Endurance Matters

In youth athletics, endurance matters.

The team with the most energy towards the end of a game usually wins.

Lots of youth athletes look AMAZING in the first half of a game, and then things start to fall apart after half time.

They get tired.

And tired teams usually don’t play their best.

If you want to ensure your team comes out fresh in the second half, you need to start doing HIIT.

HIIT= High Intensity Interval Training

High-Intensity Interval Training describes any workout that alternates between intense bursts of activity and fixed periods of less-intense activity.

It’s Efficient: In fact, our HIIT circuits take just 10 minutes, but your athletes will achieve MORE in 10 minutes than they would running for half an hour.

It Improves Cardio Like Nothing Else: Most youth athletes aren’t used to pushing into the anaerobic zone (where it’s actually hard to get out a sentence because you are breathing so hard).   But it’s that anaerobic zone that offers amazing results.  One 2006 study found that after 8 weeks of doing HIIT workouts, subjects could bicycle twice as long as they could before the study, while maintaining the same pace.

It’s Fun: There are lots of exercises you can use for a HIIT circuit, but we’ve designed ours to be fun for kids. All of our HIIT exercises involve a ball.

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Change Your Game in Soccer

Your greatest weapon when playing soccer is your mind prior to and during the game.

Your mindset is how you mentally approach and prepare for soccer.

When you have an effective mindset, you have belief that you can win games, or at least compete at a high level even against very good teams.

Negative thoughts will creep in for you, but the goal is to have most of your thoughts enhance confidence and have the ability to refocus when negativity creeps in.

A positive mindset reduces anxiety prior to games, allows you to play freely or intuitively on the pitch and keeps the focus on the task at hand.

A positive mindset not only affects how you approach games, but also how you approach practices and training sessions.

When you have intensity and drive, you train hard and compete in practice rather than merely being physically present in practice.

When you have a strong mindset, you are passionate about competition and enjoy playing your sport, both of which contribute to your success as an athlete.

Is your mindset helpful or hurt your game?

If your mindset is mostly negative, do you think you can do anything about it? Or do you believe "it is what it is?"

The truth is your mindset is a choice. YOU control your mindset.

Your mindset is something you foster by your decision of where to place your focus.

Focus on fear, deficiencies in your game, mistakes, comparisons or the negative criticisms of other, you will grow a negative mindset... and that negative mindset will show in your performance during games.

Focus on your strengths, effort in training, successes and your will to improve your game, and you will cultivate a positive mindset.

A positive mindset will produce positive results in games. Positive results don’t always mean wins; it means playing aggressively, playing to your potential, competing throughout the game, never giving up and making plays.

Change your mindset... change your game!

Tips For Fostering a Positive Competitive Mindset:

"Competitive" means to compete or to make a full-out effort to be successful.

You can improve your mindset by getting into the habit of competing at your peak all the time.  Start competing in practice... push during drills, race to the ball, play aggressively during scrimmages, etc.

As you start winning battles, finishing first during runs, hustling in games, you will notice that your mindset changes... and the results will be positive!

Invisible Training

Not all performance improvements are gained in the field

Have you ever stopped to think about when improvement occurs in your training cycle? You may have never thought about this, but you should. Is it right after a hard workout? Is it 12 or 24 hours after a workout?

For most people, the benefits of the work done need time to transpire, and once the body has adapted, you start to see performance improvements.

Some coaches even refer to this recovery period as “invisible training,” less obvious than the actual workout, but vitally important. You may not be doing sets and reps, but when and how you recover determines how much you’ll reap from your “real training” sessions.

Understanding when your improvement happens is crucial if you want to continue to improve your performance because the ability to recover is what changes most as you age. You do not lose the ability to increase strength or power as you age, rather your body slows down its recovery response rate. This cannot be overstated: your ability to recover from training is what changes as you age, not your ability to improve strength or power.

If you don’t adapt your training schedule and intensity to match the biological changes that your body is going through, your training will not continue to produce the effects you seek.

