Believe it or not even young kids participating in soccer need to warm up. Most young players could get away with not warming up but its good practice to get them to warm up. By creating a structured training session you allow the kids to pick up good habits that will inevitably stay with them for the length of their soccer career.
Before you get your players to stretch, it's a good idea to get them to jog around the field for approximately 10 minutes. This will ensure that their body core temperature has risen and the blood is pumping through the required muscles. Once the muscles have warmed up they become more elastic and will be easier to stretch.
Once your players have finished their light jog you can proceed to the stretching phase of the warm up. Static stretching is a thing of the past and has been replaced with dynamic warming up and stretching. This simply means that the warm up and stretching will be done using the same motions and movements that are needed during the heavier loads of the session. Basically same movements but at a slower more controlled pace.
Knees to Ball Drill
For this drill each player takes hold of a ball. They hold the ball slightly away from their bodies while trying to hit the ball with their knees. They continue this exercise for about 30 seconds changing and using alternate knees. This drill is great for warming up the quads which are used to power your knee lifts. The motion is also great for stretching the quads, groin areas and hamstrings. The required knee lifts also ensures the players heart rate increases preparing the players for the rest of the session.
Toe to Ball Drill
This drill requires the players to work in pairs. One player holds the ball in front of him while the other player tries to kick the ball with his toes. The sequence of the drill requires the player to change legs after each contact with the ball. Left toe followed by right toe and so on. This drill should last about 30 seconds and players should change positions and roles.
This drill gives your hamstrings a good work out. Not only does it increase the blood flow to the legs but it also gives your hamstrings a great stretch and increases your stretching range.
Toe to Hand
This drill is a continuation of the second drill. Now each player will try and kick the end of their fingers with their toes. Just pretend to kick a ball and follow through reaching up towards your fingers. Right leg will follow through to the left hand and vice-versa. This drill gives your hamstrings are greater stretch and also replicates the motion of kicking which will be needed later on in the session.
Once your players have warmed up and spent some time stretching, introduce some balls into the training session and continue to increase the pace and the work loads of the training drills.
8 Comments
Is football (soccer) a real sport?
On one hand its very popular…
on the other hand, well…
Soccer participants actually fellate one another.
Soccer participants are walking advertisements.
France is successful at participating at soccer. That should say something, especially to the British.
The “World” Cup is not the a World’s Cup, but a competition among 32 countries, disproportionately allotted to European countries.
Soccer hooligans.
Soccer is boring. Soccer is absurdly slow. I’ve had soccer apologists say with false pride how the average soccer participant “runs” 4 miles in a game. Newsflash: that means they are jogging less than 3 miles per hour. Translation: they are mostly standing around. BORING.
Soccer participants act like they’ve been shot – what pussies. Meanwhile, real athletes like Donovan McNabb or Bobby Baun play on broken legs. They had to bring out the stretcher 5 TIMES in a Serbia game. What pussies.
Soccer is too simple an activity.
Penalty kicks. You are determining a winner by a random event that has no relevance to the rest of the game. It would be as stupid as replacing extra innings with batting practice.
Fruity penalty cards. How stupid is it to flash up some card to indicate the severity of a penalty? Richard Simmons was inspired to use them in his diet system. Are all penalties the same? Again, the inability to use the upper torso hampers soccer participants. Use hand signals, you troglodytes.
Psychotic fans. The South Korean loser who set himself on fire is one example. The mental stability of the murderer who killed that one player because he sucked (free clue: all soccer participants suck) is another.
Ties: 55% of games are ties. Ties suck.
Why not use your hands? Or your brain?
Soccer participants do not bathe.
Soccer hairdos.
Pompous pseudo-intellectual Europeans who become soccer fans in order to convince the populace of their link to the common man.
Soccer hilites concentrate on what almost happens. When ESPN has the poor sense to show soccer hilites, they show missed shots, missed passes, etc. Any real sport shows things that actually contribute to the result. Soccer participants do not care about the result.
Soccer fans justify the activity based entirely on its popularity. Not only are the reasons why soccer is popular an argument against soccer, but it really shows how pathetic said activity is when that is the only argument soccer fans come up with.
