Also Under Sports Specific

SOCCER STRATEGIES

Welcome to our Soccer Strategies. As with all our other Strategies,... we wish to present to our soccer enthusiasts guidance on physical conditioning in order to improve their performance.

Soccer players must have all the physical abilities of almost every other sport. They need the stamina of a marathon runner, the speed of a sprinter, the quickness of position change like a half back, coordination like a tennis player and the focus of a baseball player, plus...

They must be able to make game judgments "on the run",... not a lot of time to stop and ask the coach. Soccer players are as close to the overall athlete as we can get, similar to the pentathlon and decathlon athletes. Besides physical conditioning, soccer players must possess excellent "foot eye" coordination, which is more difficult than hand eye coordination.

The use of resistance training for soccer must be perfectly balanced to provide more stamina in all muscles and at the same time to build strength. There is more contact in soccer than some would like to believe. Besides the strength in the legs to propel the ball, upper body strength is needed to maintain position, fend off opponents and support/balance for dribbling and shooting.

Individuals specializing in the goalie position require superior upper body strength and leaping ability. Although their position is more static than the rest of the positions, they still must maintain high levels of endurance. Their reflexes must be sharp and reaction time at a peak.

As in many other sports, there is no need for extreme muscular size; in fact this would hamper performance. Moving a greater mass the way that is required in soccer, for any length of time will require more energy and the individual would tire more easily.

The upper body, both during the off-season and during the playing season should be maintained with basic movements and trained in one day.

The lower body requires more focus in soccer, both during the season and off-season. A great variety of legwork should be included to train all aspects of the leg. Unlike in other sports, where we remain focused on relatively few leg exercises and avoid the "smaller exercises' that can be performed with cables, for soccer we highly recommend their use.

Cardio-vascular (aerobic) training is an absolute. One thing that must be remembered is that treadmills, stepper and bikes, along with running programs only work the lower body. There is need for upper body stamina also and this becomes a part of the upper body weight-training program.

SOCCER STRATEGIES PROGRAMS

The program includes the following:

Several Off-season and In-season programs are included with variations in exercises, sets and repetitions.