It’s amazing to see that the value of warming up in kids soccer drills is underestimated. 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 consequences are then faced by the players when they suffer injuries in training.
You will find some great tips on warming up your team before practice sessions. The team should be guided to use such body movements that have the effect of warming up all muscles. This is the right way to wake up the entire nervous system. If the movements are intense, body could become stiff or develop cramps.
Tip 1: This requires the players to do an easy 5-7 minutes jog. It is advocated that players begin printing only after a light jogging. In this, the pulse rate should reach 120 beats per minute. Yet, the rate should increase gradually. 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. Like the players can bounce backward and forward. Teach the players cross stepping as well. High-knee carioca can also be taught to players. You can have these performed similar to sprinting.
In soccer drills for kids, an extremely helpful warm up drill is backward running. But the best way to carry it out is to raise the heels up to the butt. No doubt, it is a little difficult to practice it this way but there’s no other way of correctly doing it.
Tip 3: In kids soccer drills, there are many other warming up exercises that increase the stamina to perform in the practice sessions. Have your players bounce with rings and swings. These give an extra dimension to the skipping exercises. You can also make them cross-over skip. Quick Hip Swings is somewhat difficult to practice but it highly useful and a tried and tested technique to warm up the body.
Next, make the players do long shuffles with turns in the middle. Have the players move back and forth using their legs. This activity is considered as extremely useful in body toning. Similarly high leg forward and backward is very useful too.
Tip 4: Stretching should be carried out properly and sufficiently. What works best for the legs is stretch hinging. Guarantee that all kids work out their hamstring, groin, calf muscles, and quadriceps without missing any of these. Stretching has the benefit of preventing injury along with increasing the muscle range.
Also ensure that in soccer drills for youth, kids are discouraged from overdoing anything. They tend to get carried over by enthusiasm and injure themselves unnecessarily.
Because all the relevant information on kids soccer drills is shared with you, please see that training sessions are always followed by warm up sessions. You can get a variety of information on same topic on our youth soccer coaching community. Register now to enjoy the benefits.
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