Anyone can train hard, that’s usually not the issue. Instead, it’s whether or not you know when to train hard and when to back off to allow your body to fully recover. If you don’t know when to retreat, you’ll slowly drive yourself into a deeper and deeper hole. This is when sickness and sub-par performances take the place of feeling healthy and seeing improvements on a regular basis. Also known as over-training, this is a lousy place for performance-focused players to reside, and it happens to many Top players who may think that more training is always better.

Though this problem is common, the fix is simple. Shift your mindset. Realize that some benefits are gained not from training harder, but by recovering better. Intensify your recovery period, and you’ll notice more gains. This might seem counter intuitive, but recovering effectively and consistently is a skill you can learn, and you’ll probably have to experiment to find the best methods for your body.

Over the years, some of the athletes I train have found one or two strategies from this list that really help. Individual variation is an important component of applying these strategies. Experiment with these strategies to see whether your performance improves.

Recovery Strategies

Consistent and sufficient sleep. Many people are chronically sleep deprived, and although it can be difficult to get enough sleep, it’s vitally important to your performance not just in the field, but across all aspects of your life.

Proper nutrition. We all seem to be eating on the run these days, but take the time to eat properly and you’ll likely see a performance increase when your body has the appropriate balance of nutrients it needs to perform at the top level.

Stretching, foam rolling. All of these activities can help release lactic acid that accumulates in the muscles during a training session. When the body can efficiently flush these toxins out and repair the training-inflicted damage done to the muscles during a workout, you will likely see bigger gains from your work in the field.

Proper warm-up and cool-down procedures. Similar to stretching, warming up and cooling down before and after a tough training session prepares your body appropriately for the work that’s coming and helps the body process the work after it’s been completed.

Icing, cold plunges, and contrast baths. Though chilly, these methods can help reduce inflammation in the body after a workout, which also helps flush out toxins and improves your body’s response to a training session.

Massage and chiropractic adjustments. Keeping everything limber and in alignment can also help your body work smoothly and may enable you to get more out of your training time.

Remember, improvement does not come strictly from actual training sessions. You improve during your recovery, that space in between training sessions when your body does important repair, adaption, and improvement functions.

Feel Intimidated?!?

Playing a soccer game against a more physical team can be intimidating for some players.

A team with highly aggressive or bigger players can take the focus off your soccer game if you allow. Soon, you will start to worry about getting fouled, injured or being physically dominated for 90 minutes.

You may even enter the match with a predetermined outcome, "We are going to get crushed because they are bullies on the field."

When you allow the opposing team to steal your focus, you are doomed.

One soccer player I work with would be a shell of himself when playing physical teams.

This player was an undersized but talented finesse player.

During most games, he could weave through traffic, thread the needle on passes and score with regularity.

Unfortunately, when he played against teams with a physical reputation, he would play with trepidation, avoid contact and force passes just to get rid of the ball quickly. He would get so anxious watching his opponents warm-up and fear would course through his veins.

Even though he was skilled enough to outplay these rough opponents, he would freeze during the game and lose his confidence.

He desperately wanted to find a way to overcome this problem so he could play the way he knew he could.

Intimidation can affect even the best teams in the world.

Intimidation has nothing to do with your opponent’s size/strength and everything to do with your mentality. 

Intimidation requires consent, meaning you allow the other team to dictate how you think, feel and play. When your opponents have your focus, the game is practically a foregone conclusion.

Competing against physically aggressive teams requires both physical training and mental toughness.

It's important to prepare for all types of opponents and different types of circumstances so you are confident you can handle whatever situation occurs during a game. 

When playing rough opponents, you may need to alter your game plan but you must stay focused on that game plan and play accordingly.

When the opposing team cannot get in your head, they will start to play recklessly giving you the mental edge.

Tips for Playing Mentally Tough Against Rough Teams

First, know that many physically rough teams are looking to get you frustrated and scared to engage.

Intimidation occurs when you accept that you are intimidated and play scared. 

When you focus on the other team's tactics, remind yourself of your skill set or game plan.

Focus on your speed, agility, quickness, and other talents to counter the opponent.

