Soccer players need to combine a variety of training methods to reach peak performance. Interval training, high-volume lower-body lifting, basic training, and resistance band exercises are all important components of a soccer player's training regimen. Additionally, mental training is an essential part of the game and should not be overlooked. To get the most out of their training, soccer players should also focus on perfecting their technical skills and tactical awareness.
Finally, team training sessions are important for putting individual and functional skills into practice. Interval training is a great way to improve coordination and strengthen the legs. It should be done 1-3 days a week and can be done in the actual area of the field where it would be performed in a game. Resistance bands are ideal for targeting certain areas such as the inner thighs and buttocks.
Mentality is one of the four pillars of football (technical, tactical, physical and psychological). To learn how professional soccer players train for peak performance, we visited NYCFC's new 17-acre training center in Orangeburg, New York. Technical training helps players master their skills by continuously working to perfect the basics and expand their limits with challenging exercises. To become a “complete soccer player”, players need to be technically solid, tactically aware, fast, agile, physically and mentally fit.
Team training sessions allow players to put into practice all the individual and functional skills they are working on. Read about the cost of individual soccer training, all the options, from hiring a private soccer coach to going to a wall with just one ball. When Tottenham Hotspur Football Club invited me to train like a first-rate soccer player at their modern training center The Lodge, I experienced a first-class facility that combines some of the best minds in fitness and nutrition on the field. Spurs coach José Mourinho has a team of performance specialists who leave no stone unturned when it comes to giving their players all the tools they need to stay at the top of one of the most challenging leagues in the world.
At The Lodge cafeteria, you can find a young student of the game balancing headers with homework, and Dele Alli and Son Heung-Min, two of the best players in the team and in Europe, can sit at the next table discussing tactics. Group training sessions should break down several aspects of the entire game and allow players to work on them together at game speed with total opposition. Starting in early adolescence, specific speed work including attention to running form can be added to accelerate in soccer. During my visit I participated in exactly the same training session that has been given to many Spurs players.
Players receive shakes and shots that include apple and kale so that vital nutrients quickly enter their systems. It involves everything from body weight exercises that can be done at home (which currently appears in an app) to heavy weightlifting that can be done in a gym.
