Soccer Fitness- Basics to Improve Your Soccer Fitness Goals

1) Soccer Fitness a General Overview

Soccer fitness is paramount to performance, the fitter you are the better you perform. Its as simple as that!!! Or is it??

It's always a good time for football training drills and exercises unless you are in the English Premiership - there's always room to improve your skills.

Soccer is played in two main forms, firstly as a 90 minute game with a 15 minute half time rest period, or a more explosive 5 aside game. Being a sport that is constantly on the go, your fitness level and strength plays an important part in your game, however a high skill level on the ball and good knowledge of the game are also essential.

Soccer conditioning and training need to focus and be directed toward the right muscles for fitness. Soccer is a sport that requires a multitude of athletic abilities, aim to make improvements in fitness, in the following to improve your game.

A fitness routine and soccer workout is crucial for building, power, endurance, speed, and strength, to improve the sprinting, running and jumping that is used in soccer. The following should be considered added to your routine workout to improve your game.

Speed

Plyometric exercises are used to improve the footballer's ability to change rapidly between activity that contracts the muscles concentrically (muscles are shortened) and eccentrically (muscles are lengthened to maintain stability).

The aim of using the exercises is to decrease the time it takes between running, when concentric contraction takes place, and stopping when eccentric contraction is effected. They include exercises such as hopping on one leg, sprinting from lying down and the ‘depth jump,' where players leap from 5ft platforms and try to spring up again as soon as they hit the floor.

Muscular Endurance

Core exercises, abdominal exercises, squats, press-ups, and sit ups are all necessary for building up all around muscular endurance, in addition to conventional cardiovascular exercises like running and rowing.

Strength Training

Weight training for soccer is also necessary to build up power and strength in the leg and arm muscles. Using different exercises such as leg presses, quads, hamstring curls, etc. will help build up different muscle groups to improve your strength and game.

Co-ordination

In order to pass the ball effectively, the player needs to have good eye-brain-body co-ordination. This is improved by increasing the bodies motor skills to enable the player to react instantly to a situation on the pitch. Ladder drills are an effective way of improving motor skills where players aim to run within the ‘rungs' of a rope ladder without stepping on the rope.

Stretching

Stretching is crucial in soccer conditioning and fitness before and after soccer workouts to avoid injury. Hamstring and quadriceps stretches are important to prevent soccer injuries and is very important for general leg fitness.

These are a good guideline to refer to when looking to improve your soccer fitness and incorporating into your soccer workout. Fitness is important not only for the soccer field to improve performance but to enjoy a healthy and happy life. Hard training and conditioning will help you improve your game.