Dr. Patrick Cohn

Peak Performance Sports, LLC
Mental Training for a Competitive Edge

Fuel for Soccer Fitness

If you’re training for a sustained period of time – like during pre-season training – you’re putting a lot of stress on your body,

If you’re not fully accustomed to it you might get ill. The more you train the more vitamins and antioxidants you need, which means one thing: you need lots more fruit and vegetables.





Food for thought

Try and eat as many super-foods as possible. 

An easy way to spot a super-food is that they are often brightly 

colored – blueberries, tomatoes, beetroot, carrots, cherries and 

pomegranate. If you struggle to eat enough fruit, slip them into 

your daily diet by substituting your mid-afternoon 

chocolate for fruit.

Nothing beats pineapples


If you’re only going to eat one fruit make it pineapple. They have powerful anti-oxidants, and there’s much research supporting its role in helping repair muscle. When you exercise you add stress to your body and this suppresses your immune system. Pineapple provides anti-oxidants that boost your immunity.

Protein + carbs = fast recovery

Aside from fruit, you need a good balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat. Get the right balance for breakfast with brown toast, two poached eggs and beans. For lunch you might have brown pasta with chicken in a tomato sauce and a side salad. For dinner, opt for something like tuna steak and rice. The quality of protein from tuna is better than from many food sources, boosting muscle growth and recovery.

Don’t forget to drink

When active, you need 4-6 liters of water a day. 

Off Season Training

“The more you sweat in times of peace, the less you bleed in times of war,” is a saying that is certainly full of wisdom. Off-season training is one area where athletes can get a tremendous bang for their buck. This article aims to provide wisdom, based on knowledge and experience, for training in the off-season.

Before we get into specifics, we have to define what the off-season actually is. The off-season is a period of time when an athlete is not participating competitively in their sport. Team sports like soccer, basketball, and baseball have a clearly defined off-season. Seasons in other sports such as tennis are not as easily defined. And with the oftentimes overly demanding schedules of many youth sports teams, many young athletes jump from travel to all-star and then varsity high school teams hoping to get ahead, never leaving any time for an actual off-season. 

It is critical for all athletes, professional to youth, to have some sort of off-season built into the year. Playing sports at competitive maximums is taxing on the human body.

 If you cannot play your sport in the off-season, then what can you do? First, I am not going to tell you that you cannot play your sport in the off-season. What I will tell you is that you should not be competing in your sport in the off-season. In fact, competing in your sport is the definition of being in-season. This downtime is an opportunity to perform technical skill work or practice but at a much lower intensity and volume than during your competitive season. For example, this would be the time a soccer player could improve dribbling skills or other technical work. The key takeaway here is you are not playing your sport at competitive max or “racing speed.”

So what should the training be like when an athlete is not in season? Off-season training for youth athletes should focus on improving foundational movement patterns and general strength and conditioning. In fact, this should be the bulk of the work done in the off-season. This work helps establish a base for the future. Improving fundamental movement patterns like jumping, landing, decelerating, squatting, hinging at the hip, pushing, and pulling all improve overall athleticism. The conditioning work done to the aerobic system in the off-season provides the base for the higher-intensity demands to come in the pre-season and competitive seasons. The improvement of general strength creates the potential to sprint faster, jump higher, and throw harder during the competitive season. You simply cannot build these qualities in the middle of a competitive season. Instead, you must build these qualities in the off-season so they can be expressed during the competitive season.

 Each sport and athlete has specific needs, and if you are serious about getting the most out of the off-season time, I would hire a knowledgeable and experienced trainer. But the bottom line is to do your homework and find someone who thinks long-term and has your best interest in mind. With that being said, in a typical 4-12 week off-season, three of the most common goals are to develop the aerobic energy system, improve general strength, and clean up movement patterns.

Regardless of the sport, a well-conditioned aerobic system is essential. Obviously, a well-conditioned aerobic system will benefit someone like a distance runner or soccer player. However, what most people do not understand is that a fine-tuned aerobic system provides benefits in almost all sports.

