It’s very true, that while training your players with weights you should also consider improving their weight training soccer practices as the year goes by. And if you don’t, you’re giving up some great benefits of soccer-specific fitness.
Only some of the coaches understand soccer strength training correctly. Youth soccer players are required to be “complete athletes” now.
The players are supposed to be speedy in their actions along with the upper body strength to meet challenges. Players need to build their aerobic and anaerobic at the highest level to carry on until the game is over. One would be destroying his players, the game and even himself if he just tells his players to lift weights like any body builder.
When we talk about such sports like body building and players whose sports involve strength, we would say that they should try to increase in size, bulk and extreme strength. They will not worry if it destroys their aerobic endurance levels or their quickness and flexibility.
If you also tend do is follow the typical 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions all year round, you’re far from getting the best from your fitness training sessions.
Let’s understand why
In soccer, lower body strength is needed for kicking, jumping, tackling, twisting, and turning and also lays the foundation for great speed. Shielding the ball and making the opponts to stay away, requires upper body strength.
“Strength” can be divided into three categories, when we talk about weight training soccer.
Absolute or Maximum Strength: The highest level of power your muscles can exert in a single, quick motion. For example, a who can leg press 250 lbs has greater strength than another player who can leg press only 200 lbs.
In soccer, good maximal strength is advantageous in holding off the opponents and defending the ball. Principally, it establishes muscular quickness and power.
Muscular Power: It is the product of both maximum strength and the quickness in movement. A valuable power will be created that is “explosive power”, if you improve one of them without lowering the other.
By just following the traditional weight training program that many popular fitness magazines promote; only power will be increased. But if you put effort to improve your contraction speed, even those types of soccer fitness programs can become useful.
Strength Endurance: Strength or muscular stamina is the ability of a muscle group to carry out repeated and high-intensity movements. Strength endurance and power both are essential for soccer.
A great significant should be given to include strength endurance in your program. Going back to the basic 3 sets of 8-12 reps each, general weights programs are unproductive for developing soccer-specific strength endurance.
Make a favor to yourself and put some time in improving your weight training soccer program correctly and I assure you that it will pay back 10 times in the game. You should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society for you can gain more from the reserve of soccer resources like articles, periodic newsletters, and videos at our youth soccer coaching community.
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: Weight training soccer.
Tags: fitness training, soccer fitness, soccer strength training, Weight training soccer