Exercising to Improve Your Soccer Skills

For one player the emphasis might be improving general fitness, for another strength might be required more or ball control skills, or shooting etc.

What is most important is finding out where a players weaknesses lie and developing a programme of exercises to improve those weaknesses.  The best way to find out where the problems lie is by asking someone else.  Sure, you might know that you're unfit an that that is a priority but often there are parts of a players game that go unnoticed.  For example, there are many players who are very one footed i.e. they only ever use their stronger foot, be it the right or the left.  When this is the case, the player has usually developed many strategies to combat this one-footedness and it often takes someone else to point out that this is a major flaw in their game.

Writing a list of parts of your game that you are not happy with is a good start.  Passing that list on to a coach who can add their input is the second biggest step to take.  The biggest is taking that advice on-board and finding some great exercises to help you on your way.

The internet is a great resource for exercises but you shouldn't restrict yourself to soccer coaching sites.  Whilst these can provide some excellent drills for ball control and other skills, they are often not the best for improving speed, agility, strength or concentration.  Use your imagination and don't be put off by taking up other sports or forms of exercises.  Yoga and pilates can help with flexibility, strength and balance.  Tai Chi or meditation could be the answer for concentration problems.  Don't be scared to use whatever you need to help you improve your game.

For many professional players, equipment and gyms are instantly available.  Players from Hibs recently had a state of the art training ground built for them.  This is not usually the case for amateur players and again it is often important to improvise. Home gyms, classes in local council facilities etc. can all be good and cheap ways to improve your fitness.  The important thing is to stick at it and find as much information as you can before starting out.  Use the internet, speak to experts on line, your coaches or teachers.  Speak to anyone you might know who coaches other sports, it's all good information.

Alan Webber lives and works in Manchester, his passion is football and he spend as much time as possible visiting football grounds throughout Europe.