July 1, 2010
Weight Training Soccer: The Truth About Conditioning
In soccer training Weight training soccer plays an important role in creating tougher and quicker muscles, this you might have heard a lot of times. The soccer fitness plan discussed in this article will help you prepare your players for playing soccer at a 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. Upper body weight training for soccer is not as important as is for the legs, but we still do it for overall conditioning and strength.
I think fitness training should start 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 exercise involves getting under the bar then placing it on the upper back and finally standing up with it.
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. At this point in weight training soccer, players should quickly rise to the full standing position and exhale. Tell them to continue this practice for at least 20 reps even when they are completely exhausted.
Next is working on hamstrings, but before that have a 5-10 minutes break. Your players will be doing 4 sets of 15 reps each. In between each set of Leg Curls, they'll also be doing 4 sets of 15 reps on the Stiff-Legged Dead lift. As player’s speed is greatly improves by strong hamstrings, so they should be very tough.
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.
After a warm up exercise, guide players to add enough weight so that the next set of 10 reps gets difficult. They are supposed keep on doing weights for a total of 5 sets of 10 reps, while stretching their chest and shoulders, however taking a break of 2 minutes between each set.
Next are the pull-up exercises in this section of soccer strength training. Players should do this with their palms facing their body to work their biceps as well as the back. The last part of the upper body portion of this workout is to work out the abdominals and 5 sets of 20 or more reps of leg raises would do well. The final exercise is sit-ups, complete 5 sets of 50 or more.
In conclusion, weight training soccer is only a small part of the overall training necessary to develop great soccer players. 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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
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 training fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Soccer Coaching Drills