Showing posts with label Should. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Should. Show all posts

What Soccer Football Cleats Should I Get?

on Monday, October 29, 2012
What Soccer Football Cleats Should I Get? Tube. Duration : 3.72 Mins.


Free Training Guide - the-soccer-essentials.com Soccer Success Secrets - www.the-soccer-essentials.com Mental Mastery - www.the-soccer-essentials.com What Soccer Football Cleats Should I Get? these simple football drills you can do anywhere, anytime. I am Dylan Tooby of The Soccer Essentials and I am here to help you become the best player you can possible be. Join me and 1000s of other players on my channel. Subscribe and start improving today. Let's Go - www.the-soccer-essentials.com Music Created By The Passion HiFi - No further permission required.

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Soccer Drills - Why Coaches Should Never Use Knockout Drills in Practice

on Sunday, October 21, 2012

Coaches that use knockout drill during their training sessions run a great risk of destroying the confidence of the weaker players on their team, and creating disharmony within the team. Knockout drills are drills where players get progressively eliminated until you are left with a winner. Your winner will most likely be the best player on your team. My experience with coaching children is that the great majority of coaches already know who the best player on the team is. So my question is do you want to find out what you already know, or do you want to improve the ability of the players in your team? If your answer is the latter, then you have no reason to use knockout drills.

My aim with any practice is to maximise the number of touches on the soccer players that all players achieve. All soccer drills should be engineered so as to achieve this goal. Without argument, there are many valuable skills that a player must learn which do not involve touching the ball, however of the major skills (trapping, passing and tackling) all require the player to be able to control the ball in an effective manner. So for this reason, I have always tried to create sessions which get players touching the ball more. If you have a weaker player on your team and you want them to improve, get them kicking the ball more. Encouraging them to kick a ball outside of practice sessions will also speed their improvement.

Soccer Drills

Another effective way to achieve the goal of increasing touches on the ball for all players is to divide your team into small groups at practice. This may mean that you have to enlist the aid of your team manager or parents to help with supervision. Having players stand in line to wait for their turn to kick the ball is not an effective means of practice. Yet it is one seen on many training paddocks. It is definitely more challenging to supervise a number of small groups, particularly if you do not have any help, but a coach can rotate amongst the groups to aid supervision. Dividing your team into groups of 3 or 4 players, rather than 1 group of 12 to 14 players will potentially increase the number of ball touches for each players by at least three times. How much more quickly will your players improve by this method?

Soccer Drills - Why Coaches Should Never Use Knockout Drills in Practice

If you want to introduce an element of competition into your practices and you have been using knockout drills for a long time this may be a little difficult to come to terms with. All players respond better to competition (except the ones on the sideline!!). Another means of getting around this problem is to use a rotation of players. Maybe you have three team of four playing four vs. four. If you want an extra element of competition have one team sit out, replacing the team that does not win, and so on. Or if you have three teams of four set up two fields and rotate the teams around the fields.

So for those coaches that have been using knockout drills in their practice I hope you have been very successful with these. I would also hope that you may experiment with using some of these techniques, and that you continue to see improvement in your players. For new coaches I would strongly encourage you not to use knockout drills, but rather to use small groups, soccer drills that maximise the number of ball touches for all children (not just the stronger ones), and rotation of small teams. Good luck with your coaching.

Soccer Drills - Why Coaches Should Never Use Knockout Drills in Practice

Free Soccer Drill Tips for Soccer Coaches - Drills Should Be Fun and Exciting

on Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The game of soccer is perhaps the greatest game in the world. Not only is it fun to play, but it also provides its participants with a great physical work out, which is something most kids desperately need. Like most other people who love the game, I was hooked at a young age by coaches that kept me interested during the early years, so that I could enjoy the game (and it's health benefits) in my later years.

As a soccer coach, keeping your players highly interested and motivated is very important. Not only should you make sure they have a decent time this year, your real goal should be to make them play next year, as well.

Soccer Drills

Part of making sure that your players love the game is related to your soccer practice plans. Always make sure that players are engaged in the drills at practice. You do this by making sure they have lots of action, as well as a high number of touches on the ball. Small sided games like keep-away are perfect for letting players, play, rather than boring them with low action drills where they are standing around.

Free Soccer Drill Tips for Soccer Coaches - Drills Should Be Fun and Exciting

If you are a volunteer soccer coach without a plan for practice, there are plenty of resources on the Internet that can help you put one together. If you are looking for help, my soccer practice drill book will give you everything you need to keep your players intrigued by the game, and coming to practice. Get a sample of my practice plans with multiple free soccer drills.

