body weight training for soccer is not as important as is for the legs, but we still do it for overall conditioning and strength.

You should start your fitness training with the legs first. You can start the warm up session with squats. After a light warm-up set, load the bar to a weight you think your players can get 20 reps with. 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.

Now they must stand keeping their shoulders and feet width apart. They must hold it as they go down until their hips are slightly lower than the top of their knees. At this point in weight training soccer, players should quickly rise to the full standing position and exhale. The players must be encouraged to continue even when they are worn-out till they do 20 reps.

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. It is important for the hamstrings to be strong as the speed is significantly enhanced by them.

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

The Incline bench press would be used to start the upper body exercises.
When they are done with the warm ups, they should continue with extra weights so that the next set of 10 reps becomes tougher. 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.

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. 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 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. One might be missing out great benefits of soccer-specific fitness if he/she overlooks it.

Soccer strength training is only understood correctly by selected coaches. Today’s young soccer players must be “complete athletes”.

They are required to have swift movements plus the strength of upper body to resist challenges. Players need to build their aerobic and anaerobic at the highest level to carry on until the game is over. 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.

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

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 understand why

In soccer, lower body strength is needed for kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting, and turning and also lays the foundation for great speed. Shielding the ball and making the opponts to stay away, requires upper body strength.

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.

This absolute strength helps to defend the ball and to keep off the opponents. Principally, it establishes muscular quickness and power.

Muscular Power: It is the product of both maximum strength and the quickness in movement. Increasing any one of them, without reducing the other will generate a value added power called explosive power.

But, if you just follow a generalized weight training routine that most of the popular fitness magazines advocate, you will 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.

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.

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 welcomed to our youth soccer coaching community coming up with brand new methods and techniques it has thousands of relevant articles, videos and periodic newsletters.

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.