Youth Soccer Drills - The Right Way To Practice

It is one thing to work out the right youth soccer drills based on your players’ age level and skill levels. But it is quite another to ensure that your players are up to it in terms of fitness.

Imagine working out the best practice drills and then finding out that their fitness levels during practice are not quite up to the mark!

• So How Do You Make Fitness Training Even More Effective?

Here’s what you should tell your players when they perform their fitness exercises during soccer drill practice.

- Why Your Players Must Not Run With A Stitch In The Side

During a soccer routine for kids, advise your player never to run with a stitch in the side. A stitch or that niggling pain at the side of the stomach occurs when a huge meal and excess carbohydrates have been consumed just before the training.

What actually happens is the abrupt rush of blood sugar levels making it a challenge for the liver to handle the extra insulin – causing the liver to constrict, so that the player feels the stitch in the side.

If the player continues to run with the stitch, it indicates the inability to uphold proper posture, leading to additional injury. Therefore, make sure your players rest a little until the pain goes away to continue with the soccer training session.

- Drinking Water

While this seems like a no-brainer, not many of us realize that all it takes is just a three percent loss of water to affect performance drastically, no matter how fit the player is. Hence, any water lost must be replaced at proper frequency, which during soccer drills, is every twenty minutes at least.

Make sure they drink the same quantity each time. This looks like it is difficult to control, but if you train your players in drinking water as well, you would be surprised how their bodies adjust to this conditioning.

- Proper Sleep

Yes, as far as youth players are concerned sleeping well for two consecutive nights will go a long way in muscle repair. Sleep aids in muscle repair.

There are periods of sleep during which this happens and this recurs around three to five times a night. Since a young player would need at least five of these periods, it averages to two nights sleep.