In Kids Soccer Drills, it’s surprising that warm up before playing is considered unimportant. As a coach, I just cannot emphasize enough that warming up before sessions is not just mandatory but also a great way to kick start your training sessions. In youth soccer drills, this point is easily skipped by many coaches. This has an end result in terms of injuries to players when in the practice sessions.
In this article, you’ll find some useful tips on warming up the players. Train the team to use the body movements in a way that all the muscles get worked up. This is the most effective way to liven up all muscles in the body. Warming up in haste could cause cramping or stiffness of the body muscles.
Tip 1: Have the players jog for about 5-7 minutes initially. It’s advisable to begin with a light jog and then move on to sprinting. The pulse rate must get to 120 beats per minute in this. However, slow progress is the key. Next, make the players sway their legs, front and back, which should take roughly 10 minutes each. To conclude, the players should vigorously stretch their body more than 20 yards.
Tip 2: When we talk about this active stretching over 20 yards, a few warm up exercises of its own must go along with it. For instance, the players should practice hopping forward and backward. Teach the players cross stepping as well. High-knee carioca can also be taught to players. These must be carried out just like sprinting.
In soccer drills for kids, an extremely helpful warm up drill is backward running. Still, in order to perform it, the proper way to do it is to jerk up the heels to the butt. No doubt, it is a little difficult to practice it this way but there’s no other way of correctly doing it.
Tip 3: There are other essential warm up exercises in kids soccer drills that build up the momentum to the actual session. You can direct your players to play with circles and hoops. These result in giving an extra edge to the skipping exercises. Also have your players do the cross-over hopping. Quick Hip Swings is somewhat difficult to practice but it highly useful and a tried and tested technique to warm up the body.
Subsequently the players can be made to do long shuffle with spins midway. Have the players move back and forth using their legs. This is a highly effective and useful body toning activity. Similarly high leg forward and backward is very useful too.
Tip 4: Stretching should be carried out properly and sufficiently. The legs benefit the most out of stretch hinge. It is for you to see that all kids work out their groin, hamstring, quadriceps, and calf muscles without fail. Stretching not only prevents injury but also increases the range of the muscles.
Also ensure that in soccer drills for youth, kids are discouraged from overdoing anything. The kids get carried over in excitement and end up injuring themselves for no reason due to this.
Now that you are armed with this information about kids soccer drills, ensure that kids do warm ups before performing the drills. You’ll find lots and lots of articles and news like this on our youth soccer coaching community. Become a member today and benefit from it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andre Botelho is known online as "The Expert Youth Soccer Coach" and his free ebooks and reports have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Learn how to skyrocket your players' skills and make training fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Kids Soccer Drills
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