Strength and Conditioning for Club Soccer

Strength and Conditioning for Club Soccer

The game of soccer requires the full gamut of athletic movement; linear sprinting and acceleration, lateral quickness and agility, and full body strength and power are just some of the components of athletic movement soccer requires from an athlete. With that being said, one has to embark on improving each area of athleticism in order to be become the best athlete they can be.

It is our job as Strength Coaches to develop athletes into more powerful, explosive, and stronger athletes so those qualities of athleticism can translate on the field. I will provide you with some bullet-point examples highlighting how to train an in-season club soccer team you may only see once a week.

When only working with a team once a week you have to prioritize your focus and goals for what you want to accomplish. Because these athletes are practicing several times per week and playing games, we put our focus on power development, functional strength and injury prevention. We still address the movements of speed, agility and change of direction, but because this is happening on the field several times per week it is not our major focus in-season.

We begin each session with a proper warm-up, and then move into a power exercise in which we typically couple with the movement focus of the session:

The Clean and Push Jerk demonstrates both lower and upper body power, which allows an athlete to further develop all of the aforementioned aspects of athletic movement. In order to become faster and more explosive you have to train explosive, powerful movements. After our power block, we go into strength work beginning with lower body strength exercises like a:

The Front Squat is a superior lower body exercise that builds lower body strength and endurance, but also engages the core musculature. As we know, soccer players need high levels of endurance for competition and front squats help enhance that endurance. From there, we move into the upper body strength portion of the workout and do exercises like:

Obviously, soccer is a lower body-dominant sport. However, improving upper body strength helps in many facets of the game, such as not being bumped off free balls; creating more possessions for your team. Additionally, having good, solid upper-body strength helps develop you into a superior well-rounded athlete.

What I have highlighted is just a snippet of what our program looks like when you only have one day a week with a team. But, incorporating all of these components is a must when developing an in-season program for any athlete.