Soccer Practice Games

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. Your players will have a chance to play at a higher level if they develop themselves using this soccer fitness plan discussed as follows.

In soccer weight training, the goal is to have muscles that are strong, fast, and have great stamina rather that to add pounds of muscle mass. Although the lower body strength is more important in soccer but we still carry on with the upper body weight trainings for overall 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. Supposing they are strong enough, so let them go with 220 pounds first. The technique is to get under the bar and standing up with it resting it across the upper back.

They should then get out of the stands and stand with their feet and shoulder width apart. Then they should come down while holding it till their hips are only marginally lower than the top of their knees. When they reach this level in weight training soccer, they should stand up quickly and exhale. Encourage them to repeat this for 20 reps even when they are dead tired.

Soccer Fitness

Next is working on hamstrings, but before that have a 5-10 minutes break. Your players will be doing 4 sets of 15 reps each. 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

Begin with using the Incline bench press, for the upper body workout.
Now when the they are warmed up they must go on by including enough weights so that the next set of 10 reps is harder to do. The players must repeat the 5 sets 10 times with weights, while stretching their chest and shoulders and at the end of each set stop and relax for 2 minutes.

Now we move to the second workout of this session of soccer strength training which are the pull-up exercises. They should work out on their biceps and back by making their palms facing their body. 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 final exercise is sit-ups, complete 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 invited to become a member of our youth soccer coaching society to gain more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer; The society that 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.

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 purpose special fitness training programs should be designed to let the players have some time, away from both the field and the ball to work on target muscle groups.

Concentrating on these areas will facilitate greater mobility and flexibility leading to an increase in speed and power.

Core: The area that is first to be targeted are the abdominals, which is usually called the core. 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. Great abdominal cores also results in a well-balanced back, most essentially the Lumbar area. As a result a better posture is developed.

Soccer Fitness

Legs: The quadriceps are helpful in pumping the heart. Hence they are the major muscle groups of the body and provide enormous amount of blood volume. Even walking is a beneficial exercise in weight training soccer because blood is pumped through the body by each leg.

The hips, knees and the ankles need balanced and strong leg muscles in order to endure all the force 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. 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: 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. Using this technique such players will be produced who will show good results in the first half of the season.

Special attention must be given to the core as only a well-developed soccer fitness program to improve the core will definitely target these zones.

Program: Normally such a program should be designed which is measureable and specific to an individual’s requirement and used at the introduction of the season. The thorough improvement of an individual consist of aiming specific parts of the body first with the core and then heading for every section of the body.

Finally it should be said that weight training soccer can be useful by first preparing the players; as it requires the players and the team 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.

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.

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.

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.