Your soccer game is important to you. You take the time to play on a team so now you want to take the time to improve your game. How can you improve yourself in a game where you spend the majority of the time running? By increasing your strength and endurance through weight training!
During soccer, players use muscular power, strength and endurance. The soccer player doesn’t beef up on muscles but instead becomes an endurance machine, able to run for hours without tiring.
In each sport there are sport specific training principles, and soccer isn’t different. Developing a soccer weight lifting program will help to improve your abilities as a player and your overall health.
Soccer is one of the most demanding of all sports. There is no other playing field as large, nor game lasting as long without regular rest periods. During one game a player can cover 4-6 miles. Of that mileage only 25% will be walking. The rest is covered while running, jogging, sprinting or going backwards.
Past belief was that soccer would condition for soccer with some additional running but today strength training is an integral part of conditioning for the game. But the standard reps and sets aren’t as effective for soccer weight lifting programs as they might be for other sports. This is because soccer requires endurance and explosive power as well a balance, coordination and agility. Some players may need more lean muscle mass but even they should also work to convert their strength into soccer specific power.
Soccer weight lifting programs will also help to correct the imbalances that happen to soccer players with over developed quadriceps and underdeveloped hamstrings from running over rough terrain. This correction will also help to prevent future injuries.
As with any other strength training program athletes should have a medical clearance to be sure there aren’t any underlying issues that would impact their ability to lift weights. Your doctor should also advise you not to lift more than 3 days each week and to keep 48 hours between each workout. This will give your muscles time to recover from resistance training and to build more muscle.
One of the most effective ways to design a soccer weight lifting program is to use circuit training. Circuit training will build strength and endurance simultaneously. By moving from exercise to exercise without rest the athlete is forced to use more cardiovascular energy than they do in a normal weight training session.
Some of the general guidelines for a soccer weight lifting program using circuit training includes:
- Use lighter weights with higher number of repetitions. Sometimes body weight is sufficient for these exercises but if weight is used it should be 50% of maximum or light enough to do 15-25 repetitions.
- In circuit training sometimes the athlete uses time instead of repetitions. For instance the exercise might be performed for 30 seconds before moving on to the next exercise without rest.
- Each exercise should work a different body part from the station before it. So you might alternate between doing exercises that use the upper body, then core strength, then lower body and repeat.
When an athlete wishes to increase the intensity, remember to increase only one parameter at a time. Don’t increase the weight and the number of repetitions or the amount of time at the same time. Increase the weight by one pound one week and then increase the time done over the next weeks.
A soccer weight lifting program will include push-ups, side crunches, lunges, dips, oblique work, shoulder press, triceps work, bridge and hamstring curls. Each exercise should be done between 25-35 seconds and repeated 2-3 times.
Soccer weight lifting programs are designed to improve the ability and agility of the soccer player. The entire team benefits when each of the players participate in a weight lifting program.
Resources:
FitDay: 4 Soccer Strength Training Exercises to Build Muscle
US Youth Soccer: Soccer Weight Training
http://www.nmysa.net/Assets/coach+education/Soccer+Weight+Training.pdf
Stanford Soccer Home of Champions
http://froeberg.com/soccerunited/stanfordfitness.pdf
Reading Memorial High School: Off Season Weight Lifting Program
http://www.rmhssoccer.com/pdf/Soccer%20Weight%20Lifting%20Program.pdf
Stack: The Soccer Strength Training Plan
http://www.stack.com/2007/01/01/soccer-strength-training-plan/
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