Youth Soccer Coaching

You might disagree, but hear me out on this. Weight training soccer is very essential while coaching the player on sports that needs a lot of strength, and, or explosive power. Strong abdominal and lower back muscles are also essential for players for whom strength and power is not the main issue.

In this article you will find the basic concept of weight training for soccer using simple techniques for applying those concepts.

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

With a view to develop power, the speed of the training or exercise is vital. Weight training programs should be prepared explicitly for individuals taking into consideration their role in team sports, their age, physical and mental capacity to take stress, and the level at which they are to play.

Soccer Fitness

Having this information when preparing a fitness training program, can lead to a good start.

Physical conditioning usually requires activities that improve specific training. Like for developing aerobic and strength and power fitness exercises, running and weight lifting are also performed by swimmers.

One more feature in weight training soccer often ignored is prevention of injury.Another area of weight training soccer which is commonly neglected in is injury prevention. It is necessary to prevent injury although it is not the direct factor to contribute towards to the play however it enables the players to maintain their fitness in order to perform their best at the special times of the season.

The movements executed in soccer are running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, preparing for a goal. To develop strength, stability and power the chain of muscles titled as the “anterior and posterior chain,” involved in these activities should be given attention.

The most useful workouts are the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts for forming these muscles. An all-round soccer fitness program may also help, but these two core lifts work wonders 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.

Ordinary strength program comprises of doing pretty heavy weights but only a few times. You know by now that soccer is a sport which requires sufficient strength with mobility, speed and stamina not just building bulk and mass like other sports.

Establishing strong muscle groups can also improve to the performance even if the primary strength, power or endurance gains are absent. Thus the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that aids the knee joint function are such muscle groups.

Now having equipped with knowledge always keep in mind that in weight training soccer doing weights might not give much benefit. You are invited to become a member of 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.

You might disagree, but hear me out on this. Weight training soccer is very essential while coaching the player on sports that needs a lot of strength, and, or explosive power. Strong abdominal and lower back muscles are also essential for players for whom strength and power is not the main issue.

In this article you will find the basic concept of weight training for soccer using simple techniques for applying those concepts.

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

With a view to develop power, the speed of the training or exercise is vital. Weight training programs should be prepared explicitly for individuals taking into consideration their role in team sports, their age, physical and mental capacity to take stress, and the level at which they are to play.

Soccer Fitness

Having this information when preparing a fitness training program, can lead to a good start.

Physical conditioning usually requires activities that improve specific training. Like for developing aerobic and strength and power fitness exercises, running and weight lifting are also performed by swimmers.

One more feature in weight training soccer often ignored is prevention of injury.Another area of weight training soccer which is commonly neglected in is injury prevention. It is necessary to prevent injury although it is not the direct factor to contribute towards to the play however it enables the players to maintain their fitness in order to perform their best at the special times of the season.

The movements executed in soccer are running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, preparing for a goal. To develop strength, stability and power the chain of muscles titled as the “anterior and posterior chain,” involved in these activities should be given attention.

The most useful workouts are the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts for forming these muscles. An all-round soccer fitness program may also help, but these two core lifts work wonders 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.

Ordinary strength program comprises of doing pretty heavy weights but only a few times. You know by now that soccer is a sport which requires sufficient strength with mobility, speed and stamina not just building bulk and mass like other sports.

Establishing strong muscle groups can also improve to the performance even if the primary strength, power or endurance gains are absent. Thus the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that aids the knee joint function are such muscle groups.

Now having equipped with knowledge always keep in mind that in weight training soccer doing weights might not give much benefit. You are invited to become a member of 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.

What if I told you that weight training soccer is aimed at enhancing strength rather than the building of muscle mass, especially the growth of muscle groups that support the joints? This requires special fitness training program without the ball and off the field in order to give time to focus on particular muscle groups.

By this technique those areas will give better movement and flexibility resulting in increased pace and strength.

Core: The area that is first to be targeted are the abdominals, which is usually called 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.

Hence all the physical actions are initiated from the core A strong and a well developed abdominal core also ensures a well-balanced back, especially the Lumbar region. This in turn creates and enhances a better posture.

Soccer Fitness

Legs: The quadriceps are helpful 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, in weight training soccer walking can be useful as it helps to increase blood circulation inside the body with each step.

Powerful and stable leg muscles are vital for the hips, knees and the ankles to hips, to bear all the power and energy produced in hitting the ground.

Back, Chest and Neck: This portion of the body provides relationship between the core and the ends (legs, arms and the head). These areas must never be neglected in soccer strength training because their growth is linked with the rest of the body.

Arms: Arms facilitate in the balancing of the body through weight distribution, especially when jumping to head a ball or changing 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. They work alongside to create an individual and a team that will show improvements well within the first half of the season.

The key again is going back to the core, because only a well-developed soccer fitness program to develop the core will naturally bring these areas into focus.

Program: Usually a program that is calculable and particular to an individual’s requirement should be applied at the start of the season. The comprehensive development of the player comprises of directing attention to specific areas of the body initiating with the core till each section of the body.

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 are invited to become a member of 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.

Let’s face it. If you train your team with weights there’s no reason why should not fine-tune their weight training soccer routine as the year progresses. In case you are not giving much attention to it, you are losing lots of advantages of soccer-specific fitness.

Only some of the coaches understand soccer strength training correctly. A young soccer player of today should be a “complete athlete”.

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. One would be destroying his players, the game and even himself if he just tells his players to lift weights like any body builder.

Bodybuilders, and athletes whose sports are mainly strength based, train to increase size, bulk and utmost strength. They’re not very much troubled if it damages their aerobic endurance levels or even their quickness 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.

Let’s understand why

Lower body strength is vital in soccer as it is necessary in for kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting, and turning and also useful in improving speed. While the strength of the upper body, is also important. It is used to shield the ball keeping off the opponents.

“Strength” can be divided into three categories, when we talk about weight training soccer.

Absolute or Maximum Strength: The highest level of power your muscles can exert in a single, quick motion. For example, a who can leg press 250 lbs has greater strength than another player who can leg press only 200 lbs.

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: Power is a result of both absolute strength and the speed of movement. If you increase either of these, without lowering the other, the explosive power of players will increase.

By just following the traditional weight training program that many popular fitness magazines promote; only power will be increased. But if you put effort to improve your contraction speed, even those types of soccer fitness programs can become useful.

Strength Endurance: The capability of a muscle group to carry out frequent and high-power actions. Strength endurance and power both are essential for soccer.

At some point in your soccer training routine, as a coach, you must focus on developing strength endurance. 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.

Do yourself a favor and invest some time to plan your weight training soccer program correctly and it will certainly pay off ten-fold on the field. You should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society for you can 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.

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.

Soccer Fitness

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.

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.