Soccer Tips

Sleep and rest are very important relating to sports performance and general health. It is one of the most underrated and neglected, yet easily fixed commodities. It plays an essential part in recovery and regeneration of the human body. Especially deep 'uninterrupted' sleep which your body requires 7-9 hours of. To get this amount of sleep avoid bad foods, caffeine, alcohol and watching blue screens such as computers and game consoles before going to bed. Lack of sleep will sabotage your health and fitness goals. A lack of sleep can also weaken your immune system, cause unbalanced hormone levels causing your body to store fat, decrease growth hormones causing you to not be able to gain strength as you should. Getting enough sleep also keeps your heart healthy. It keeps your bad cholesterol and blood pressure down. 

Agility drills with multiple cones, sticks and hurdles may look great, but often have little transfer to a game. The drills should not be an end to themselves; they should be a means to an end. 

Examples of coordination exercises are:

Scramble to balance
The athlete lays face down on the ground with eyes closed.
On the coaches command the athlete gets up quickly and stands on 1 leg.
Keeping the eyes closed throughout.

Jumps and hops
Different types of jumps, hops with holds.
Over lines, cones or hurdles.

Soccer ball exercises
Have athletes perform a forward roll before taking a shot on goal.
Have the young athlete kick the ball in the air then sit down on the ground, get up and catch the ball after one bounce.
Athlete punts the ball in the air does a forward roll then gets up and controls the ball.

I hope these help get you more coordinated. Be creative and put some fun into your coordination training.

It's always a battle trying to get athletes to stretch for the purpose of improving their range of motion. They'll do it to warm-up but there are so many benefits to moderately increasing range of motion. One of them is increasing power and speed of motion. A muscle can only contract as fast as its opposing muscle can relax. Flexibility training can decrease tightness and promote this speed of relaxation. Improving range of motion also helps to increase stride length and is important for quick and agile changes in direction. Try performing stretching exercises three times a week - following a training session when muscles are warm.

Make sure that whatever environmental factors try to affect your game that you are ready for them.

Make sure you have the correct footwear. Having the wrong footwear could slow you down. If the studs aren’t long enough or if the boots are too big then it will hard for you to get a good grip in the turf to apply the necessary force and change direction. Different surfaces and weather conditions require different footwear. Make sure you have the correct type of cleats.

Tie your laces. This can lead to an unstable foot and ankle, which could also slow you down. It doesn’t look cool, especially if you trip over them.

Wear correct attire. Having baggy, heavy shirts can also slow you down. Wear appropriate fitting clothes, even wear some form of under-garment that repels sweat into the atmosphere, which has been proven to keep the sweat away from the body to make you faster.

Wear headbands. Some people like to wear head guards and mouth guards. The bottom line is… if your happy and comfortable then you are likely to play better, so whatever works for you stick with it.

I am sure you have heard in every soccer game parents and coaches shouting 'get on your toes.' Although they have good intentions saying this to them could be detrimental. If an athlete were to be up on their toes then they will be in a poor athletic position, unable to change direction or accelerate quickly. It would be more efficient for the athlete's body to be lower, in a good athletic stance and having some heel in contact with the ground. The weight of the athlete should be on the balls of the feet and the ankle flexed.

Test yourself and analyse your results. Keep records of your workouts. Take measurements of yourself, especially if you have muscle imbalances or strength weakness'. Perform speed, strength, endurance tests. Test your power, flexibility and study muscle imbalances. Test yourself with soccer specific challenges. If you don't keep a detailed record of your results then how do you know if you are improving?

Speed Endurance is easy to improve, there is no need to go for long runs around a track or the soccer park or spend hours on a treadmill. A simple solution is to sprint short distance 2-3 times a week and keep a record of repetitions, the distance sprinted, and the recovery time needed between each repetition. Then, each session, you simply increase the distance and decrease the recovery time between each repetition. In a period of 6-8 weeks, your speed endurance scores will show improvement.

If you are looking for an individual training program to get faster or to become a more complete soccer player, then first you need to discover what needs improving. You see a lot of training programs, books and DVD's giving you direction to improve your speed in a certain amount of time and with specific exercises and repetiotions. The only problem with this approach is that these programs are not tailored to YOUR individual needs. Don't get me wrong- there is a lot of good material out there, but how do you know what is right for you. My tip would be to find out your weakness' by a professional. There are certain tests to determine if you have any muscle imbalances, right and left asymmetry, poor core stregth, poor body mechanics, flexibility issues, lacking in power, speed, endurance and many more. All of these can be addressed and fixed over time. You might think you have a problem in one area, when in fact, it is something completely different. This negligance could lead to imbalances and even injury. The safest way to continue Speed training is to find out your weakness' and improve them before moving on. The same theory applies to your soccer skills. A complete player is not someone who shows off their strengths but someone who is willing to work on their weakness'. Now, analyse your movement quality, followed by general athletic performance, and then sport specific skills to develop a more individualised Speed development program.

A great drill for improving speed and close control is a drill used by the late great George Best. Place two cones 10-15 yards apart and start with the ball at one cone and dribble the ball in a figure 8 motion for 60 seconds continuously around the 2 cones and count how many times you complete a figure 8. Each time use a different part of the foot or use only 1 foot. This will develop fast close control, as well as explosive dribbling and conditioning. Make sure you rest in between sets and try and break your score every time. To add an extra challenge you can simply increase the distance between cones, have less rest time or add more drill time.