This is because the aerobic system (energy with oxygen) is responsible for replenishing the fuel for the anaerobic energy system (energy without oxygen). In other words, football and tennis players need their aerobic system to replenish the anaerobic systems that allow them to perform bursts of high-intensity work intervals. This is a tremendous advantage late in the game during the competitive season, and it can only be accomplished by doing some work dedicated to improving the ability of the cardiovascular system to deliver oxygen to working muscle. Although training for peak aerobic performance has been shown to compromise anaerobic performance in elite athletes, this potential drawback is not typically significant enough to be of concern to a young athlete who has far more to gain in terms of positive body composition and overall fitness levels.

 Another benefit of aerobic training in the off-season is that it promotes recovery. Delivering oxygen-rich blood throughout the body aids in rebuilding tissues that take a beating during the competitive season. In addition, it is relatively easy on the nervous system. The nervous system is typically taxed heavily during the competitive season with all the quick movements and maximal muscle contractions. Conversely, aerobic training is characterized by sustained or repeated submaximal efforts, providing low-level neurological stimulation. Examples of aerobic training include long runs, swimming, or biking at a heart rate of 130-150 beats per minute.

Off-season training for youth athletes should also have an emphasis on lifting heavy things and putting on some muscle mass. The force a muscle is able to produce is directly related to its cross-sectional area. If you want to be able to run, jump, and throw harder next season, strength training is essential. Strength training simply means you are going to stress the muscle by lifting something heavy, and your body will respond by making it bigger and stronger. An athlete does not have to go to the weight room or have access to fancy equipment to strength train. In fact, for most youth athletes, body weight is the best place to start. After all, if you cannot move your own body weight appropriately, adding 50 pounds on top of your back is asking for an injury.

 When strength training, the focus should be on movement patterns rather than on specific muscles. For example, you want to improve strength in fundamental movement patterns such as squatting, hip hinging, pushing, pulling, and core stability. This is easily done with body weight, free weights, sandbags, and resistance bands. It is not easily done with the machines you find in most gyms that isolate specific muscles and joints.

Building a solid foundation of strength in the off-season is followed by learning how to express that newly developed strength during the pre-season and fully expressing the strength in the competitive season. The key here is to focus on improving general strength in the off-season and then working during the pre-season and competitive season to apply it.

The final objective of the off-season is to clean up movement patterns. This is the time to make sure you can absorb force correctly, clean up fundamental patterns, and develop good posture. This aspect of training is becoming even more important in today’s society. Think about the amount of time children spend sitting on the computer, texting on their phone, and sitting in classrooms. It is causing an epidemic of bad posture and inefficient movement in those compromised positions. Even worse, training and competing in them is a major contributing factor to several youth sports injuries such as spondylolysis (stress fracture in the lower back) and shoulder injuries. When you spend all day hunched over and your lower back is in excessive curvature, you develop poor posture, and this can set off any number of ailments when training load is increased.

The above pyramid of athletic development shows why movement patterns are so important to develop in an off-season training program. Clearly, movement is the base for all sports skills. You cannot layer fitness and sports skills on top of dysfunctional movement without eventually paying the price, and the off-season is the best time to develop those skills since time and effort playing sport are at a minimum.

It is impossible to prescribe an all-encompassing general workout for the off-season because the needs of each athlete and sport are unique. Some athletes may need to spend more time developing strength and others improving conditioning. However, below is a very general look at the typical week of training in the off-season. Planning training or periodization is a science in and of itself, but one of the biggest things to notice below is how the training is spaced out. An athlete cannot work hard 3 or 4 days in a row and then take 3 or 4 days off. Training is nothing more than applying stress to the body. The body then adapts to the stresses placed upon it. The real physical changes happen between rather than during workouts. Understanding the importance of rest and proper nutrition between workouts will maximize success and allow you to train both hard and smart.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Dynamic Warm-Up Aerobic Training	Dynamic Warm-Up Strength Training (AM) Sport-Specific or Agility Work (PM)	Dynamic Warm-Up Aerobic Training	Dynamic Warm-Up Strength Training (AM) Sport-Specific or Agility Work (PM))	Dynamic Warm-Up Aerobic Training	Dynamic Warm-Up Strength Training (AM) Sport-Specific or Agility Work (PM)	Off Recovery & Regeneration

If you look at everything presented about off-season training and put it in the context of the bigger picture, it becomes clear how important it is when thinking long-term. If you understand that, then I will let you in on a little secret about developing champion athletes.

