increasing blood

Why it’s so important to always use a warm-up soccer drill with children

Children have boundless energy and an unending
supply of enthusiasm, especially those who love to play football. It's easy to
ignore the important of proper warm up exercises when you train young soccer
players. They will often ask you if they can skip the warm-up exercises and get
straight to continuing with the training. But you have to make sure they warm
up in each session and get used to the habit of warming up for the matches too.
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Why it’s so important to always use a warm-up soccer drill with children

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Why use warm-up exercises?

Pre-exercise warm-up exercises:

Warms muscles by increasing blood movement
through tissues, making muscles more flexible;

Increase the delivery
of oxygen
and nutrients to muscles by increasing
blood flow to them;

Prepare your players muscles for stretching;

Prepare the heart for increased activity;

Prepare your players mentally for this session.

Why use cooling down exercises?

Using stretching exercises to cool off after
exercise means gradually slowing down your player's activity level.

Cooling drill:

Helps the heartbeat and breathing gradually
return to normal;

Helps avoid fainting or dizziness, when strong
activity is stopped suddenly;

Helps remove waste products from muscles, such
as lactic acid, which can accumulate during strong activity.

How to set a quick and useful warming-up
drill

Use an area, around 20 x 20 square meters.

After jogging and stretching for 10-15 minutes,
tell your players to move in the area and start by playing one-touch football,
in a team of three people.

Both sets of players have the ball and must
pass and move.

Give one of your defenders a bib and tell them
they must win the ball from one of the two teams.

Tell your team that they now have to play
two-touch football and not lose ownership.

Have your defender run between teams trying to
win the ball.

Why it’s so important to always use a warm-up soccer drill with children

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How to change soccer practice

Add another defender to put pressure on the
player.

Vary between one-touch or two-touch football or
allow each player to only have 3 seconds on the ball (they have to count to
three out loud).

Reduce or add numbers to each team.

The main soccer training tips:

Make sure all players start with jogging and stretching
exercises - make newcomers late doing the same exercises.

Tell your players to concentrate on accurate
passes and use their skills to keep the ball away from the defender.

Tell your players to move into space and
control the ball first so they can get through it more easily.