Soccer Conditioning and Fitness Drills

This is where soccer conditioning and fitness drills come in. Doing some extra conditioning every day can help you build up stamina, endurance, and agility. High stamina and endurance enable a player to play efficiently throughout the match without getting tired or struggling.

Agility in soccer means the player’s ability to perform swift whole-body movements with a change of direction or velocity without falling. It also involves quickness, running at a higher speed and being able to outdo your opponents. Players with high agility like Lionel Messi play with high precision and tend to score more goals.

In modern soccer, conditioning and fitness are very critical. Improving your fitness and conditioning is hugely vital for becoming a professional soccer player. Conditioning helps young athletes have more energy and become resistant to injuries. Fitness helps soccer players to utilize their skills efficiently and endure full-strength matches.

One of the most common ways to get fit for soccer is building power and stamina. This can be achieved through running, performing sprints, strength training, and core muscle workouts.

In this article, you will learn how you can use various soccer conditioning and fitness drills to improve your efficiency in the field. Continue reading to find out more!

Every young soccer player must find a way to improve their condition and fitness. Here is a complete guide on how to improve your soccer conditioning and fitness:

Build Stamina with Interval Training: Stamina is one of the most important physical aspects of soccer. Every player should have stamina and endurance to remain effective in the field throughout the match. The stamina of a player determines whether they can play efficiently throughout an entire game.

If a player has low stamina and endurance, they may get tired quickly and perform poorly as the game proceeds. For many years, athletes have used interval training to build stamina and endurance.

This training combines short, high-intensity bursts of speed, with slow recovery phases, repeated in one session. It’s also known as the stop and go training. It works with the aerobic and anaerobic system to increase cardiovascular efficiency and tolerance to lactic acid build-up.

The basic idea here is performing continual running drills at two different paces; ideally fast and slow. The pace variation improves endurance and feigns the exertion young athletes are needed to make while playing.

Advance Sprint Speed with Resistance Training: As with stamina and endurance, speed is crucial for every soccer player. Speed and acceleration will allow you to out-pace other players and reach the ball quickly. The use of resistance training is a great way to boost your speed. Resistance training involves using resistance bands or rigid materials that strain your muscle movements.

Some of the basic exercises for resistance include lunges, running on the spot and push-ups. Use resistance bands for each exercise to obtain the necessary resistance training. Other exercises like squat and bench pressing and dumbbell rows also seem to improve sprint speed for soccer.

Build Strength with Squats and Lunges: While soccer is a non-contact sport, young players are required to be physically strong. Strength is essential when competing for position in set-pieces and challenging for the ball in attacks.

Lunges and squats are popular strength training workouts and help you tone your body while improving your overall fitness. They enhance your athletic performance. These workouts focus on strengthening your legs, hips, and back to improve mobility and stability.

Beginners and advanced youth athletes can perform lunges and squats to build strength. Although weightlifting is a great and effective way for strength building, it’s not recommended for children and teenagers. Instead, they should build strength with squats and lunges.

Perform Simple Stamina Training to Improve General Fitness: Apart from interval training, there are many other workouts and routines young players can perform to build stamina. These exercises include running up and downstairs, chest jumps, running, and shuttle runs. 

Fast chest jumps will help you build stamina and improve agility. Such workouts are better as you won’t need any equipment to complete them. You can perform them in your own free time.

Improve Flexibility with Extensive Warm Up and Stretching Routines: When it comes to a soccer, every player needs to be flexible and agile for efficiency and precision while playing. Players must be able to change direction fast with ease while accelerating and decelerating.

One of the most effective ways to improve flexibility is by performing rigorous pre-training and pre-game warm up. Rigorous pre-warm-ups are essential as they help to reduce the potential of injury and common complications like cramps.

Jumping straight into exercise can be very harmful as your muscles and legs are not ready for the tough action. Challenging and extreme warm-ups are perfect for performing simple exercises that improve flexibility and movement in young players. Examples of the best warm-up exercises for flexibility include high knees, butt kicks, quick shuffles, pull foot to the rear, and pull knee to chest.

Build Rock-Solid Core Stability: Solid core stability helps a player to take full advantage of every aspect of their physique. Overcoming defenders with incredible balance is a clear indication of rock-solid core stability and good speed.

However, not everyone has a low center of gravity. But since this aspect of conditioning is essential, your players must have a rock-solid core to emulate this. Young players can gain proper core stability from combining some unstable workouts to their training regime.

