You might disagree, but hear me out on this. While coaching players on games that involves great strength, and, or explosive power Weight training soccer is very useful. For player who do not require strength and power that much can also take advantage of strong abdominal and lower back muscles.
Here are the basic principles of weight training for soccer displaying simple activities to describe those principles.
Specificity is a common principle in soccer strength training. It means that if you can train your players in a way that emulates their activity when playing on the field, then you must spend the majority of your time training in that way. Like running is a good drill for runners and swimming for swimmers.
Speed is the main factor to put effort to when training, so as to develop power. The role of players in team sports, their age, physical and mental capacity to take stress and their player’s level must be considered when coaching them in weight training programs.
All this information is useful for a trainer in designing a fitness training program, to make a good start.
In order to develop physical conditioning such activities should be planned which improves specific training. Like for developing aerobic and strength and power fitness exercises, running and weight lifting are also performed by swimmers.
Injury prevention is another aspect of weight training soccer that is often overlooked. 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.
Running, sprinting, turning and twisting, side-stepping, and getting ready for a shot are all the exercises performed in soccer. The muscle chain that is required in these movements named as the “anterior and posterior chain,” should be exercised to build strength, stability and power.
So for creating these muscles core lifts, like squats and deadlifts are important exercises. A comprehensive soccer fitness program giving due stress upon these two core lifts should work miracles for leg, hip, back and abdominal strength.
The program can also consist of swimming to highlight the areas of shoulders, arms and back muscles.
Typically strength programs involve heavy masses with only some repetitions. You should be knowing by now that unlike other sports requiring bulk and weight soccer is a sport that requires strength with mobility, speed and stamina.
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.
So this is it. Always remember these points while weight training soccer since in sport like soccer weights may not give much advantage. 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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
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: Youth Soccer Practice
