Weight training soccer

It’s not necessary that you agree, but you should listen to this. You can greatly benefit from weight training soccer when coaching your players in a sport that requires a lot of strength, and, or explosive power. If player do not need strength and power to a large extent even for them, strong abdominal and lower back muscles are helpful.

Here are the basic principles of weight training for soccer displaying simple activities to describe those principles.

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. 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

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

For over all physical conditioning you should arrange those exercises which develop specific training. For example: swimmers also run and lift weights to improve their aerobic and strength and power fitness.

Injury prevention is another aspect of weight training soccer that is often overlooked. 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.

Running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, and getting ready for a shot are all the exercises performed in soccer. It is therefore necessary that the chains of muscles used in these activities, called the “anterior and posterior chain,” are worked upon for strength, stability and power.

The most useful workouts are the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts for forming these muscles. The general soccer fitness program may be used commonly but these two core lifts are very essential 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.

Strength programs normally consist of heavy loads and a small number of repetitions. As we have talked earlier some sports require mass and power but some others like soccer requires a good combination of strength with flexibility, speed and resistance; especially the midfielder.

Even if primary strength, power or endurance gains are absent, developing particular muscle groups would also help to increase performance. These include the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that direct knee joint function.

So there you have it. Keep these points in mind when weight training soccer since football is a sport for which you may not initially consider weights to be an advantage. You are welcomed to our youth soccer coaching community 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.

 

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