Athletic Training
The term athletic training in soccer (or physical training) indicates a training method used to improve an athlete’s or team’s performance from a coordinative and conditioning point of view.
In soccer, athletic conditioning training is used to train general coordination skills (motor learning, motor control, motor transformation) and special coordination skills (motor combination, differentiation of muscular strength, balance, orientation, rhythm, response, adaptation). Athletic conditioning training is used to strengthen endurance, strength, quickness and speed. There is a further objective: soccer athletic training can prevent injuries linked to training load mismanagement (muscle-tendon injuries in particular).
In order to schedule the drills it is possible to follow a general and/or a specific sport programme. For example, soccer athletic training is important both for a player’s general endurance and a specific role endurance training. The same goes for other coordinative and conditioning abilities. Indeed, performance characteristics vary from sport to sport: soccer players’ endurance is different from runners’, as well as their strength differs from basketball players’ and their speed is different from tennis players’.
For this reason, before planning soccer athletic training, it is necessary to know the player’s performance model, including the peculiarities of the role. In this way athletic training will be targeted, specific and suitable for the team and the player.
Here you can find some soccer conditioning drills.
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Athletic Training
Quickness and cognitive ability with the speed ladder
Cognitive - With this drill we train quickness using the speed ladder and the response to sensory inputs -
Athletic Training
Explosive Power - Multiple Jumps
Strength - Exercise to train explosive power with a series of different jumps -
Athletic Training
Quickness and mental reaction - FC Inter
Speed - Train players' speed, quickness and mental adjustment with psychokinetic elements -
Athletic Training
Improve Aerobic Power through RSA
Aerobic power - Improve Aerobic Power approaching the anaerobic threshold with a Repeated Sprint Ability exercise -
Athletic Training
Coordinative training circuit with 4 stations
Coordination skills - Circuit to train coordination in soccer for different categories -
Athletic Training
Aerobic pig-in-the-middle of 6 vs 2: frontal and sideways passes
Intercepting - A pig-in-the-middle game at high rhythm to train anticipation and interception -
Athletic Training
Cognitive ability and muscle power - Twister
Cognitive - Useful exercise to improve players' mental reaction -
Athletic Training
Conditioned Game - Celtic FC
Aerobic power - Conditioned game to improve the athletic condition by increasing aerobic capacity -
Athletic Training
Conditional integrated circuit - The X
Dribbling - With this exercise we train various aspects of the soccer player, including agility and ball control -
Athletic Training
Agility and ball driving - Valencia FC
Dribbling - With this exercise we train agility, driving and ball control