You don't have to be as flexible as Gumby to play soccer, but it certainly helps. Side volleys, headers and bicycle kicks require your joints to demonstrate their flexibility by going through much of their full range of motion. An effective fake to get past defenders requires you just for an instant to be a dancer or yogi, your pliable neck, torso, arms and legs going one way and then another on your way into the goal.
Benefits
Kicking, sprinting, jumping and heading are more fluid and productive if you train daily on flexibility, writes conditioning coach Greg Gatz in "Complete Conditioning for Soccer." Goalkeepers especially benefit from a good range of motion, as they must react horizontally and vertically in a split second. Midfielders need to lean in without fouling to gain control of a contested ball. Forwards who can weave through a crowded penalty box or karate kick a waist-high ball use their flexibility to surprise their rival's defenders.
Tests
Begin flexibility training by assessing your current flexibility level. Perform 10 deep squats holding a lightweight stick or PVC pipe above your head. Have your coach evaluate you for stiffness, balancing problems or a lack of coordination, and addressed these with calf, back, shoulder or neck stretches. The Myrland Hurdle Under Test sees if you can step under a crossbar without contacting it with your head or back. Difficulty with this test indicates a need to stretch your hamstrings, hips and lower back.
Types
You can improve your flexibility with dynamic stretching before playing soccer and static stretching after, advises John Dingle, director of coaching for the Soccer Association of Columbia in Maryland. Dynamic stretching can include twisting from side to side or kicking motions. Static stretching involves gentler stretches held for a half-minute or more. The Stretching Institute recommends a focus on your lower body for soccer-specific flexibility. Try the kneeling quad stretch, the sitting single-leg hamstring stretch and the squatting leg out adductor stretch.
Expert Insight
Soccer games themselves can also serve as flexibility training. "There's many ways you can do that with the ball, which requires natural balance," Dingle says. If you have players in games requiring "quick changes of direction, if you work on deception moves that have players shifting moves and changing direction quickly, you're challenging the range of motion," he observes.
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