Soccer

                                     

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Soccer isthe Colloquial abbreviation for Association football, via abbreviation assoc. +‎ -er (slang suffix); earlier socca (1889), then socker (1891), with soccer attested 1895. Soccer is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries, making it the world's most popular sport.

Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world, with a growing number of soccer enthusiasts and players world-wide. Here’s a closer look at the components of fitness and suggestions to organize your high-performance training.

Despite this fact, strength and conditioning programs for soccer are often neglected or outdated. Except at the professional level, many athletes and coaches still focus only on skill development and endurance training (i.e.- running), and ignore the other important elements of fitness such as: 

Strength and strength endurance training

Speed and power

Flexibility, warming up and cooling down

Agility training

Nutrition

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Endurance in Soccer

A soccer fitness program should be built around developing a good aerobic base. Several studies into the physiological demands of soccer have shown that outfield players can travel up to 13 km or 8 miles during a 90-minute game.This places a significant demand on the athlete's cardiovascular system and muscular endurance. Having said that, I believe this is one aspect of training that is already over-emphasized in this sport. It's not uncommon to hear of soccer players running for at least an hour at a time several days per week in an attempt to improve their performance on the field. However, if you start to analyze the 'sport-specific' requirements of the athletes, you will realize that they are actually engaging in varying intensities of activity for different duration while playing, including: walking, jogging, running, sprinting, and in various directions.

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Incorporating interval training into your program, that involves high and low intensities of activity, will provide better results than long duration, low intensity jogging alone.

Strength in Soccer

Strength is an important component of fitness that can benefit athletes in any sport, although it is often viewed as of little importance in soccer. However, strength forms the basis for power and speed. Soccer players also need strength to hold off challenges from opponents. Other benefits of strength training include: injury resistance, leaner body composition, faster metabolism, more energy, greater explosiveness, improved balance stability and agility, faster recovery.

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Speed & Agility in Soccer

Another significant component of a soccer fitness program is speed and agility training. The

speed of play in today's game is quicker than ever. While endurance and strength are very important to improving your performance, faster players have a definite competitive edge. You may have better endurance than the next guy, but if he makes it to the ball first it won't matter that you can run marathons!

Power is the combination of strength and speed. A more powerful player is a more formidable player. To improve your speed and explosiveness you should include power movements in your program, such as jump squats, high pulls, power cleans, and push presses, as well as plyometric drills.

Because it is important to have speed endurance, I recommend incorporating these exercises into a circuit training program with high intensity intervals. A typical workout would alternate between power movements for lower body and upper body, with plyometric exercises as intervals. You can conclude your training session with sprint drills and agility work (such as the 'ladder drill').

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Flexibility In Soccer

Another important aspect of fitness to discuss is flexibility. Maintaining a healthy range of motion can be beneficial, however, few people understand the most effective methods of stretching or when to use them. Many athletes still do passive stretching before their workout or practice, when actually this can diminish performance and increase risk of injury!

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