Performance Training and Injury Prevention content provided exclusively by Velocity Sports Performance

Soccer Pre-Season Training

by Stefan Alsop, CSCS
Sports Performance Director
Velocity Sports Performance, San Diego

As the spring passes and we head into summer, soccer players begin to think about their upcoming soccer season. As trainers, we consistently asked what players need to be doing to be ready for the demands of the soccer season. To answer this we first look at what it takes to succeed at soccer:

To kick off our series on Pre Season Training, this article will focus on the first two topics.

Staying Injury Free:
Female soccer players are at the highest risk of knee injury; especially devastating ACL tears. This is due to factors we can control (strength, flexibility, balance, neuromuscular control) and factors we cannot control (playing field, hormones, joint angles). To avoid injury, I suggest improving flexibility. Going through an active dynamic warm-up is the best way to improve upon muscular flexibility and maintain strength in that new found range of motion while also addressing joint mobility and improving balance. If an athlete has muscular flexibility but no strength in that range of motion they will either not utilize that range of motion or they will get injured trying to use that new range of motion. That is one reason we consistently use the active dynamic warm up as opposed to the old sit-and-stretch approach. It is safer for athletes to maintain muscular control/strength throughout their full range of motion. Once you know better, you should do better. Teams who wish to avoid injury during games and practice should pay special attention to ensuring they use an effective warm-up. Velocity Sports Performance has developed an active dynamic warm-up for soccer players. It is available to any coach free of charge. We encourage all players to come to Velocity and learn how to avoid injury through proper warm up. We also welcome all coaches to do the same.

Speed:
Speed is the most sought-after attribute we see at Velocity Sports Performance. Every athlete wants to be faster. If you want to make a major improvement to your game during the pre-season, improve your speed of play. At Velocity, our approach to speed is instructional. We don’t try to make athletes tired, we try to make them fast. To this, we teach the mechanics or rules of speed. In a lot of typical speed sessions the coach is simply telling the kids to execute a pattern or run a distance faster. Can you talk a race car into driving faster? Can you simply press the gas pedal harder? Certainly not. To make the car faster, experienced technicians take the car apart. They work on the engine, mess with the spark plugs, the gas filter, the carburetor, etc. If you apply this same principle to an athlete you realize that in order to be faster, you need an expert coach to help you re-tool your vehicle. We invite every Cal South player to visit us at Velocity this offseason to improve their game speed by next fall.

[Check back next month and read about agility and power...]

About Velocity Sports Performance:
Velocity Sports Performance is a national network of training centers where athletes of all sports, ages and skill levels go to improve their core athletic skills - speed, power and agility. Athletes train in small groups with degreed and certified performance coaches. Velocity Sports Performance is the Official Performance Training Partner of Cal South Soccer. Players who train with Velocity Sports Performance can expect to get to the ball quicker, cover more of the field faster, increase their shot power and reduce their chances of injury. Velocity Sports Performance has training centers throughout Southern California including Irvine, Redondo Beach, Anaheim, Carlsbad, San Diego, West LA and Santa Clarita.