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. You will be losing numerous advantages of soccer-specific fitness if you ignore it.
Very few coaches get the soccer strength training right. A young soccer player of today should be a “complete athlete”.
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.
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. It does not matter much to them if it harms their aerobic endurance levels or even their speediness and flexibility.
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.
We will now see 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. Upper body strength, on the other hand, is needed for shielding the ball, and keeping the opponents off.
Three broad categories can be made to divide “strength” in weight training soccer.
Absolute or Maximum Strength: It is the greatest force that a muscle group can exert in a quick, single contraction. 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: It is the outcome of both absolute strength and the speed of movement. Explosive power will be produced if one of them is enhanced while keeping the other one the same.
A large number of the magazines promote generalized weight training programs that will merely increase power. While those traditional soccer fitness programs can also be altered increasing the speed of contraction.
Strength Endurance: It is the capacity of a muscle group to make repetitive and high-intensity movements. The game of soccer requires strength endurance which has similar importance as power.
Therefore strength endurance should be given importance to in your soccer training programs. 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.
Your game is about to improve 10 folds if you just put a little time in planning your weight training soccer program correctly. 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.
