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Soccer, or futbol, as its called by most is probably the most generally played sport on the planet. Soccer skills aren’t passed down or simply “picked up” they have to be taught through regular training and various drills.

Not only you have have good soccer skills to experience this game you must also be in excellent condition. Your body is going to be asked to do at a moments notice . You will go from standing still, to a full out run, to a short sprint after which off again. All this takes physical and mental training.

Some soccer skills that must be done in order to become proficient include kicking, goalkeeping, dribbling or moving the ball while simultaneously running, using your head to control the ball (literally) and controlling the ball.

When kicking the ball there are different methods but whichever is used the basic premise in most of them would be to put the ball in the desired area having a well placed precise kick.

Ball kicks could be curved, either right or left, they may be kicked with the inside or outside of the foot, it’s really a chip shot as with golf or perhaps a volley kick where the ball is incorporated in the air and you use its momentum to increase its  range or velocity.

Heading the ball or striking the ball using the top of your head is most likely one of the most exciting and impressive moves a soccer player can perform, especially when it results in a place for their team.

Head shots require precise coordination and it is probably one of the most dangerous shots because if done incorrectly may cause serious harm to the neck area. This isn’t a move that players will want to attempt however for those who do it takes plenty of practice to be successful at it.

Dribbling the soccer ball can be likened to dribbling in basketball except you are doing it with your feet. The fundamental premise is identical, in order to outwit or outmaneuver your assailant. Then move around, or through them, if possible, while still controlling the ball after which either passing the ball or attempting a score.

There are lots of techniques open to soccer players to do this but only through hours of drills and practicing will you develop the skills necessary to be a proficient dribbler.

Goal tenders possess the ultimate responsibility of defending that teams goal. Again only through repetitive drilling and playing will theses skills develop. The goalkeeper should be prepared to sacrifice his body to safeguard his goal at all costs.

None of those soccer skills is ever going to arrived at fruition if the soccer player isn’t in a higher level of soccer fitness. There are many coaching drills that must be followed and done regularly to become a top notch player.

Soccer fitness is really a mixture of skills, aerobic and anaerobic conditioning and ultimately drive and motivation. Enough cannot be said concerning the correlation between physical training and also the capability to perform the skills essential to be a good soccer player.

When all theses are attributes are combined, soccer players are a few of probably the most in good physical shape athletes in the world today.

Weight training soccer

You may not agree, but check this out. 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.

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

Specificity is a common principle in soccer strength training. The concept of this is to coach the players to put more time in working out in a way resembling their play on the field. Like running is a good drill for runners and swimming for swimmers.

With a view to develop power, the speed of the training or exercise is vital. Weight training programs should be designed in a manner that takes in to account the individuals role in team sports, their age, physical and mental ability to take pressure, and the level at which they are to play.

Soccer Fitness

All this information is useful for a trainer in designing a fitness training program, to make a good start.

Physical conditioning usually requires activities that improve specific training. For example: swimmers also run and lift weights to improve their aerobic and strength and power fitness.

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. Injury prevention even though not directly contributing to the play, is important as it ensures that the players are fit to play at the most critical times of the year.

Soccer is a sport which involves running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, and setting for an attempt. 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 best exercises for developing these muscles are the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts. 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.

To concentrate on the shoulders, arms and back muscle areas the program should also include swimming.

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.

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

So this is it. Always remember these points while weight training soccer since in sport like soccer weights may not give much 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.

Weight training soccer

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. And if you don’t, you’re giving up some great benefits of soccer-specific fitness.

Only a certain number of coaches’ know the correct ideology of soccer strength training. 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. A coach should know that he is hamming himself, his team and the game if he just insists his players to do weight lifting as the body builders do.

Bodybuilders, and athletes whose sports are mainly strength based, train to increase size, bulk and utmost strength. It does not matter much to them if it harms their aerobic endurance levels or even their speediness and flexibility.

Soccer Fitness

One would miss out a great deal from your fitness training sessions if he/she also uses the typical 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions the entire year.

Let’s understand why

In soccer, lower body strength is needed for kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting, and turning and also lays the foundation for great speed. While the strength of the upper body, is also important. It is used to shield the ball keeping off the opponents.

When it comes to weight training soccer, we can divide “strength” into three broad categories.

Absolute or Maximum Strength: It is the ultimate level of force that your muscle group can apply in one speedy motion. A player for example doing 250lbs leg press has mightier strength than another doing 200lbs only.

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: Power is a result of both absolute strength and the speed of movement. A valuable power will be created that is “explosive power”, if you improve one of them without lowering the other.

