Its unbelievable how underrated the importance of warming up in kids soccer drills is. 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. This issue is conveniently ignored as unimportant by the coaches in youth soccer drills. The result is injuries to players while performing drills.
In this article, you’ll find some useful tips on warming up the players. Teach the players to warm up by following those body movements that help all muscles to work up. 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: In this make the players go for a light 5 to 7 minute jog. It’s advisable to begin with a light jog and then move on to sprinting.
This must increase the pulse rate to at least 120 beats per minute. Still, measured growth is preferred. After this, the players should move their legs back and forth for around 10 minutes each. Lastly, have them actively stretch their body over 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. You can also teach them cross stepping. High-knee carioca can also be taught to players. 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. Yet, the correct method of doing it is to rise up the heels to the butt. No matter how difficult it may be to practice this but it’s the sole method or performing it accurately.
Tip 3: There are various other warm up drills in kids soccer drills that build up the energy for practice sessions. You can make the players skip with loops or swings. These result in giving an extra edge to the skipping exercises. The players can also be told to do cross-over bounce. 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. The players should be made to practice moving their legs backward and forward. This activity is considered as extremely useful in body toning. High leg forwards and backward is just as efficient in toning the body.
Tip 4: Stretching should be carried out properly and sufficiently. For the legs, stretch hinging works the best. It is for you to see that all kids work out their groin, hamstring, quadriceps, and calf muscles 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. They tend to get carried over by enthusiasm and injure themselves unnecessarily.
Now that you are armed with this information about kids soccer drills, ensure that kids do warm ups before performing the drills. You can get a variety of information on same topic on our youth soccer coaching community. Become a member today and benefit from it.
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.
Tags: kids soccer drills, soccer drills, soccer drills youth, youth soccer coaching, youth soccer drills, youth soccer practice