Soccer Fitness

I don’t know a thing about you, but I’ll bet that you must acquaint yourself with the essential soccer training tips, especially when you are participating in the game as a coach. These ideas can then be easily incorporated in your soccer drills sessions carried out 4 or 5 times in a week depending on the standard of your game.

You can help your players to perk up their performance by coaching them on these very important tips and techniques. They are as follows;

Educate your kids to keep moving the ball with one or two touches: This is known as inter passing in a team setting. They should play the ball with speed and make crisp solid passes, whether it is a 3-meter or 20 meter pass.

Play the ball and move about: Playing and moving envelops the basic idea behind making runs. But what is important here is to see that these movements are effective enough to create spaces for team mates and goal scoring opportunities.

Soccer Training

All soccer skills are generally based on the capability to make accurate passes with a view to create opportunities. It works well to set up your defender here. Instruct your players to draw near towards the defender, assuming that he or she is going to be able to get the ball, then give it and go, speed up into the open space to receive or return the pass.

Tell the players to keep changing their pace after moving about to beat the opponent. Teach your kids to swiftly attack and attempt to keep moving the ball as fast as they can. As soon as they get an opportunity to break, they should strike back with some accurate passes.

Teach your kids to retain the ball close to their feet when trying to control the ball: As one of the important soccer training tips, they should keep their head up and keep an eye on other player’s movements on the field. While dribbling, they should try and touch the ball with every step. This has the effect of having close control over the ball and improving a player’s ability to take away the ball from defenders.

Get the cross in: During the first half of the game, take shots on the goal and observe the goalkeeper throughout. When the player knows that he/ she is going to run in between the spaces, the other members of the team should be aware of it. This type of communication is critical for the development of great players.

When it comes to training for soccer, guide the players to seek into the area amid the 6 and 18 yard boxes. This will push the goalkeeper to come out in an endeavor to get the ball. This will have the effect of making the open and unguarded.

Keep looking at the ball: Keep a constant watch on the player’s movement on the field. Train players in a way that they stick to the team’s strategy and tactics for the day.

So you should start incorporating these soccer training tips into your training sessions so that your players are able to execute it naturally while on the field. Join to our youth soccer coaching community and you can get access to numerous 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: Soccer training tips.

What if I told you that stretching as a part of soccer training tips is highly recommended by professional soccer coaches and is widely practiced by players in almost every sport? Soccer is a sport which is continuously growing and developing in its intricacy.

There are two kinds of stretching; static and dynamic, that are slotted in planning training for the soccer season.

Static stretching requires the kids to extend their muscles as far as they can and hold for a given duration of time. Recurring motions, rebounding, and rhythmic bouncing are performed by the players while doing dynamic stretching. It is generally considered as more dangerous and less effective than static stretching.

This article discusses some benefits of stretching that go a long way in making a good player great.

Soccer Training

Stretching reduces injuries: When players do stretching every day and keep doing it for a long time, it promotes their muscle growth that reduces the risk of injury. Stretching provides a way of growing the muscle mass and strength as well.

Stretching affects flexibility: Stretching does prevent loss of flexibility. Still, the effects of stretching are way better when it is done for a long period of time than for a shorter duration.

Stretching increases flexibility when it is performed for a few minutes before any soccer activity. When it comes to soccer training tips, the best bet is to distribute a stretching program over a predetermined length of time to continuously increase the range of motion.

Stretching perks up performance: When stretching program is designed specifically to suit soccer needs of the players, their performance improves.

Make sure that the kids enjoy stretching: Make stretching fun for the kids by including a variety of soccer drills into your session. Keep varying the warm-up activities you do before stretching. Try various activities like tag games, ball tag, and keep away.

Contemplate on the stretching, sense and know each stretch, along with checking for stiffness in the body.

In most of the cases a single 15-30 minute stretch for each muscle group is enough for kids but some may need longer stretches or more repetitions.

This is because when the temperature of muscles is higher than normal, tightness decreases and extensibility increases. Those players who wish to sustain or increase their flexibility can partially attain this goal by stretching. It’s advisable to perform stretching exercises when the body temperature is higher than normal as it is safer and more useful.

This is why some coaches tend to make their kids perform stretching exercises after a workout as well. To prevent muscles for tightening too fast, make your players do some stretching after they’ve practiced soccer skills.

Generally, players who exercise an active warm-up prior to stretching get a better range of motion than those who only stretch. So if injury prevention is your aim, stop stretching before exercise and increase the warm up time.

One of the most important soccer training tips to keep in mind is that stretching, if done hurriedly, does not help kids gain any flexibility, and becomes worthless and repetitive, so give them sufficient time to warm up before stretching. You can get more such tips and tactics by subscribing to our youth soccer coaching community that has several relevant articles, videos, and periodic 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: Youth Soccer Drills.

Let me ask you a simple question. Not following the soccer training tips, most soccer coaches blindly design training programs for their players just to make up the numbers and simply go through the motions. Are you doing the same thing?

Before you design your next training programs, make sure you set some specific goals for your team. Decide on what you wish to achieve from the training program and then take all steps necessary to realize your goals.

Introduce new, fun, and innovative soccer drills in your training sessions to add variety. It will break the monotony of doing the same drills day in and day out. You’ll see a noticeable improvement in your team’s performance once they start enjoying the training sessions.

Make your players learn to respect you and listen to you, irrespective of their age or the level at which they play. Valuing each other’s opinions and feelings creates a healthy environment for both players and the coach.

Soccer Training

A high level of flexibility greatly benefits every soccer player. It’s been categorized into 3 parts.

Dynamic flexibility: It refers to a player’s capability to perform fast movements within the full range of motion in the joint, like twisting from side to side.

Static active flexibility: The ability to stretch a tough muscle by using the tension within that muscle is termed as static active flexibility. Let’s take an example; holding one leg in front of you and keeping it as high as you can. The hamstrings are stretched while the quadriceps and hip flexors hold your leg up.

Static passive: It’s the skill of using the body weight or some external force to hold a stretch. For example; picture yourself holding your leg out in front of you and relaxing it on a chair.

Moving further, let’s now see what is next in the line of soccer training tips. It requires you to check that kids are wearing an appropriate gear, depending on the weather conditions.

Training for soccer should be complemented by a fitness program that is designed to identify and improve upon the weak areas. Following are the factors that must be kept in mind when designing a training program like this.

Kid’s age: There is a direct connection between decrease in the flexibility of soft tissues and the reduced range of movement, as one grows older, notwithstanding the gender. Even though, the more we remain active, the lesser are the chances of flexibility decreasing.

Gender: Girls exhibit a greater range of movement, independent of their age.

Movement: In demonstrating soccer skills, active kids show a better range of movement that the inactive kids.

Injury: Injuries also impede the range of motion in a joint.

Pain: There is a decrease in flexibility as pain increases that result in muscle spasms. Nonetheless, flexibility in kids is not hampered by strength training unless the exercises are done correctly and in full range of motion.

Heredity: How flexible is a player’s body depends upon a player’s genetics also.

So make sure you incorporate these soccer training tips into your training programs with a view to improve their effectiveness and productivity. You can improve your coaching skills by subscribing to our youth soccer coaching community that has tons of articles, newsletters, and relevant videos.

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 For Kids.