You may not agree, but check this out. While coaching players on games that involves great strength, and, or explosive power weight training soccer is very useful. 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 explains the basic principles of weight training for soccer using common activities for demonstrating those principles.

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. Take for example running and swimming, a great exercise for runners and swimmers respectively.

In order to enhance strength an essential thing to be stressed upon while exercising is speed. 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

While developing a fitness training program, all this information is helpful for a coach to ensure a good start.

Such exercises should be planned for physical conditioning which improves specific training. Like for developing aerobic and strength and power fitness exercises, running and weight lifting are also performed by swimmers.

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.

Running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, and getting ready for a shot are all the exercises performed in soccer. 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. A comprehensive soccer fitness program giving due stress upon these two core lifts should work miracles for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

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

Typically strength programs involve heavy masses with only some repetitions. You should be knowing by now that unlike other sports requiring bulk and weight soccer is a sport that requires strength with mobility, speed and stamina.

Strengthening highly vulnerable muscle groups could also add to the performance benefits in the absence of primary strength, power or endurance gains. Thus the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that aids the knee joint function are such muscle groups.

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.

It’s a known fact that a soccer conditioning program provides a strong base for a team’s success. It is because of soccer exercises which build strength, agility, and endurance that players manage to stay in shape and thus dream to become match winners for their team.

Still, your team or you may face situations where there is paucity of time to train ahead of a tournament. It does not mean that you must cut down on conditioning exercises. You don’t intend to see your players suffering injuries during or prior to the game.

A well planned soccer fitness training course has the capacity to fully train the players even in less that 3 days time. All you need to do is be honest in carrying out the plan based on some good homework. There are one or two tips which work well with short but successful training plans.

Warming up: Tell the players to kick off with any of these; a five minute jog, heel flicks, high knees, or jumping. In the meanwhile, find time to rest to a minute or so. This should be followed by some stretching of muscles for about 5 minutes to tone them up. Make sure that these soccer workouts consist of all the main muscle groups.

Soccer Fitness

Running: Some coaches make their players do continuous rounds of running. Even though its fine but I’d say that it would be better if players do just soccer specific running. It means that for about 30 minutes, they do a combination of running, jogging, walking, and sprinting in no set order.

Running in this manner enables the players to get strong and control their bodies better. And they do not feel drained since a walk after the sprint helps balance things out.

Just let the individual players decide on what they wish to do and when. If they wish to do sprints more than light jogging, there is no harm in it. As the kids develop more strength and energy, you can increase the length of the soccer conditioning program by 10 minutes.

Stretching: Persuade the players to do stretching exercises both after the training session as well as a match. Focus on the entire body but give special attention to hamstrings, groins, quads, calves and lower back. Ensure that the stretching postures are longer than the warm-up sessions. In general, 20 to 30 seconds is recommended.

Ask the kids to rest completely a day before the match. This will give the muscles time to recuperate and also overrule the possibility of an injury before the big day. It is also a good time to have a discussion with them and boost their confidence.

Share some lighter moments as well so that they get into a great mental shape in addition to the physical one.

Have faith in me! Once these techniques are applied, your players shall start playing dramatically well. In order to know more about soccer conditioning, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community that will give you access to great soccer resources.

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: Soccer Drills For Kids.