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Building Endurance in Soccer

As we mentioned before, the most grueling part of hitting the field during a soccer game is the fact that you are never going to have the opportunity to rest. As long as the ball is in play you are going to need to be active at any given point in time, helping your teammates to move the ball into your goal while at the same time keeping it away from the other team. In most other sports you would have the opportunity to rest after one of the teams scored as they retake their position on the playing field. Although you will do this while playing soccer as well, the break you are going to be able to get is going to be brief enough that you are going to think it never even happened by the time you are once again moving down the field listening to your muscles scream at you in protest.

Fortunately, if you have a couple of weeks at your disposal you can quickly build up your endurance so that keeping up with the constant pace of the field does not leave you feeling like something vaguely resembling yesterday’s garbage. Since the foundation of the game is based upon your ability to run it is your running skills that you are going to need to focus on. The average soccer player runs five to six miles during the course of a game at an average speed of four to six miles per hour. (The average is approximately the same speed as would be exerted by a strong power walker; however, bear in mind that this is an average, not an exact number. You will not be running at a steady four mile per hour pace; rather, you will have moments of running full out interspersed with periods of movement at a mild lope.) In order for you to be able to keep up out on the field you are going to need to be capable of traveling five to six miles at a consistent pace to be fit enough to keep up with the stop and go traffic accompanying the ball.

Of course, that does not mean that you need to go out there right now and run six miles. If you are not used to the exercise that would very likely kill you! (Not literally, but you would be fairly sore the next day and it is not overdoing it on one day and then having to take the next five off to recover that is going to help you shine on the field). Instead, what you need to do is start slowly and progress until you are able to run the entire distance. The distance you should begin at depends upon how much time you have until the season starts (hopefully you have given yourself plenty of time) and what your current level of conditioning is. Two miles is generally a good starting point; almost everyone can run two miles at a mild pace.

If you do not believe that you can run two miles or the thought of running for such a long distance intimidates you try to break it up into smaller goals; for instance, you could decide that you are going to run for twenty continuous minutes at a steady pace. This will probably still take you approximately two miles, but since you will be concentrating on the clock rather than on the distance you have traveled it will not feel as far. The important thing when you are doing a timed jog is to remember that it doesn’t matter how fast you go just as long as you keep running. If you are moving in a baby jog that really isn’t getting you where you want to go any faster than a quick walk would it’s okay; the point is, your legs are still moving in a jog-like manner. It is much harder to get started again once you have quit running than it is to make your legs keep moving, so you will be doing yourself no favors by stopping to walk and catch your breath. If you find that you truly cannot run for twenty minutes try a smaller increment, such as ten minutes, and work your way back up.

After you are comfortable with your two miles and/or twenty minutes it is time to extend your distance a little farther. It should take you approximately two to three weeks to become accustomed to a particular distance; perhaps not so much so that you are able to travel it with very little effort but certainly enough that you can stretch it just a little bit farther. Try tacking on an extra mile or an extra ten minutes to your runs for two or three weeks, then another mile or ten minutes after that, and so on and so forth until you are able to run a full six miles or an hour consecutively.

 

 

Increase Your Soccer Acceleration

Do you as a coach feel the importance of acceleration in the game of soccer, but due to information-overload out there, you don’t know who to listen to or what methods to follow?

I don’t blame you. According to research, most of the youth soccer coaches out there today are voluntarily coaching a team, meaning in a lot of cases you are probably a parent to one of the kids in the team. So with this being said, you have a regular job on the side, and you simply don’t have time to spend hours reading and researching in order to find new methods.

All you need to do is what athletes back in the days focused primarily (and almost exclusively) on, and it is…SPRINTING.

You don’t need to use resistance bands, parachutes or any other fancy stuff, you simply just need to line the athletes up next to each other, and then upon your command, sprint to point B.

When talking about speed and how to improve it, there are certain laws of physics that comes to mind. The probably most important one is to teach the players how to apply more force to the ground. This may sound extremely difficult, and it can be, but just follow the drills here below and I promise you that you’ll get the players to apply more force to the ground in their start, which will result in improved acceleration, and most important of all, these drills are fun.

As a matter of fact, you may even have done these before without even thinking about the benefits.

When discussing acceleration for soccer players, I tend to set up a distance of 15-30 meters. A few years back, a long term study performed on English Premier League players showed that the most covered distance in a soccer game is between 10-30 meters, and therefore, your ability to pick it up as fast as possible, decelerate and change a direction, and then accelerate again is probably the most important aspects of soccer speed (in this lesson, where are only going to focus on acceleration, and will leave deceleration and change of direction for another day).

To sum it up, you shouldn’t have the players sprint for 50-60 meters, at least not now. Anywhere between 10-30 meters is great (go with 10-15 meters in the beginning).

When talking acceleration vs. top speed, it’s important to know that acceleration is about creating an angle, that forward lean. So below you’ll find some different variations of starts to use with your players, and these starts will create that forward lean with your players.

Here are the different starting positions:

Staggered

One foot in front, and the other back. The position they are in when ready to run. Standing Track & Field start basically.

Falling Start

Have the players stand tall and keep a straight line through their body. Then tell them to keep that line and fall forward, and just as they feel it’s getting scary and they feel like falling to the ground, that’s when they’ll explode and run out for 10-30 meters.

Pushup Position

Have the players lay in a starting pushup stance (at the top of the motion, straight arms and a straight body). Upon your signal, they’ll explode out of there as quickly as possible. Important here is that they shouldn’t stand straight up and then run. From the starting position, they should try come forward as quick as possible, and when doing that, they’ll create that forward lean that’s so important for teaching a player to apply more force and improving their acceleration.

As a last note, speed training is always done right after a proper warm-up consisting of mobility and flexibility, some activation exercises together with some running and skipping drills.

With that being said, speed training is always performed at the beginning of a practice, and make sure that your players have recovered between the starts. Soccer speed training is done in a resting state. If you perform a lot of reps with low rest in between, it’s conditioning and will not give maximum speed results, it’s that simple.

A good rule of thumb is for every 10 meters the players run, they’ll rest 45-60 seconds before repeating. So if they run 30 meters, they should rest 135-180 seconds before next rep. Don’t ignore this, it’s a very important rule to follow!

Use these tips and you’ll see great improvements with your players soccer speed!

To the Best Soccer Player

One of the biggest traits that a person need to have or develop to be successful in soccer is motivation and discipline. Actually, this applies to just about anything that you choose to do. Once you have put the time and effort into the game of soccer, you will get better as time goes on and eventually you are unstoppable.

One of the main things that you will have a hard time with is the amount of distractions that are all over the place. When you should be thinking about and physically working on soccer, it is easy to be watching TV, going to movies or playing on the internet instead. A motivated person will learn to push these things aside and work on the game of soccer instead.

I bet if you ask just about any professional soccer player in the world, they will all say that they gave up a lot of things to be able to play for a living. However, look at them now, doing exactly what they want to do and playing the sport they love getting paid for it.

There are a huge number of aspiring soccer players that are looking to get into the game professionally just like you may be as well. It is the players that have the most discipline and motivation to succeed that will make the cut. Sure, a little luck goes a long way too but it is not everything.

In order to become the best soccer player you can be and quite possibly a professional in the sport, you have to live and breathe the sport. Sure, you are sacrificing everything now but who knows what can happen for you after all the hard work you put into soccer.

Becoming a pro soccer player or athlete is all about working hard, playing hard, showing dedication to the sport and appreciating that there are a lot of other people just like you that are working hard to succeed as well. see your favorite player at bgimatch and buy ticket through fast cash