Placement of a soccer ball is critical, but a faster shot will also reduce the time a goalie has to react. However, putting all your strength into a kick also makes it more difficult to control your mechanics, and even small changes to where and how you strike the soccer ball can result in an errant kick. This makes it important to increase your strength and power going into the kick without changing your mechanics.
Step 1
Perform strength-training workouts three or four times a week to develop strength in the back, core muscles and lower body. Building muscle will increase the amount of strength and power available to your shots. Use a variety of lifts to develop your muscles. Lifts that work all the major muscle groups include the dead lift, squat and rack clean.
Step 2
Take a long final stride right before the kick. This bigger stride brings your upper body forward and produces a larger wind-up for the kick, giving your kicking leg a better opportunity to build strength and force entering the kick.
Step 3
Strike the soccer ball with the knuckle of your big toe. You will want to approach the kick as normal, coming from an angle from the side opposite your kicking leg. Strike the ball with the knuckle of the big toe to create a powerful, small point of contact that provides more force to the soccer ball than a larger surface area such as the top of the foot.
Step 4
Keep your follow-through short. You want to follow-through on your mechanics to ensure you strike the ball correctly, but you also don't want the ball sitting on your foot for too long. According to SeriousSoccer.com, an ideal kick only features one one-hundredth of a second of contact between the foot and the ball. Contact slows down the speed of the ball, so the faster you can strike and release the ball, the faster it will travel.
Tips and Warnings
- Routinely practice hard kicks to improve your kicking strength while training your muscles to remember the right mechanics. The more frequently you practice kicking at full force, the more control and aim you will be able to employ in a game situation. If you don't have the mechanics of a soccer kick down well, take practice shots using low amounts of force to give yourself time to get comfortable with the mechanics. As you get them down, you can gradually increase your force while focusing on proper form to maintain your mechanics while increasing the power and speed of your shot.
Things You'll Need
- Soccer ball
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