The correct term for 0 is zero, not nil. Take a math class.
Buy a freaking cup, you pansies.
Soccer is not objective. There is no play clock. The game doesn’t end after the clock has run down. This adds bias, subjectivism and appeals to lower intellects, and it destroys the drama from last second victories. Contrast such clumsy timekeeping (shame on the Swiss, who should know better) and the lack of any discernable strategy with the strategic precision of the two-minute drill in football.
Soccer is not objective, part two. The lack of offensive chances leads to ties, which, as we know, suck. Soccer’s “solution?” Let’s randomize the result (in those cases where a tie suddenly becomes an affront, the “World” Cup) by having penalty kicks.
Soccer participants on the same team have different jerseys. The obviously higher intelligence of hockey (goaltender) or football (offensive linemen) fans and referees is evident, since we don’t need a different uniform to indicate a different privilege in the rule book.
Soccer is Third World inexpensive. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem. Most people don’t consider buying hockey or football equipment expensive in civilized countries, but in the context of the rest of the world, it is expensive. On the other hand, soccer is dirt cheap – and by dirt cheap, I mean slum kids in Brazil rolling up balls of dirt to kick around.
Soccer apologists say the reason it is not popular in the US is because it wasn’t invented in the US. First, soccer originated from the North American game called pasuckuakohowog several hundred years before the British played something resembling it. Second, basketball was the creation of a Canadian, yet is very popular in the US. Third, football was the creation of a Canadian, yet is very popular in the US.
Soccer apologists say the reason it is not popular in the US is because the US is not any good at that activity. The US soccer team won the World Cup in 1991 and 1999. Better find another reason.
Soccer apologists say soccer is an athletic activity. Using the Olympics as a barometer, it is pretty obvious that those countries that lack athletic prowess (Britain, France) are successful at soccer. Interesting to note, despite the inclusion of activities like soccer and walking in the Olympics (and the wrongful exclusion of football and rodeo), how those countries where soccer is not popular outperform those countries where soccer is popular athletically.
Citation: http://www.soccersucks.net/so
you absolute idiot.
Most popular game in the world
world cup distills over 150 nations down to 32 , how does that compare to the “world series”?
Also allows draws, a concept alien to the US sports fan who can’t compute more than two outcomes
Also by the mix of fluid prose interjected with schoolboy idiocy you have clearly cut and pasted your “opinion”.
Try writing your own questions and people may think you’re less of an arse
What Adidas soccer jersey size should I get? Youth XL or Adult S?
Hey I was going to get a Lukas Podolski jersey. I went to kitbag.com which is a UK site and saw that the Kids sizes were so much cheaper than the adult sizes. For Adult S, the chest size is 36″-38″ and the Kids XL is 32″-34″.
Kids XL- http://www.kitbag.com/stores/kitbag/products/kit_selector.aspx?pid=71793
Adult S- http://www.kitbag.com/stores/kitbag/products/kit_selector.aspx?pid=70145
My bra size is a 34A or 36A. I am about 5’4 and weigh about 130. Do you think I can fit into an Kids XL?
I have an XL youth shirt. I think you should fit into it because you have a small bust. If you can return it if it doesn’t fit I would get the XL youth, if not get a small adults just to be on the safe side.
PLEASE HELP!!! need good websites for….?
I NEED HELP…. i need some good websites for kids soccer jerseys for cheap OR mens small soccer jerseys [i cant seem to find any mens small jerseys online] for cheap…PLEASE HELP
soccer.com?
eurosport
Is a Kids XL close or the same as an Adults Small?
I’m looking to buy a Soccer (Football) Jersey, but there are all way overpriced. Though, I have just found a site that sells Juniors for quite a bit cheaper, so i wanted to see if i got the Boys XL would it be equivalent to Adults Small?
Here is the link to the Jersey: http://www.acasports.co.uk/product_info.php?cpath=23_312_313&products_id=7813{29}4595{1}181
Thank you.
I do believe you are retarded, sir. To further answer your question, usually a kids XL is equivalent to an adults XS. You must be a spic hehehe