One of the best ways to get young children started off with soccer training is with fun soccer conditioning. The main reason is, they come with a lot of pent up energy and cant wait to get going with the ball, so make sure you have planned a session that they are sure to enjoy.
- Warm Up
You can get them oriented to practice with some active warm up exercises involving, running. Be prepared to agree to a break for drinking water. And while they are doing this, you can tell them what you want them to do next.
Give them some individual or group activities. One way is to get the player that arrives earliest started on juggling, so that the one who arrives next can join them, and so on. If the group gets large, you can form additional groups.
Here are other fun conditioning drills:
- Soccer golf – aim the ball at a distant object.
- Soccer bowling – where your players hit cones from afar, as they practice passing soccer skills
- Soccer volleyball where the teams play in a restricted area, without letting it touch the ground
- Teach youth soccer players to dribble with the ball and progress to specific body parts. This will teach them to react quickly to moves. This can be done in small areas of ten meters square with as many players as you want. Each player must hold a ball.
Allow them to dribble the ball around in this limited area. You can make it more fun by announcing the part of the body that must touch the ball when you call out – for example, foot, cheek, elbow, backside, etc.
- Another interesting warm up for the young players is as follows: arrange markers in a circle with as many markers as players. For a large group, you can have two or three circles.
This fun drill is easy. Once they are in position, you can begin your soccer instructions. Get them to go two markers right and then four markers left and one marker right. Then two markers right, center and one marker left.
When you say center, they are expected to sprint to the center and back. You can use a ball for this drill. You can also get them to sit after carrying out each instruction, so that they get up fast to perform the next instruction.
