You’ve probably heard it a hundred times that weight training soccer is a major part of sports training these days as it creates stronger and faster muscles. The program of soccer fitness talked about in this article will aid you make your players ready for playing soccer at an advanced level.
During soccer weight training the aim is to improve the strength, speed and stamina of the muscles instead of just increasing the muscle weight. 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.
You should start your fitness training with the legs first. You can start the warm up session with squats. Now place the bar with which your players can make 20 reps. Let’s say they are pretty strong, so tell them to begin with 220 pounds. They have to get under the bar, with it resting across their upper back, and stand up with it.
They should then get out of the stands and stand with their feet and shoulder width apart. They must hold it as they go down until their hips are slightly lower than the top of their knees. Coming up to this point in weight training soccer, they are supposed to stand up fast and exhale. They should be motivated to do this for 20 reps even when they are totally worked out.
A 5-10 minutes break should be taken before moving on with the leg curl machine to work on hamstrings. 4 sets of 15 reps each should be completed by them. In between each set of Leg Curls, they’ll also be doing 4 sets of 15 reps on the Stiff-Legged Dead lift. 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
Start the upper body workout with the Incline bench press.
After a warm up exercise, guide players to add enough weight so that the next set of 10 reps gets difficult. They are supposed keep on doing weights for a total of 5 sets of 10 reps, while stretching their chest and shoulders, however taking a break of 2 minutes between each set.
In this segment of soccer strength training the second exercise is the pull-ups. This exercise should be done with the palms facing their body so that their biceps and back can become strong. Finally the upper body exercises include abdominals and performing 5 sets of 20 or more reps of leg raises. Then finish with 5 sets of 50 or more crunches or sit-ups.
In short weight training soccer is only a small portion of the complete training program required to make great soccer players. To know more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community that has videos, articles, pod casts, and newsletters available for you.
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