Soccer Speed, Strength And Training Drills

The essential elements of soccer training, which includes work to improve agility, endurance, power and explosiveness, often focus on improving strength and speed. Building faster speed requires building more strength, as manifested by the ripped physiques of blazingly fast players at the professional level, who at the conclusion of the match often remove their shirts to show off their weight-room work. Speed can help make goals or prevent them, as fast players alter the outcomes of games and final results.

Significance

Strength contributes to speed and also reduces the risk of injury in drills. Training elements can include sprint training, interval training, scrimmages, and plyometrics, which are explosive jumping and skipping notes former L.A. Galaxy coach Sigi Schmid in "Complete Conditioning for Soccer." Players use strength to change direction swiftly while dribbling and shooting. Strength plays a key role in acceleration, he adds.

Types

Players can work out using stationary bikes, rowing machines, treadmills and steppers. They also record their work and rest times. Running needs to make up the majority of training, Schmid notes. Players can work either on their stride, using longer-than-normal steps, or on their sprinting speed while going at 100 percent.

Features

Speed training drills can employ speed ladders. You can do high-knee running with either short steps or side steps in and out of the ladder or bound from one section to another, notes U.K.-based soccer trainer Phil Davies on the Sports Fitness Advisor website. You can also mix push-ups, squat thrusts or burpees with sprints of 10 to 20 yards to blend strength work with speed drills. Burpees, a full-body exercise, require to you to stand, squat, do a pushup, do another squat and then leap up.

Benefits

While field players spend 24 percent of a match walking, according to Thomas Reilly in "Science and Soccer," they spend 36 percent jogging, 20 percent striding and 11 percent sprinting, as well as 7 percent moving backwards and 2 percent moving in possession of the ball. Speed and strength drills prepare a player especially for striding and sprinting, the high-intensity proportion of the game. Greater speed and strength attained from training drills improve the player's "work rate" or ability to cover distance quickly at maximum effort during game conditions, which is especially important for midfielders, notes a 2009 study of Spain's Primera Division by Carlos Lago-Peñas of the University of Vigo in Spain and colleagues.

Expert Insight

Strength training helps both soccer performance and injury prevention, write trainers Taylor Tollison and Martin Roberts on their website Elite Soccer Conditioning.com. Soccer drills focusing on the hamstrings, quads and hip mobility, using high weights and fast reps, will increase speed and agility.