These workouts include squatting on a Bosu-ball, getting on a TRX for plank jacks, and performing a single-leg Romania deadlift with a T-bar. All these exercises will challenge the core to improve stability when pushing the ball forward.

Leave Sufficient Time for Recovery Time Between Training Sessions: For young players, it’s vital to allow enough time for recovery between training sessions. This is because their bodies are not grown fully but are still developing. While young children recover more quickly than adults, exposing them to continuous exercise can lead to injuries or too much pressure on their tender bodies.

In this case, the best thing to do is to ensure that no training sessions last longer than two hours. Coaches can mix training sessions and practices to have slow-paced workouts and intense training. Soccer training activities should be distributed fairly throughout the week to ensure that young players have sufficient time to recover.

Monitor Progress and Achievable Goals: At the beginning of every soccer training session, you should create a set of goals for each player and then work towards achieving them. Having goals will give the coach and player a scale to work from. As each training progresses, you can evaluate the progress and see if the goals are realistic.

If the goals are achievable, you can now focus and work towards achieving them. Along with monitoring progress, young players should also watch their feeding patterns. Maintaining a balanced nutritional diet is crucial for all children and teenagers. Soccer players should stay hydrated when training and competing to improve energy levels and promote quick recovery.

The fitness level of each player plays a critical role in making a successful team. Coaches should use soccer conditioning and fitness drills to keep the players fit and maximize the team’s potential. These soccer conditioning and fitness drills include:

Adjustable Hurdles and Cone

Adjustable hurdles and cones are a great set of equipment designed to improve your speed and agility, making you efficient in the field. They are quick to set up and very easy to adjust. You just have to rotate the legs until you hear a click at 6, 9, or 12-inch height settings.

How to Use Adjustable Hurdles and Cones

Coaches can have their players do some dynamic movements and stretches to warm up for training or the actual game. You can arrange the hurdles for players to perform various jumping and explosive movements.

As the players progress with jumping, ask them to get the knees up and set their feet for passing the ball before they move back. Then have two players on each end who will be passing the ball to the one jumping. You can also use cones to test and improve the players dribbling skills through these simple steps:

Agility Ladder

Agility Ladder is a piece of exercise equipment used to perform various agility drills to raise your heart rate and improve your athletic speed. You can use the agility ladder for a wide range of workouts, including sideways shuffles, skipping through rungs, and other exercises performed up and down the ladder for quick movements.

The agility ladder will improve three fitness aspects for soccer, including agility, speed, and quickness. It also strengthens the joints, ligaments and tendons. Incorporating agility ladder workouts in your soccer fitness routine is a great way to improve speed and have strong joints.

How to Use the Agility Ladder for Soccer Fitness and Conditioning

Being able to move your body faster is a very critical skill in soccer as players use all the body muscles. Using an agility ladder can significantly make a difference in the way you play this game. Your feet become flexible and precise like arms for easy ball handling. Here is how you can use the agility ladder for soccer conditioning and fitness:

Two-Feet Agility Drill

Single-Foot Agility Drill

Slalom Poles

Slalom poles are a versatile and essential piece of equipment for soccer fitness and conditioning. You can easily set them up in whatever way you need them for your training. You can use them to improve players' speed and test their dribbling skills.

The good thing with the slalom pole is that they are durable and very easy to store, so they won’t take much space. They come in bright colors like yellow, red, green, and orange to ensure they stand out. This helps you train with precision and get the most out of the training.

Young players can use this equipment for soccer fitness and conditioning both indoors or outdoors. Sticking them on the ground or a base is one of the best ways to make use of slalom poles. Here are two basic ways to use slalom poles for soccer conditioning and fitness;

Slalom Poles for Agility

You players must develop their agility skills to become great soccer players. It’s the ability to change your speed and direction instantly without losing balance. You can use slalom poles for agility by setting them up in a line and have the players weave in and out of the poles.

Set the poles tactically so that the players will have to think about moving their bodies and where to place their feet while weaving. Make sure that they get the point of turning and moving as quickly as possible.

Slalom Poles for Plyometrics

While speed is crucial in soccer, it may not help much if you don’t have more power. Plyometrics training can help players gain more power and excellent speed for soccer. You can use slalom poles to set up for some simple plyometrics drills.

Place the poles on the ground as a rudimentary agility ladder and have the players hop from one gap to the next. You can also set them out in pairs and let the players jump over them, then change the angle to alter the jump height.