By Aaron Thigpen
www.gamespeed.net

Soccer is the nations most rapidly growing sport and its level of competition continues to grow. Because it is so competitive the athletic skills required to perform well are at another level. For those who not properly prepared for the increased level of pllay the result can be diminished participation, disappointment and in some cases injury. Here are a few tips on developing speed and movement aimed at helping your athlete remain competitive, stay healthy, and advance in the sport.

Soccer is an explosive dynamic athletic activity. In terms of speed demands it requires short quick bursts and flat-out of straight ahead sprints. To complicate matters athletes must have agility to perform ball-handling skills in evasive and defensive manners. In addition, there is some degree of contact so the athlete must be able to endure the force of these collisions. Lastly there is an endurance factor. Here are some suggestions:

Develop your ability to accelerate. Top end speed is good but soccer is mostly about who can accelerate most quickly to the ball.

– Standing or couched starts sprinting for short bursts. Alternate the leg
positions: i.e. left leg forward then right leg forward. A basic exercise
is: 5-10 yard blasts, where the athlete tries to get up to full speed as quickly as possible within the 5-10 yards.

– On’s and Off’s: these are runs where you sprint for a short distance then coast for a distance then repeat. For example sprint for 30yards, coast for 30 yards, then sprint again for 30 yards.

Develop your ability to change direction while in motion. This will help with control and coordination.

Zigzags: Zigzag cutting left then right every 5 yards or three to five strides continuously. This will help with balance and coordination. Zigzag Starts and Stops: Perform the drill as above but pause (2-3 seconds). Before each cut then quickly accelerate to the next cut.

Develop your ability to absorb contact. In soccer collisions occur regularly. Believe it or not the body can be conditioned to some degree to handle the shocks but more importantly continue its athletic function.

Medicine Ball: Medicine ball throws, such as chest pass or side throws can help condition the body for impact. Start with lighter weight ball that are age appropriate and move up. Chest Catch: A simple basketball type pass towards the chest catching the ball letting the body absorb the shock Side Catch: Catch the ball on the side of the body.

Bump and Run: Have athletes perform zigzags together by bumping together zigging out then zagging back in to bump together. Have athletes try to keep balance and make good transitions from the bump to the cutting motion (zig).

Develop a conditioning base that incorporates the speed demands of soccer.

Speed endurance, which I define as having the ability to maintain sub maximal sprint speeds (75-80%) for a prolonged period of time. This creates the ability for the athlete to run throughout the game at high levels of speed without taxing the body?s nervous system and allowing for a reserve for bursts of maximal speed.

“Sprint Repeats” for varying distance up to 100 yards with timed recovery between 30 sec to 2 minutes. For example two sets of 8x 100 meters at 75-80% effort with 30 seconds recovery between reps and 5 minutes between sets. Or three sets 4x40yard runs at the same effort with 20 seconds recovery and 4-5 minutes recovery between sets.

Fartleks: are distance-oriented runs with sprints interspersed. Doing timed runs or mileage of this sort more resembles the demands upon the soccer athlete. Instead of doing a mile run (say ten minutes) jog while performing short sprints in varying intervals inside the run. For example, run two minutes and sprint for fifteen to thirty seconds. Do this for the distance or approximate time it takes to run a mile.