Weight Training Soccer: Tips On Overall Conditioning

It is very commonly heard nowadays that weight training soccer is a major factor of sports training in today’s times as it creates tougher and quicker muscles. The soccer fitness plan discussed in this article will help you prepare your players for playing soccer at a higher level.

Soccer weight training requires muscles to be strong, speedy and resistant instead of adding pounds of useless bulk in muscles. Although the lower body strength is more important in soccer but we still carry on with the upper body weight trainings for overall conditioning and strength.

I think fitness training should start with the legs. You can start the warm up session with squats. After a light warm-up set, load the bar to a weight you think your players can get 20 reps with. Assuming that they are quite strong, therefore they should begin with 220 pounds. This practice is performed by getting below the bar, and putting it across their upper back and then stand up with it.

Instruct them to step back out of the racks and stand with their feet, shoulder width apart or wider. After that they must lower their body while holding on to the bar till their hips are a little bit below the top of their knee. In weight training soccer, after coming to this point the players should quickly stand up fully and breathe out. Encourage them to repeat this for 20 reps even when they are dead tired.

They should be given a break of 5-10 minutes before switching to the leg curl machine to work on hamstrings. They are required to perform 4 sets of 15 reps each. During each set of Leg Curls, Stiff-Legged Dead lift should be performed with 4 sets of 15 reps. It is important for the hamstrings to be strong as the speed is significantly enhanced by them.

Finish the leg workouts on Standing calf-raise machine and doing 3 sets of 25 reps

Now for the upper body work out begin with the Incline bench press. When they are done with the warm ups, they should continue with extra weights so that the next set of 10 reps becomes tougher. The players must repeat the 5 sets 10 times with weights, while stretching their chest and shoulders and at the end of each set stop and relax for 2 minutes.

Now we move to the second workout of this session of soccer strength training which are the pull-up exercises. They should work out on their biceps and back by making their palms facing their body. The last phase of upper body exercises is to concentrate on the abdominals and leg raises of about 5 sets of 20 or more repetitions. The final exercise is sit-ups, complete 5 sets of 50 or more.

As a final point weight training soccer is only a minor portion of the comprehensive training program required. You should consider joining our youth soccer coaching society to know more about various weight training exercises relevant to the game of soccer; the community also provides videos, articles, pod casts, and newsletters available for you.