Weight Training Soccer: 4 Things You Must Know About Conditioning
You’ve probably heard it a hundred times that weight training soccer is a major part of sports training these days as it creates stronger and faster muscles. Using this soccer fitness strategy discussed in this article, your players will have an opportunity to play soccer at higher level.
The new theory of soccer weight training is to have strong and fast muscles with higher stamina rather that to keep on adding pounds of muscle bulk. For overall conditioning and strength we still continue with the upper body weight training however its significance is not as much as the leg strength.
I recommend you begin your fitness training with the legs. Start with squats. After a light warm-up set, load the bar to a weight you think your players can get 20 reps with. Supposing they are strong enough, so let them go with 220 pounds first. The technique is to get under the bar and standing up with it resting it across the upper back.
Next tell them to stand having their shoulders and feet width apart. Then they should come down while holding it till their hips are only marginally lower than the top of their knees. 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.
They should be given a break of 5-10 minutes before switching to the leg curl machine to work on hamstrings. They are required to do 15 repetitions of 4 sets each. The Stiff-Legged Dead lift with 4 sets of 15 reps should be completed between each set of Leg Curls. It is important for the hamstrings to be strong as the speed is significantly enhanced by them.
After completing 3 sets of 25 reps on the Standing calf-raise machine your leg exercises will be over.
Now for the upper body work out begin with the Incline bench press.
When they are done with the warm ups, they should continue with extra weights so that the next set of 10 reps becomes tougher. The players must repeat the 5 sets 10 times with weights, while stretching their chest and shoulders and at the end of each set stop and relax for 2 minutes.
Next are the pull-up exercises in this section of soccer strength training. They should work out on their biceps and back by making their palms facing their body. The last phase of upper body exercises is to concentrate on the abdominals and leg raises of about 5 sets of 20 or more repetitions. Conclude with 5 sets of 50 or more crunching exercises.
We would say in the end that to make quality players of soccer, weight training soccer is only a small fragment of the entire training program. To know more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community that has videos, articles, pod casts, and newsletters available for you.
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