Amateur and just-for-fun soccer players typically stick to playing the game itself to achieve a basic fitness level. A shock awaits though, if you become serious about soccer and compete at an elite level as an older teen, or win acceptance to a college program, a training academy or a pro team. At these levels, you need a comprehensive exercise plan to take you to the next level. Your program doesn’t have to be onerous -- standout pros like Abby Wambach find time to laugh and joke while enjoying their exercises.
Strength
If you are entering a college program or joining a competitive travel team, the coach may provide you with a sheet of offseason strength-training exercises. If you have access to a gym, you can complete leg presses, bench presses, barbell or dumbbell curls and barbell squats, observes coach Debra LaPrath in “Coaching Girls Soccer Successfully.” If you only have access to a mat at home, you can still do situps and regular pushups, as well as pushups on a ball, leg lunges and the plank. Add in wall sits, which are like sitting in a chair but against a wall. The coach’s instructions or your own trainer may provide circuits or a detailed card with individualized strength exercises to increase your total-body strength and to increase your challenge as the weeks go by.
Explosiveness
Exercises called plyometrics help you with the explosiveness you need at the next level, for your first step as you sprint during games and for jumping for headers. You can do one- or two-legged jumps on stadium stairs or up on boxes of various heights at your training facility. Set a soccer ball where it won’t roll and jump over it from side to side and front to back.
Agility
Exercises that mimic the changes of direction in the game hone your agility. Cones set in a T shape or in row let you run or, better yet, dribble the ball in a slalom course around each cone. You can also hopscotch through a speed ladder to work on agility and footwork.
Speed
You can work with teammates to take your speed to the next level with a drill called sprint ladders. Line up with teammates on the end line from fastest to slowest. Sprint to the 20-yard line, trying to move up the ladder by beating your faster teammate to the left. You switch spots when you win. Recover from the sprint, and continue to sprint to the 40-, 60- and 80-yard lines of your field or to cones set at these distances, switching places depending on who wins each leg.
