Improve Your Soccer Stamina

A fitter player and, more importantly, a fitter team can play at a faster pace for a longer period of time. Fitness and player stamina is what sets apart professional and part-time teams, especially when they play in “all or nothing” matches such as the FA Cup where there is no middle ground for a draw. Stamina training in soccer is just a party of getting and remaining fit for the entire season. A player requires strength to keep the ball and win the match and this means the player must be able to sprint, accelerate and move quickly around the field for 90 minutes.

The warm-up is an essential part of injury prevention, vital when your star player is earning ฃ70,000 a week and will pick this up whether he plays or is sitting out injured. To improve your fitness and agility, start off with five minutes of jogging on the spot followed by high knees, heel flicks, jumping jacks and then five minutes of stretching. You can also perform press ups, squat thrusts, ‘lateral raises’ by using dumbbells or resistance bands, crunches, dips and sit to stand using the dumbbells. Instead of running at a continuous pace, mix up the routine with running, jogging and sprinting in a random manner.

You can start by jogging for five minutes, then sprint for 20 yards, slow jog for 100 yards, cruise for 200 yards, backward running for 20 yards, turn and sprint for 30 yards, walk for 50 yards and then jog again for 300 yards more. When you finish your training session, stretch the hamstrings, groins, quads, calves and lower back for between 20 to 30 seconds to allow your muscles to recuperate properly.

Soccer demands a high level of stamina, thus endurance training is an essential part of any professional soccer training programme. It serves as a great confidence booster when you can see your opponent fading during the later stages of a match and you have reserves to use and take advantage of. Endurance training is a must that requires a solid aerobic base so that you remain active in the playing field for a long period of time.

Stamina fitness training for soccer players include activities like jogging, hill running, cycling and shuttle runs. It requires certain exercise equipments like cross-trainer, stair climbers and treadmills. Sprint training includes shuttle runs, relay runs, and the pattern of sprint-walk-jog. For sprinting, a strong drive is required. The upper body should be relaxed. Strength training includes circuit training and weight training.

You can easily perform some of the activities for improving your overall stamina:

• A full squat with bodyweight
• Clean and press seven-tenths of their weight overhead
• Curl six-tenths of their weights
• Hop 25km distance in 10 hops on each leg (if you are feeling especially masochistic!)
• 40 press-ups in one minute
• 40 bent-knee abdominals in one minute
• 40 squat thrusts in one minute
• Eight chins (male) and three chins (female).

Stamina is developed by completing rounds of continuous activity at moderate intensities, performed for longer than three minutes. The general-endurance component of run-play training has a middle distance event where you carry out a cool run of 2000-3000 metres at around 70 to 75 per cent of maximal heart rate.

Stamina training also includes a distance events where you have to to try a cool run of 3000-5000 metres at about 70 to 75 per cent of maximal heart rate.

How To Train For Speed - Soccer Football Game

Speed Training For Soccer Football Game

So you want more speed in your soccer (football) game to out run your opponents and are at odds at how to go about it. Well, to develop speed to play soccer well is very much different from developing speed say, for a track and field race. Why is this so? That is because you have to develop various types of speed instead of just sprinting speed.

The types of speed you need to develop are:-

• Thinking speed – You must think fast on your feet (pun not intended) and adapt to the furious pace of the game. You are running and thinking at the same time. How to feign a movement, how to create space, which position to run into, who to pass the ball to, to shoot or to dribble…etc. The flow of thoughts are endless until the final whistle is blown.

Thinking speed can be developed with a good football coach and by playing competitive football game often.

• Acceleration speed – Acceleration speed is crucial to play good soccer. You need to suddenly pick up speed very quickly when your opponents are closing in on you. This sudden burst of speed will catch your opponents unaware or caught them flat footed if your acceleration includes a sudden change of direction.

You can develop acceleration speed by developing strength in your entire lower body. All your leg muscles including your glutes (butt muscles) are recruited when you accelerate. Weight training with squats, lunges, stiff legged dead lift and calf raises are crucial to develop power in your lower body. When your lower body muscles are strong, you can also jump higher when you are going for a heading.

High Interval Intensity training and incline speed running up slopes will also help you to develop powerful acceleration speed as well as building up your endurance and power.

• Turning Speed – When you dribble, turn and feign fast, you need to have great body stability and strength. You can only turn fast and powerfully if you have strong and stable core muscles.

To develop powerful core muscles, do crunches, reverse crunches, bridge, plank, side crunches etc. These exercises are to be done slowly and deliberately compressing your core muscles hard every time you breathe out.

When you have physically developed these muscles well, coupled with good skill training and stamina, you will be one hell of a speed demon on the football field.

History of Football (Soccer)

Since time immemorial mankind has played various ball games. Evidence of which can be seen in many ancient societies, ancient Greek society being an example. The beginnings of the modern game however began in Britain in the times leading up to the industrial revolution. Whole villages would band together against other villages in games, which would span several fields. These games were often violent and there wasn’t any particular restrictions on which body parts you could use.

Variances of such games continued for some time until the 19th century. More and more people were leaving their villages for the industry of towns. People were feeling pride and allegiances to their fast growing towns and soon people wanted to represent their own towns in competition with the other new fast growing towns around them. Soon games where-by you could only use your feet were being played in stadiums between the burgeoning settlements. At this stage in history there were no crossbars on the goals, only a piece of flimsy tape adjoining two poles. Other differences included, as you might suspect, no use of goalie gloves but also importantly no offside rule, the absence of such a ruling meaning strong attack bias with games frequently ending 10 a piece or greater.

More and more towns created their own football teams and by the beginning of the 20th century the structure of how football is contested today with leagues and cups were in place. Also around this time the game was beginning to be exported around the globe with teams beginning in countries like Germany and Italy around this time. International bouts were beginning, at this point England remaining supreme defeating the likes of the rest of the world on its own. With this international popularity it wasn’t long before the game was being contested on the world stage in the likes of the World Cup or European Championships.

Tactically the game was changing too, with the advent of the offside rule out went 5 strikers and in came more defensive approaches, teams such as Italy trailblazing such approaches to the game. England was losing its supremacy and by the 50's Spanish and Italian club teams as well as South American international teams in particular had risen to an equal footing.

The game since has steadily grown in popularity around the globe, this popularity attracting wealth making former small town sports clubs into multinational plcs. With this greater professionalism has been introduced into the game with better use of nutrition and exercise as well as strict controls on player’s lifestyles. The use of emerging technologies and assistance from the likes of sports psychologists are all being used taking the game to new highs. The future of the sport definitely looks rosy.