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: Strength or muscular stamina is the ability of a muscle group to carry out repeated and high-intensity movements. Like power, strength endurance is also very important to soccer game.

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.

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.

Soccer Field Diagram

Do you remember the last time when you explained soccer formations to your team with the help of a soccer field diagram? If you answered “Never” or “Long time back”, chances are that your team knows very little about formations or positions.

Almost all coaches falter when they consider that spoken instructions are sufficient and the kids will learn everything through these. Formations should always be talked about with the players beforehand because they play an important role on the field.

These are tactical choices usually made in the form of numbers and which describe the soccer positions of the players in each area from the defensive line. As a coach, you should go on interchanging the players during every single game so that the formations are not strict. Make sure that you finalize the formations only after keeping in mind the strengths and weaknesses of every player as it’s very significant.

Following are some of the common formations used in soccer:

Soccer Formations

4-4-2: This one is used most frequently. This formation has four defenders, four players on midfield, and two attackers, not including the goalie and this is why it’s called a 4-4-2.

The most important role in this formation is played by the midfielders who support the forward players during defense. In the event of an attack, they must move to the goal line and help the defenders.

4-5-1: Having five mid-fielders and one forward, this is better known as a defensive formation. The advantage with this formation is that since the midfielders are stacked up in the center, the opponents have a hard time attacking.

And then, due to the fact that there is only 1 forward, the midfielders proceed forward leaving the opponents yearning for the ball.

3-5-2: This contains three defenders, five midfielders, and two forwards. This formation allows both attack as well as defense when 2 wingmen take up the attacking role and the center midfielder disallows for any counter attacks.

3-4-3: The most forceful form of formation on the soccer field diagram that is brought into play when the opposition is defensive. With three defenders, four midfielders and three forwards, the strategy is to mainly attack using the forwards and use the defenders in case the opponents break the defensive line.

There is no single plan that stays good for the whole match. It must be in line with the changing situations in the game. So a coach must be smart enough to rotate the players as per the situations in the game. However, any formation can either be offensive or defensive.

Efficient soccer tactics regarding formations are crucial as a team’s win or lose depends on it. As the game becomes more action oriented, it should bring about more changes in the soccer formation plans.

Now use the soccer field diagram to teach the players in the field. If you would like more information on formations, look no further than our youth soccer coaching community that has tons of information on coaching youth soccer.

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 Drills.

Soccer conditioning

It is soccer conditioning that helps the players in learning to stay in charge of their body movements because soccer is a high speed sport. Control or balance should be on the top of your mind because it is a prerequisite to most aspects of the game.

A continuous enhancement must be observed in player’s performance despite the position that they play in. Soccer fitness is based on balance training in the very same way it is based on flexibility training. It starts with basic body control which helps in developing core strength and stability.

Yet the final aim of balance training is to supply the players with dynamic firmness. The players get to learn to use their muscles competently and swiftly with the help of balance training. In other words, balance training enables you to build a strong and well coordinated base that supports rapid body movements.

Soccer workouts must include balance training in one form or the other since it connects the creation and dropping the movements. The processing systems in the brain have the capacity to assist the body in moving and reacting without losing direction by keeping up a sense of equilibrium. These mechanisms can also be trained and improved to better your team’s performance on the field.

Soccer Fitness

With time and practice, there will be significant improvements in player’s bodily adjustments during different situations in the game. There will be players only get an inadequate understanding of soccer training. This is because they were never exposed to these balancing mechanisms during the initial years. Nevertheless, they are very talented as far as the game skills are concerned.

The soccer exercises containing control and balance as a part of training can help improve their efficiency at a quick rate. Soccer conditioning aerobics that lay stress on balancing guidance can help gain even a middling team member.

That said, balance training need not be too diversified. There is no use spending hours in training players on unusual positions with all kinds of equipment available. Introducing just a few tips in every aerobic duration is sufficient; examples can be warm up exercises, weight trainings, or agility exercises.

You will feel constructive effects if you daily spare just 5 to 10 minutes for the balance training. Ankle and knee joints can be muscled if you keep training yourself on balance. It also helps prevent injuries.

A lot of players start the balance training only after getting harmed. At this time, it just acts as a sort of treatment course. Even after starting the balance training, the probability of getting injured cannot be termed as zero. It means an introduction of balance awareness to the joints.

Thus, the players will make a psychological collection of uneven situations. It will help them tolerate the rash obligations in the exciting circumstances in contest.

When the essential groundwork of soccer conditioning is done you need to make sure that the exercises must go on as a part of the safeguarding stage. For lots of stuff on youth soccer and information on training plans, come be a part of our youth soccer coaching community.

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.