It’s sad to know that people fail to appreciate the importance of warming up in kids soccer drills. It is obligatory for me as a coach to highlight the fact that warm up sessions before practice is compulsory and helps players begin their day at a brilliant note. In youth soccer drills, coaches fail to take this aspect into consideration. The consequences are then faced by the players when they suffer injuries in training.
In this article, you’ll find some useful tips on warming up the players. The team should be guided to use such body movements that have the effect of warming up all muscles. This is by far the best way to activate all the body parts. Warming up in haste could cause cramping or stiffness of the body 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. Check that the pulse rate in this reaches 120 beats per minute. Yet, the rate should increase gradually. Then make them swing their legs forward cross-body for about 10 times each. Players should then finish by energetically stretching their body greater than 20 yards.
Tip 2: But make sure that this active stretching over 20 yards goes with a few warm up exercises of its own. 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 executed as if sprinting.
In soccer drills for kids, running towards the back is also a very useful warm up exercise. Yet, the correct method of doing it is to rise 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 give an extra dimension to the skipping exercises. You can also make them cross-over skip. Although a little advanced, Quick Hip Swings is also a very effective and tested method that warms up the body a great deal.
After that, have the players do the long shuffles along with twists halfway. Have the players move back and forth using their legs. This is a highly effective and useful body toning activity. In the same way, high leg forwards and backwards is also very effective.
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. It is stretching that helps in increasing the range of muscles together with preventing any injury to the player.
In soccer drills for youth, it is also important to understand that kids should not overdo anything. The kids get carried over in excitement and end up injuring themselves for no reason due to this.
In kids soccer drills, it’s for you now to make sure that kids do the warm up exercises before practice sessions as you’ve got all the knowledge on this. There is a wealth of news and articles of similar nature on our youth soccer coaching community. Register now to enjoy the benefits.
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