Free Soccer Drill Tips for Soccer Coaches - Drills Should Be Fun and Exciting

3 Steps You Should Follow For Improved Soccer Speed

on Wednesday, August 8, 2012

In this article I'll share something with you that very often is either forgotten or ignored - a proper warm-up. You see, when it comes to improving soccer speed and soccer agility, we are often so caught up in what exercises, skills or drills to perform in order to get quicker on the soccer field.

You see, when it comes to improving speed, there are some things you need to work on with your body if you want maximum results.

Soccer Drills

Let's take an example: You need great hip mobility and strong glutes in order to be able to really fire those muscles when running. In order to continually get faster, you need to be able to produce more force to the ground, and without good hip mobility or strong glutes, you'll never be able to do that!

3 Steps You Should Follow For Improved Soccer Speed

I won't go too deep into science today, instead, I'll give you the 3 steps you must follow if your goal is to become a quicker and faster soccer player. These 3 steps are found in my unique warm-up system - The MAP-System - which is an acronym where each letter stands for one step.

1. Mobility (and Flexibility)

Mobility is according to, a little depending on which dictionary or resource you look at, the quality of moving freely or the state of being in motion. Basically, mobility exercises are where your goal is improved range of motion. Mobility exercises to mainly focus on should be:

- Hip Circuits (most young athletes have tight hips, very important to fix)

- Leg Raises (standing or laying on their backs)

- Ankle Mobility

When it comes to Flexibility, I follow the so often used term nowadays - dynamic stretching. Before practice, you only want to hold a stretch for 3-5 seconds, and then switch. After practice, you want to do passive stretching, where you can hold each position for 20-30 seconds.

According to Stephen Francis, Asafa Powell's Sprint Coach, "a completely stretched muscle is a weak muscle", and there is something to do with it, especially before practice.

So dynamic stretching where you hold for 3-5 seconds at a time, and your goal is only to improve your range of motion and loosen up, then there won't be a problem, but avoid stretching a muscle passively for a long period of time before practice.

A recommended dynamic stretch to include is "Wide Mountain Climbers", by some people called "The World's Greatest Stretch". It has a lot of names, but the easiest way to describe is by saying "Wide Mountain Climbers". Think of a regular Mountain Climber, but instead of keeping your legs at chest level and between your arms, put your right leg as far up and out as possible outside of your right arm, hold for 3-5 seconds, and then switch leg.

2. Activation

The reason you want to do activation exercises is because you want to make sure your muscles are fired before practice - that your muscle groups are activated correctly and ready to do their job. As mentioned earlier in this text, the importance of having strong glutes and especially learn how to fire them properly will make a huge difference for a players ability to get faster.

Examples of exercises to use are Squats, Lateral Lunges, Hip-Bridges, Planks, Side Planks, and Pushups. You could do a few reps of each and everyone of these since they all target different muscle groups and different movements. Don't perform these exercises for more then 3-6 reps per side (depending on age group and level). It should not be like strength training where the athlete gets tired from doing it!

3. Pre-competition

Some people like to refer to some of these drills as Movement Preparations, but I like to think that Movement Prep is basically what the whole MAP-System is all about, and the name Pre-competition really shows what this step is about - the final step for getting the players ready for competition.

So in this phase you'll do some:

- Skipping
- Jogging
- Heel Walk
- Toe Walk
- Side Shuffling
- Cariocas
- Frankenstein Kicks
- Step-Overs
- 1-leg Hops, etc.

As a last part in this phase, place all the players along the side line and perform different quickness drills to really get their nervous system going and improve their soccer footwoork. Drills includes quick feet over the line (back and forth), side jumps, etc. Important to remember is that these drills are being performed with low and quick contact, so the players should go as fast as they possible can for 3-7 seconds per rep.

After these 3 steps, the players have increased their core temperature, their muscles are warm and loosen up, and their nervous system has turned on. They are now basically ready to go into full contact exercises.

So the importance of getting the players prepared for practice is really what matters in terms of speed improvement.

If you can keep your players on the pitch instead of off the pitch, don't you think they'll get both faster and better overall soccer players? Of course they will.

NOTE: The MAP-System should take between 7-15 minutes to go through.

3 Steps You Should Follow For Improved Soccer Speed