Conditioning Exercises for Your Soccer Athletes

Many sports are characterized by the need to condition the body in order to achieve optimum performance. In soccer conditioning is very important. If a coach wants the best from his athletes, they must be conditioned. Conditioning exercises give players stamina, and increase their ability to perform. Although it’s well known that conditioning makes a better athlete, many coaches don’t know how to condition their players. Some conditioning exercises to help your soccer athletes are, integrating power training into normal practice, warm-up/stability and straight ahead running, and lateral speed conditioning.

The first series of conditioning exercises were approved by a clinician, and can be integrated into any normal practice. It’s recommended that these exercises be done at the end of practice, but many coaches do them before, and sometimes in the middle of practice. The first exercise is a leg circuit; these should be done about one per second and there should be 20 reps each. Athletes doing these exercises should go immediately from one exercise to the next, and dribble a ball between 2-3 sets. The exercise is a body upright squat, with the hands behind the head. First lunge forward, step up, lunge with the other foot, and then jump squat with legs apart. This is plyometric training, which improves power; it’s better to do 100 plyometric exercises than to do 500 exercises of lesser quality.

The next exercise in the first series is a second leg circuit. This exercise is double leg jumps, forward and back. Athletes should perform lateral jumps forward in one direction, and then jump backwards in the other direction. Coaches may choose to have players jump forward over a hurdle (four hurdles position in a square) and sprint to a ball being played by a server. Players should lateral jump over a hurdle and sprint to a ball. This develops core strength. Core strength should be developed before extremity strength. This exercise may cause some knee injury, if a player has weak lower abdominal and gluts (butt). Also, players should catch a medicine ball and stop on one leg while moving laterally. Athletes should do less of these exercises, because they are so intense. This should be less intense for younger players. For example an 11-year old should not be treated the same as a trained adult; likewise, players chronologically the same age may need to be treated differently based upon their training background and foundation.

The second conditioning exercises involve stability and straight ahead running. Coaches should always train for speed in long distances, and not for running a long distance efficiently. This exercise should always be started with a warm-up. Movements have to build gradually to gain speed; warming-up raises the core temperature and engages the nervous system. For warm-up, players should jog for five minutes, then do ten leg swings on each leg-forward, and cross body. This exercise involves a carioca, which is a footwork exercise. While moving sideways, the trail foot crosses in front of the lead foot.

The next warm-up starts with the athlete skipping with loops, or swings. Athletes should perform cross over skips, then take quick hip swings, players should do long shuffles with turns in the middle, carioca with turns and carioca at angles. Then plant and cut; three steps planting and cutting while stopping and bending. Then perform forward and backward leg swings, then high leg forward and backward. Next, perform a quick step backpedal to a sprint. Athletes should master the straight-ahead movement, before going to the lateral movements, stops, and cuts.

The next exercise helps with lateral speed movement. The exercise starts with a single leg squat. The leg should be in front, and then moved out wide, finally bent to the side. The leg should be rolled back and forth and to the side. Next, the players should perform one touch passing while balancing on one foot, and walk and stop while balancing on one foot. This exercise helps improve recognition, reaction, and change of direction. It teaches obstacle avoidance, and footwork. First, is the ball drop, and roll recognition drills. The server holds two balls out and drops one or rolls a ball to one side or the other, and then player must react. Then, the athlete performs a timed run and dribble weaves through flags; change flags to a staggered setup. Players must plant and cut at each flag, feed balls in random direction at the last flag to ensure balance, then plant and shuffle at each flag, and finally plant and turn at each flag.