It’s a known fact that a soccer conditioning program provides a strong base for a team’s success. Soccer exercises build strength, agility, and endurance without which players cannot even think of being in shape for a live match, forget about winning it.
Nevertheless, situations may arise where you or your team don’t get sufficient time to practice before a match. But you don’t need to compromise on the conditioning exercises because of this. You would not want to see your players down with injuries either previous to the match or in the match.
Any well laid down soccer fitness training plan can lead to training players completely in just 3 days time. It only needs some good quality planning, and sincerity in its execution. Here are a few tips to work with short but effective conditioning programs.
Warming up: Tell the players to kick off with any of these; a five minute jog, heel flicks, high knees, or jumping. Take adequate rest for a few seconds in between. Then do some stretching for another 5 minutes that will tone up the muscles. These soccer workouts must include every important muscle group in it.
Running: Some coaches tend to make their players do continuous running. While that is not bad, I recommend that you make the players do soccer-specific running. It implies that they do running, jogging, walking, and sprinting in no set order for about half an hour.
Running like this at different levels helps the players build stamina and exercise control over their body. And they do not feel tired since a walk after a sprint keeps the heart rate normal.
Leave the decision making to the individual players about what to do and when. If they want to do sprinting for a longer time but only limited jogging, even that is fine. As the players get fitter and their stamina increases, you can increase the duration of your soccer conditioning program by another 5 to 10 minutes.
Stretching: Persuade the players to do stretching exercises both after the training session as well as a match. Focus on the whole body but lay emphasis on hamstrings, groins, quads, calves and lower back. Ensure that the stretching postures are longer than the warm-up sessions. Generally, 20 to 30 seconds is a good duration.
A day before the match, make the players rest. This will allow the muscles to recover and also prevent the possibility of an injury. Also, this is a great time to talk to the players and giving them a high.
Crack jokes so that they get relieved of tension.
Have faith in me! Once you start to apply this to your training practice sessions, you’ll watch your players perform like hard core professionals on field. To know more about soccer conditioning, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community which will leave you richer with resources on youth soccer.
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: Soccer Drills For Kids.
Tags: conditioning for soccer, Soccer conditioning, soccer exercises, soccer fitness, soccer fitness training, soccer workouts