Probability you might not believe this, but just hear me out on this. 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. Even players for whom strength and power is not a main attribute tend to benefit from strong abdominal and lower back muscles.
This article will teach you the basic theories of weight training for soccer using simple methods for presenting those theories.
Specificity is a common principle in soccer strength training. The theory is to design your training sessions to match the player’s activity on the field. For instance: Runners run and swimmers swim.
To improve power, speed is an important aspect in training. A number of thing which are important while planning weight training programs are the players role in team sports, their age, physical and mental capacity to take stress, and the level at which they are to play.
When this kind of information is available to a coach while planning a fitness training program, it ensures a good start.
For over all physical conditioning you should arrange those exercises which develop specific training. For instance, to improve the aerobic and strength and power fitness, swimmers also run and perform weight lifting.
Injury prevention is also something which is commonly overlooked although it is an important part of weight training soccer. It is necessary to prevent injury although it is not the direct factor to contribute towards to the play however it enables the players to maintain their fitness in order to perform their best at the special times of the season.
The movements executed in soccer are running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, preparing for a goal. 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 most useful workouts are the core lifts, like squats and deadlifts for forming these muscles. A comprehensive soccer fitness program giving due stress upon these two core lifts should work miracles for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.
Swimming can also help to add strength to shoulders, arms and back muscles.
Usually strength enhancing programs include heavy weight lifting with few repetitions. As we have talked earlier some sports require mass and power but some others like soccer requires a good combination of strength with flexibility, speed and resistance; especially the midfielder.
Establishing strong muscle groups can also improve to the performance even if the primary strength, power or endurance gains are absent. These include 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 can also join 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.
