Soccer Field Diagram

If you get to know that weight training soccer does not encourage on adding to muscle mass rather it stresses upon the strength 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.

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

Core: The abdominals, titled as the ‘core’ is the area first area to concentrate upon. The part of the body below the breast bone till the lowest part of the pelvis area is referred to as the “core”. This area is the basis of strength, the gravitational center, and the balancing point of the body.

In other words, the core is where all physical actions of the body are initiated from. 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 pump the heart. Therefore they are the largest muscle groups of the human body and supply vast amount of blood to the heart. Even walking is a beneficial exercise in weight training soccer because blood is pumped through the body by each leg.

Strong and balanced leg muscles are required for the hips, knees and the ankles to stand all the power 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. These areas must never be neglected in soccer strength training because their growth is linked with the rest of the body.

Arms: The arm plays a vital part in soccer to help maintain balance while you jump to head a ball or when you suddenly change directions. A powerful jump is made by throwing the arms in the air.

Plyometric: For excellent result you should use both weight training with carefully planned plyometric program. This will create individual or teams who will show growth during 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.

Programs: Generally, a program that is quantifiable and specific to an individual needs to be applied at the beginning of the season. Concentrating on specific areas of the body starting with the core and searing outwards to each section of the body is vital to the total development of an individual.

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 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.

You should know how true it is to work on your team’s weight training soccer program, while they are being trained with weights. You will be losing numerous advantages of soccer-specific fitness if you ignore it.

Only some of the coaches understand soccer strength training correctly. Players of youth soccer teams are supposed to be “complete athletes” now days.

The youth player of today needs to have the upper body strength to struggle with challenges and besides that he must always be quick and speedy. These players are required to have exceptional level of aerobic and anaerobic resistance to last that period. If you get your players to simply lift weights just like the bodybuilders, you are doing yourself, your team and your game a great harm.

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

If you also tend do is follow the typical 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions all year round, you’re far from getting the best from your fitness training sessions.

Let’s look upon 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. Whereas the upper body strength is required for stopping the ball and keeping the opponents away.

Three broad categories can be made to divide “strength” in weight training soccer.

Absolute or Maximum Strength: The highest level of power your muscles can exert in a single, quick motion. An athlete who can do 250lbs leg press has more power than the one who can just do 200lb leg press.

A good absolute power is useful in soccer to keep the opponents off and defending the ball. Fundamentally it’s the foundation for muscular speed and power.

Muscular Power: It is the product of both maximum strength and the quickness in movement. If you increase either of these, without lowering the other, the explosive power of players will increase.

But, if you just follow a generalized weight training routine that most of the popular fitness magazines advocate, you will increase power. But even those generalized soccer fitness programs can be improved if you deliberately enhance the speed of contraction.

Strength Endurance: The capability of a muscle group to carry out frequent and high-power actions. 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. However if you don’t alter your training programs and continue with 3 sets of 8-12 reps each, your training programs will not reap much of productive results.

Make a favor to yourself and put some time in improving your weight training soccer program correctly and I assure you that it will pay back 10 times in the game. 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.

In soccer training weight training soccer plays an important role in creating tougher and quicker muscles, this you might have heard a lot of times. Your players will have a chance to play at a higher level if they develop themselves using this soccer fitness plan discussed as follows.

During soccer weight training the aim is to improve the strength, speed and stamina of the muscles instead of just increasing the muscle weight. Though the importance of upper body weight training for soccer is not as much as the legs, we still go on with it for general conditioning and strength.

I think fitness training should start with the legs. It should be started with the crouching exercises first. After a light warm-up set, load the bar to a weight you think your players can get 20 reps with. 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.

Instruct them to step back out of the racks and stand with their feet, shoulder width apart or wider. After that they must lower their body while holding on to the bar till their hips are a little bit below the top of their knee. When they reach this level in weight training soccer, they should stand up quickly and exhale. Tell them to continue this practice for at least 20 reps even when they are completely exhausted.

Soccer Fitness

Next is working on hamstrings, but before that have a 5-10 minutes break. 4 sets of 15 reps each should be completed by them. During each set of Leg Curls, Stiff-Legged Dead lift should be performed with 4 sets of 15 reps. Hamstrings are vital for players speed, thus we would want them to be strong enough.

Finish the leg workouts on Standing calf-raise machine and doing 3 sets of 25 reps

The Incline bench press would be used to start the upper body exercises.
After a warm up exercise, guide players to add enough weight so that the next set of 10 reps gets difficult. They should continue with that weight for 5 sets of 10 repetitions total, while stretching their chest and shoulders, and resting for around 2 minutes between each set.

The second exercise for this portion of the soccer strength training is pull-ups. This exercise should be done with the palms facing their body so that their biceps and back can become strong. 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.

As a final point weight training soccer is only a minor portion of the comprehensive training program required. You should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society to know more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer; the community also provides 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.

Probability you might not believe this, but just hear me out on this. While coaching players on games that involves great strength, and, or explosive power weight training soccer is very useful. Strong abdominal and lower back muscles are also essential for players for whom strength and power is not the main issue.

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

One of the key principles of soccer strength training is, Specificity. The idea is that to train your players to practice in a manner which is similar to that when they play on the fields. For instance: Runners run and swimmers swim.

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

When this kind of information is available to a coach while planning a fitness training program, it ensures a good start.

For over all physical conditioning you should arrange those exercises which develop specific training. For instance, to improve the aerobic and strength and power fitness, swimmers also run and perform weight lifting.

Injury prevention is also something which is commonly overlooked although it is an important part of weight training soccer. The effects of injury prevention are not evident directly but  they are essential in player’s performance and confirm that the player is fit to play at the most important occasions of the calendar.

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. The normal soccer fitness program should useful if special importance is given to these two core lifts that are crucial for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.

Swimming can also help to add strength to shoulders, arms and back muscles.

Strength programs normally consist of heavy loads and a small number of repetitions. You should be knowing by now that unlike other sports requiring bulk and weight soccer is a sport that requires strength with mobility, speed and stamina.

Strengthening highly vulnerable muscle groups could also add to the performance benefits in the absence of primary strength, power or endurance gains. These muscle groups are the lower back and hamstrings, and the quadriceps muscles that direct knee joint function.

This is it. Please try to consider these areas while weight training soccer as you know now that football unlike other sports do not require weights essentially. 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.