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It’s not necessary that you agree, but you should listen to this. The play which requires excessive power, and, or explosive power, Weight training soccer is vital while coaching these players. 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.

During soccer strength training, Specificity is a very important concept. 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 Example: Runners practice through running and swimmers through swimming.

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

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

Such exercises should be planned for physical conditioning which improves 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. Although it does not contribute directly to an increase in a player’s performance, injury prevention can positively support a player’s performance by ensuring that he or she is fit to play at crucial times in the event calendar.

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 general soccer fitness program may be used commonly but these two core lifts are very essential 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. Some sports require bulk and strength while some others have to ensure they combine adequate strength with mobility, speed and stamina like a mid-fielder in soccer.

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.

Now having equipped with knowledge always keep in mind that in weight training soccer doing weights might not give much benefit. You should consider joining 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 would be surprised to find out that the objective of weight training soccer is to develop the muscles that support the joints instead of just focusing on growing muscle mass. For this reason fitness training session should be arranged off the field and away from the ball so that the players pay attention to some special 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 area of the body ranging from under the breast bone up till the end of the pelvic region is called the “core”. This area is the basis of strength, the gravitational center, and the balancing point of the body.

So, the core is the place from where all the physical activities start 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 leg muscles called quadriceps are vital in pumping the heart. Thus being the biggest muscle groups of the body pump great volumes of blood. 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:The linking relationship between the core and the ends is provided by these parts of the body. During soccer strength training, these parts should be given a lot of importance as their development is directly proportional to the growth 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. Throwing your arms in the air adds force to a jump.

Plyometric: A mixture of weight training with well-organized plyometric program must be practiced for quality results. This will create individual or teams who will show growth during the first half of the season.

Special attention must be given to the core as only a well-developed soccer fitness program to improve the core will definitely target these zones.

Program: Typically a program which is measureable and precise to an individual’s requirement should be functional at the opening 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.

In conclusion, this concept of weight training soccer can be better understood through mental training of the team where both the team and individual players encourage 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.

The truth is that if that you should concentrate on enhancing your team’s weight training soccer sessions when you train them with weights. One might be missing out great benefits of soccer-specific fitness if he/she overlooks 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 players are supposed to be speedy in their actions along with the upper body strength to meet challenges. These players are required to have exceptional level of aerobic and anaerobic resistance to last that period. You are harming yourself; your players and your game if you make your players to do weight lifting like body builders.

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

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.

The reasons are as follows:

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.

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

Absolute or Maximum Strength: It is the maximum energy that your muscle group can exert in a quick, single movement. An athlete who can do 250lbs leg press has more power than the one who can just do 200lb leg press.

In soccer, good maximal strength is advantageous in holding off the opponents and defending the ball. Principally, it establishes muscular quickness and power.

Muscular Power: It is the product of both maximum strength and the quickness in movement. Explosive power will be produced if one of them is enhanced while keeping the other one the same.

Only power will be enhanced if you just simply use the common trainings that almost all of the popular fitness magazines advocate. But even those generalized soccer fitness programs can be improved if you deliberately enhance 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. Strength endurance and power both are essential for soccer.

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.

Your game is about to improve 10 folds if you just put a little time in planning your weight training soccer program correctly. You are welcomed to our youth soccer coaching community coming up with brand new methods and techniques it has thousands of relevant articles, videos and periodic newsletters.

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.

Weight training soccer is vital for sports training in today’s soccer world; you might be aware of that already, as it is required for creating tougher and faster muscles. Using this soccer fitness strategy discussed in this article, your players will have an opportunity to play soccer at higher 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. 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.

My suggestion is to focus your fitness training beginning with the legs. It should be started with the crouching exercises first. This session should be followed by putting the bar to a weight with which the players can perform 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.

Now they must stand keeping their shoulders and feet width apart. Next they move downwards keeping hold of the bar up until their hips are just below the upper part 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

Next is working on hamstrings, but before that have a 5-10 minutes break. They are required to perform 4 sets of 15 reps each. During each set of Leg Curls, Stiff-Legged Dead lift should be performed with 4 sets of 15 reps. Since hamstrings are very important to a player’s speed, so you want them to be very strong.

After completing 3 sets of 25 reps on the Standing calf-raise machine your leg exercises will be over.

The Incline bench press would be used to start the upper body exercises.
Now when the they are warmed up they must go on by including enough weights so that the next set of 10 reps is harder to do. A total of 5 sets of 10 repetitions are required with the weights, while stretching their chest and shoulders, yet pausing to relax for 2 minutes in the middle of each set.

The second exercise for this portion of the soccer strength training is pull-ups. Players should do this with their palms facing their body to work their biceps as well as the back. Finally the upper body exercises include abdominals and performing 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 are invited to become a member of our youth soccer coaching society to gain more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer; The society 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.