You’ve probably heard it a hundred times that a basic Soccer conditioning program is at the core of a team’s success. It is because of soccer exercises which build strength, agility, and endurance that players manage to stay in shape and thus dream to become match winners for their team.

Nevertheless, situations may arise where you or your team don’t get sufficient time to practice before a match. It does not mean that you must cut down on conditioning exercises. You don’t want your players to get injured before or during the game.

If you design a good soccer fitness training program, your players can get fully conditioned even in as less as 3 days time. All you need to do is be honest in carrying out the plan based on some good homework. Here are some tips that work fine with short but efficient training programs.

Warming up: Instruct the players to start with any of the following; a five minute jog, high knees, jumping, or heel flicks. Take time to relax for a while in between. This should be followed by some stretching of muscles for about 5 minutes to tone them up. Make sure that these soccer workouts consist of all the main muscle groups.

Soccer conditioning

Running: Some coaches make their players do continuous rounds of running. While that is not bad, I recommend that you make the players do soccer-specific running. It means that for about 30 minutes, they do a combination of running, jogging, walking, and sprinting in no set order.

Running like this at different levels helps the players build stamina and exercise control over their body. And they do not feel drained since a walk after the sprint helps balance things out.

Just let the individual players make a decision as to what they want to do and when. If they wish to do sprints more than light jogging, there is no harm in it. As the kids develop more strength and energy, you can increase the length of the soccer conditioning program by 10 minutes.

Stretching: Instruct the players to do it religiously; both before and after the match or a training session. Concentrate on working out the whole body specially the hamstrings, groins, quads, calves and lower back. Keep in mind that the stretching positions should be longer than the warm-up sessions. Generally, 20 to 30 seconds is a good duration.

A day before the match, make the players rest. This will give the muscles time to recuperate and also overrule the possibility of an injury before the big day. Also, use this time to discuss your plan with the team and encouraging them.

Make them laugh a lot so that they start getting positive.

Understand me! When you apply this to your sessions, your players shall improve dramatically. To know more about soccer conditioning, subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community which will leave you richer with resources on youth soccer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andre Botelho is the author of “The Expert Youth Soccer Coaching Guide” and he’s a recognized expert in the subject of youth soccer coaching. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun in less than 29 days! Download your free pdf guide at: Soccer Practice