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Developing Explosive and Injury-Free Soccer Athletes (Part 2 of 3)

by Cody Carter, BS, CSCS

In last month’s newsletter, we built a foundation for a soccer athlete by focusing on three simple things to help with relative strength, unilateral strength and balance to prepare for this month’s group of exercises. The goal by the end of next month’s newsletter is to have an athlete who is more explosive with each step on the field and confident in changing directions without risk of injury. That being said, injuries do happen in sport and many times they are non-contact injuries. Often, most occur during deceleration, a torn ACL, or a strained quadricep to name a few. A simple way to combat those injuries is train your muscles to be strong “eccentrically.” When a soccer player stops rapidly on the field, the muscles that slow the momentum down go through an eccentric contraction, where the muscle fibers essentially get stretched longer.

The purpose of this month’s newsletter is to train muscles in the legs eccentrically to decrease injuries from deceleration and prepare for the third part in this series - rapid and explosive movements like those that occur in game situations. These 3 exercises can be implemented at practice as often as 3 times per week.

Drop Squat: Building off the prisoner squat in last month’s newsletter, we now want to add a dynamic component to the final squat position. By doing this you are preparing your muscles to contract in a way that mimics having to throw on the brakes on the field in a controlled atmosphere.

Start by standing up tall with hands at your sides. Feet are at hip width apart and toes are even. On command slide your feet to shoulder width apart and land in the squat that you worked on last month. Your arms should rapidly come to the front of your body for balance. Stand up and reset your feet. Complete 3 sets of 10 repetitions with 90 seconds rest between sets.

Drop Squat (Quicktime movie 1MB)

Drop Lunge: This type of lunge is ideal for training a soccer athlete for any awkward one footed landings after a jump. Also, being able to absorb your own body with balance and popping back up is closely related to accelerating to the ball efficiently. When doing so you are trying to produce as much force back down into the ground as possible with each step ithout compromising how much time it takes to repeat those 3 or 4 hard steps.

To complete a drop lunge, start by using a line on the field as a starting point. Stand up tall with your hands on your hips and thumbs facing forward just like a regular lunge. In one smooth motion slide one foot forward as the other goes back simultaneously. Keep your chest up and let your knee slightly touch the ground, then quickly hop your feet back together on the line. Make sure you don’t jump up to get into your lunge position. Perform 3 sets of 10 repetitions with 90 seconds rest between sets

.Drop Lunge (Quicktime movie 1MB)

Plyometric Hurdle Jump: The plyometric jump is used in conjunction with learning how to land properly and continuing to train the muscle eccentrically while being explosive with your hips, knees, and ankles. Explosiveness at the hips, knees, and ankles happens when you go up for a header; accelerate in a linear direction, or when you prepare to shoot or pass the ball.

You can see in the video below that the demonstration is done with a 6-inch SPARQ hurdle. However, anything can be used as a barrier, a line, cone, ball on top of a disc cone, ect. Anything will work as long as there is a target to start in front of and land on the other side of. For each jump, start with your hands above your head and jump over your barrier as high as you can, and land on the other side with minimal sound. When landing, distribute your body weight evenly throughout your foot. A quiet landing is a better landing because you are absorbing the energy from the jump. The video shows a forward jump, lateral jump, and a transverse jump (rotating in the air). It is important for a soccer athlete to jump in all 3 planes because jumping and striking can be done in unpredictable positions. For these 3 Jumps, do 3 sets of 5 repetitions each way.

.Plyometric Hurdle Jump (Quicktime movie 1MB)

Prepare yourself for November’s newsletter by completing these exercises as we will tie everything together into dynamic fast paced jumps and a way to prepare for change of direction on the field, with “Chaos Training.”


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.