Its unbelievable how underrated the importance of warming up in kids soccer drills is. 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. This issue is conveniently ignored as unimportant by the coaches in youth soccer drills. The consequences are then faced by the players when they suffer injuries in training.
This article gives you some nice tips on how to get the team warmed up. Teach the kids to include all the body movements that allow all muscles in the body to get worked up. This is the right way to wake up the entire nervous system. Doing things fast can lead to cramps or stiffness in the muscles.
Tip 1: First and foremost the players should jog for 5-7 minutes. A few minutes of jogging and then moving on to sprinting is the best proposition. 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. Players should then finish by energetically stretching their body greater 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 example, make the players skip forward and backward. Also teach your players to do cross stepping. They must also be taught high-knee carioca. These must be carried out just like sprinting.
Running towards the back also accounts a very efficient warm up drill in soccer drills for kids. But the best way to carry it out is to raise the heels up 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. The players can be taught to hop with swings and loops. These give an added element to the skipping exercises. You can also make them cross-over skip. Quick Hip Swings is somewhat difficult to practice but it highly useful and a tried and tested technique to warm up the body.
Then you can tell your players to do long shuffles with rotations in the middle. 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: Stretch adequately and complete it in the approved manner. What works best for the legs is stretch hinging. Make sure all players have worked out their quadriceps, calves, hamstring, and groin without fail. Stretching has the benefit of preventing injury along with increasing the muscle range.
Also ensure that in soccer drills for youth, kids are discouraged from overdoing anything. The kids may get injured needlessly because of this, as they tend to do so only in over excitement.
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. Join today and enjoy the advantages from them.
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 practice sessions fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: Youth Soccer Drills.
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