You’ve probably heard it a hundred times that weight training soccer is a major part of sports training these days as it creates stronger and faster muscles. Your players will have a chance to play at a higher level if they develop themselves using this soccer fitness plan discussed as follows.
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 recommend you begin your fitness training with the legs. You can start the warm up session with squats. Now place the bar with which your players can make 20 reps. Let’s say they are pretty strong, so tell them to begin with 220 pounds. They have to get under the bar, with it resting across their upper back, and stand up with it.
Now they must stand keeping 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. When they reach this level in weight training soccer, they should stand up quickly and exhale. Encourage them to repeat this for 20 reps even when they are dead tired.
Give them a break for about 5 to 10 minutes and then start with the leg curl machine to work on the hamstrings. 4 sets of 15 reps each should be completed by them. They will be required to perform 4 sets of 15 reps on the Stiff-Legged Dead lift between each set of Leg Curl exercises. Since hamstrings are very important to a player’s speed, so you want them to be very strong.
After completing 3 sets of 25 reps on the Standing calf-raise machine your leg exercises will be over.
Begin with using the Incline bench press, for the upper body workout.
Now when the they are warmed up they must go on by including enough weights so that the next set of 10 reps is harder to do. 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.
Now we move to the second workout of this session of soccer strength training which are the pull-up exercises. Their palms must be facing their body so that they can exercise their biceps and back muscles. The final part of the upper body work out involves working on abdominals and doing 5 sets of 20 or more reps of leg raises. The final exercise is sit-ups, complete 5 sets of 50 or more.
We would say in the end that to make quality players of soccer, weight training soccer is only a small fragment of the entire training program. 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.
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 practice sessions fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Soccer Practice.