Football 3

Football Training – Agility

What is agility??

In order for a footballer to maintain their best performance,they must be agile. Most movements in any high-speed sport are multi-dimensional, moving in angles, curves, sharp directional changes, and even frequent starts and stops. If the person with the ball quickly changes direction, the defensive player needs to react quickly by applying force in the opposite direction that they are traveling in order to follow the motion of the ball.

The ability to change the direction of your own body quickly and efficiently in an effective manner which will require.

• speed

• strength

• balance

• good co-ordination skills

OK so how do I improve my agility??

One of the best ways I have found is to place cones or some kind of markers on the ground similar to the picture below..

As you can see the player has to twist and turn through out the course, you don’t have to set your up exact to this picture this is just an example. Use your own ideas and keep changing them around, remember football is a multi directional sport. You will find yourself running at all different speeds, going forwards, sideways and even backwards through out the game.

Another way to improve your agility is the agility ladder that most professional football players use now. Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid etc all use this at their training grounds.

Using the ladder you can improve a wide range of different foot movements, try a few simple exercises on it first to get used to using it, you will soon see the effects it has on your game. Check out the following video below on all the different exercises you can do on the ladder..

You can order an agility ladder at a discount price below

15ft Agility Ladder

30ft Agility Ladder

OK so there you have it, take this information over to the pitch and practice at it, remember it wont come over night, but the more you train at it the better you will become!

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Every football players requires muscular durability, explosive energy and greater aerobic skills. These factors can be formulated by the help of football fitness drills. This is an inclusive piece of soccer exercising. Football coaching requires a tough skin in order to efficiently lead and guide the squad to victory, and also pick the team up in games ending in defeat. It’s not always an easy task to make your team listen to you and do as you say on the pitch, so prepare yourself.

Below is some football fitness training drills that will improve your players on the pitch

1. Weight Lifting:

Resistance training for strength is important since it can make your muscles much better. Tougher muscles help you become quicker. When you can move a lot faster you will be able to get around the opposition with ease and be a valuble player to your squad.

2. Speed Training.

Any good football coach will advise you that speed is as important a quality as overall skill. Whenever you can run at defenders and subsequently pass them anytime to get a cross towards your strikers, this is an additional weapon in your team’s fight.

Place two cones 50 yards apart, and practice sprinting between them and returning. This will help improve your cardiovascular workout and start building your leg muscles up.

3. Plyometric

This is an essential part of your soccer fitness program. What’s more, it diminishes the possibilities of physique injury. Start out with smaller jumps for example jumping from the stair or simply a box and after that move on even further. Plyometric will help you build-up your speed along with power.

These are just a few of the football fitness drills which will significantly help the overall performance of the team. In fitness for football, the abilities to get started, stop, cut and sprint will be necessary in the game. The better you are at performing these quickly, obviously the better player you can become just after practicing every day. Another critical component as well as when using the above drills is to be sure that you practice them frequently to enhance the team’s agility.

Click here to view more Football Training guides on this site

Below is a list of great books that will help you along the way, I suggest you check them out if you are serious about becoming a better player…

Football Fitness & Training Log

101 Ways To Get Fit

Complete Conditioning for Football

Football Ladder

Football Training – Heading the Ball

Anyone can head a ball, but when needed and safely are different things. Today we will be looking at all aspects of heading the ball.

Basic Heading Skills:

• Heading the ball correctly is a great skill to have, regardless of were you play on the pitch, apart from the goalkeeper of course. The safest part to use when heading the ball is your forehead as this is the strongest part and the most effective. Heading it elsewhere will often hurt you in the process as you probably know. Also getting your timing right will play a big part, if you jump to early you will may miss the ball or connect with it wrong. Balance is also an issue as you will want to land correctly on the way back down as not to hurt yourself landing awkw ardly on your ankles.

• When you are preparing to jump for the ball, make sure  you bend your knees and keep your eyes fully focused on the ball at all times, move into the path of the ball and push off the ground using both of your feet.

• To get more power when you jump try to arch your back and then thrusting your body and head toward the ball, this will give it more power in the air.Stick your arms out for balance but be aware of other players around you as you don’t want to elbow them in the face and risk getting a card for elbowing.

• If you can, head the ball at the highest part of your jump as you don’t want your opponent to have a chance at getting to the ball first.. Don’t be scared of the ball and keep your eyes on it, closing your eyes and not being positive will lead the football to smacking you full force in the face or end up with you not connecting with it properly.

Defensive Headers

• Usually a defensive header will lead to you trying to head the ball as high and as far up the pitch as you can get it to prevent the opposition scoring.. Try not to head the ball back into your own box, you want to get it up the pitch or at least onto the wings and out of the box. Only head into the box if you are trying to get it back to your goalkeepers safely and make sure you are 100% sure no opposition players are near you or the keeper.

• Be careful whilst trying to head the ball in your own box, i.e from corners or free kicks. You often see defenders getting nasty knocks to their head in the game. To avoid this try to meet the on coming ball from side on, this will give you move power when you connect with the football and also protect you more from clashing your heads with a 6ft tall striker who is built like a brick wall.

• Heading in your own box comes with a risk of giving away a penalty. As said before watch were you swing your arms, and when you go to jump for the ball don’t put your hands on an opposition player to jump higher as the fer may see this as a foul and award a penalty. To smash the ball upwards into the air try to aim for the bottom half of the football.

Attacking Headers:

• Being good at heading the ball will increase your chances at scoring more goals. Spend some time practicing heading the ball and you will soon see the rewards of it in football matches. To keep the ball down you need to try and get above it to head it downwards towards the goal. Try to get your headers in the corners of the goal to make it harder for the goalie to reach the ball.

• The timing of your runs is important, you want to try to surprise your marker and try to come from behind him to dis-orientate him in the process. If however the cross is a little deeper than expected, take a few steps back from the defender. This will create you some space in order to head the ball.

• Remember you are in a better position than the defender, he has to watch you and the ball, were as you only have to watch for the ball.

• Try to head the football in the middle or top part as this will keep it down and prevent it from flying out of the stadium, if you are in a stadium that is.

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