Speed and agility workouts are essential to a game that, like basketball and tennis, involves multiple sprints. Soccer training, at all levels, emphasizes improved acceleration and agility rather than absolute speed, according to the Sports Fitness Advisor website.
Features
Workouts should focus on short bursts of running, jumping and hopping, as well as quick changes of direction. A typical session devoted to speed and agility might consist of stations devoted to sprinting on flat ground, uphill sprints, downhill sprints, ladder drills and slalom dribbling around cones or poles.
Function
Speed and agility workouts aim to improve running technique, balance, foot speed and acceleration, writes coach Michael J. Matkovich on the website Elite Soccer Drills. Some drills work on all those elements simultaneously. The authors describe an acceleration drill involving four cones set in a diamond pattern with 1-yard sides, and a pair of cones placed 10 yards in front of the diamond. Players need to jump powerfully from the center of the diamond over the right-hand cone, back to the center, the left-hand cone, back to center again and then race to the paired cones.
Time Frame
Speed and agility training occurs at the beginning of practice before players become fatigued. The training can be repeated before a match to warm up, Matkovich notes. Allow roughly 30 minutes for speed and agility training, which typically involves having the players visit five to eight stations and spending two to four minutes at each. Permit one to three minutes of rest between stations.
Benefits
Drills can encourage not only speed of play but also quick thinking and passing and receiving skills. The website SoccerXpert recommends the Speed of Play Warm-up as a prelude to a practice of speed work. Create a grid 30 by 40 yards out of cones. Divide the teams into two groups of six with different-colored jerseys. Number the players one through six. With the players spread out randomly in the grid, have player one pass to player two, so that eventually player six passes the ball back to player one. Reverse the pattern so number six passes to number five and so forth. Then have player one pass to player three, who passes to player five, and have the even-numbered players pass in the same fashion.
Expert Insight
Ladder agility drills improve foot speed, agility, coordination and overall quickness, Davies notes. Push off from the balls of your feet and keep your elbows at 90 degrees at all times. Players work on a gridded rope or plastic device placed on the ground to present a series of box shapes. They execute simple jumps resembling hopscotch and more intricate patterns involving lateral moves and complex foot placements. Have the players start slow with dummy runs before trying a full-speed drill.
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