To get in shape for the soccer season, which typically starts in the late summer, you can devote the summer months to getting fit. That's what soccer programs at leading universities around the nation, such as Michigan and North Carolina, ask their players to do. The athletes start June 1 to get in shape and stay in shape. This way, their condition peaks on opening day, around the third week in August. You can emulate a college preseason by working out on your own or with friends.
Cardio
The University of Michigan men's team players join elite or amateur leagues during the summer. If you follow this avenue, add one cardio workout if you play two hours or more weekly in the league games, or two workouts if you play less than two hours. Your cardio workout can be a 2-mile run trying for a personal best speed; shuttle runs; or two 400 meters, a 300 meters and a 200 meters.
Strength Training
Michigan asks players to add two strength-training workouts a week for players in elite summer leagues and three for those in amateur leagues. You can follow suit with a body-circuit training consisting of squat jumps, lunges alternating legs, pushups, broad jumps, bicycle crunches, burpees, clap pushups, hip-ups, mountain climbers and front planks. Perform each exercise for 45 seconds with a 30-second rest between exercises. After a three-minute rest, repeat the circuit, which relies on bodyweight exercises rather than machines or free weights. You can also pattern yourself after the University of North Carolina's women's team, which strength trains four times a week in the offseason and three times in the preseason.
Speed And Agility
Work on speed and agility one day a week. You can focus on the 300-yard shuttle, which requires 12 complete trips between two cones 25 yards apart, completed as quickly as possible; the goal is to finish the drill in less than 65 seconds. The 120s drill involves sprinting the length of a soccer field, usually 120 yards, and taking the remainder of a minute to rest. The goal is 10 consecutive sets finished in under one minute. The University of North Carolina's soccer teams, men and women, make speed and agility a priority in July and August, as well as anaerobic training via intervals and shorter sprints.
Plyometrics
Michigan asks its players to jump rope weekly through the first seven weeks of its soccer fitness preseason program to increase explosiveness. Players work up to 700 jumps by week seven, including the basic jump with both feet together, alternating feet as if jogging and split feet with one foot and then the other in front.
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