Basic College Soccer Training Drills For Preseason

By Andrea Davidson


If you're a soccer player that is in college, one important factor that determines whether you're fit for the start of the season is what you do before it starts. How you prepare can have a profound impact on whether your team is successful. By doing some basic college soccer training drills you're more likely to be ready once the referee blows the whistle to start the game.

By planning the whole program in advance the trainer can get to work as soon as players arrive. Ideally, they'll have started the program around five or weeks before the season begins. This gives plenty of time to build up fitness and get into shape for the upcoming games. At the start things will be quite slow, with light warming up and light running, so as not to exert the players too much at the start. Stretching is key too as it makes the muscles supple as less prone to injury.

When you train it's vital to stretch all the muscle groups with both static and moving exercises. Moving exercises are simply those that involve swinging the legs and arms in circular movements, and twisting the upper body. The stationery, or static exercises, are designed to stretch the quad muscles and the hamstrings.

A lot of the emphasis is on match fitness. Running is therefore very important because it allows you to build up stamina. Cardio and aerobic exercises are usually increased gradually, the players running longer distances as they build up more stamina. Cross country runs are fairly popular, as these not only make players fitter, they build up camaraderie.

As the season draws near you should be focusing less on long distance running and more on short sprints and working with the ball. For the latter players are usually grouped in pairs or as five-a-side teams and have to work in tight spaces with the ball, touching it a maximum of once or twice before having to pass to a team member.

What normally happens at the end of each session is a short game where players practice free kicks or shooting. At the end of the session there is normally a warm down, with some light running followed by light stretching exercise to keep the muscles loose. This should not be done to the extreme as stretching the muscles can tear them.

The idea is to make sure that the early part of preseason involves light work. Taking things easy is important because some players will return to training unfit, and they'll need more time to build up their fitness. To make sure that boredom does not set in, it's a good idea to incorporate some fun into practice. If not, players will find it demotivating and might not try hard.

Preseason college soccer training is about keeping players motivated enough to be fit for the start of the season. Working slowly at first, so that players build up fitness gradually, makes the most sense. At all times the accent should be on conditioning and in improving their basic touch and all-round play. It should be remembered that players cannot really get match fit until they have played a few preseason games and a few competitive matches also.




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