Most parents and coaches are only concerned with the short-term. They want to win the big game next week, win the tournament this weekend, or make the U-12 all-star soccer team. They may achieve those things, but they take shortcuts to get them, such as skipping the off-season. Those shortcuts eventually catch up.

On the other hand, the true champion athletes are focused on the long-term from the very beginning, and they never take shortcuts. They do the work in the off-season, and over the course of years, they develop outstanding conditioning and strength while often avoiding injury. They also are the ones who may have missed out on winning the championship in 7th grade, but they eventually end up with scholarship offers and notable accomplishments when it counts.

To conclude, I hope this article sheds some light on just how important off-season training really is to in-season performance. If you pay the price of time and sweat during the off-season training, you certainly will reap the benefits during the heat of the battle in-season.

Are your kids mentally tough?

Can they be pushed to achieve great things, or do they need to be coddled? Do they deal well with disappointment and failure, or do they fear it, and thus avoid challenging situations? Do they fear strict, demanding coaches, or do they thrive on them? As parents we know our kids need to be mentally tough if they are going to make it in the real world. Sports is a great way to give them the tools of the trade.

Here are 5 Tips for increasing your kids’ mental toughness.

1. STRUGGLE IS GOOD!

If you want your children to grow up mentally strong, then they need to struggle, they HAVE to struggle! We don’t remember our easy teachers or coaches, we remember our tough ones. Are some of them over the top…of course, and we do not need to accept behavior from adult mentors that berates our children for their ability. When you go to the gym, do you go with friends, or a personal trainer that say “its ok, skip that last set” or do you go with the ones who say “Do it again, do it better, you can do more?” Likely, its the later.
Surround your kids with coaches and teachers that give honest, and sometimes painful feedback, and you will develop mentally tough kids who perform at a high level as well.

2. LET THEM FAIL

There is a myth out there that says if our kids fail, their self esteem and confidence will suffer. This is not true, especially if we help to frame the failure for our kids.

Researchers have shown that if we explain that failure is part of the learning process, and is actually a necessary component of achievement, then their self esteem is not effected. In fact, if the necessity to fail is explained properly, on subsequent tests children often out-perform their peers who are not told that is OK to struggle and come up short. So explain the need to fail, and create an environment where your kids do not fear failure and you will see better performance from your kids in the long run.

3. PRAISE EFFORT

We have talked about this before, but I cannot reiterate enough that praising your child’s ability (you are so smart, you are so artistic, you are such a great player) actually can be damaging to their mindset, and ultimately to their performance. You want a mentally tough kid who performs up to his or her potential? Then praise their effort, highlight the work they are putting into their sport, the extra hours of training, their added effort in training, etc. This is what will help your kids grow tough, confident, and strong. Effort is always the key to ultimate success.

4. STRICT IS A GOOD THING

Being a strict coach, or having strict coaches and teachers for your kids, is actually a good thing. Studies show that not only do children perform better with strict coaches/teachers, but that eventually they realize (sometimes years later) the benefits of having a leader who told them to do it again, do it better, is this your best effort, etc. Is your child doing better in math than in English? Chances are the math teacher is demanding more! Surround your kids with people who demand their best effort all the time. They will grow tougher, and they will appreciate it in the long run.

5. STRESS IS GOOD

Research shows that children who encounter a moderate amount of stress as they grow up actually develop resilience to stressful situations in the future. Since we cannot protect our children from difficult, stressful situations throughout their lives, why not teach them how to deal with them when they are young?  Something as simple as having a difficult teacher or coach will help your kids develop the resilience necessary to live in the real world, and, when difficult situations arise in sports, perform at a high level when others around them crumble!

Good luck instilling some mental toughness in your kids! The process is not always easy, and can even be emotionally painful for you and them, as they struggle in stressful, difficult environments. Just remember that you are building a sturdy foundation for your kids, one to last a lifetime. I am quite certain that a foundation built upon mental strength and fortitude will serve them well!

What Are Coaches Looking For?

At soccer tryouts, coaches are looking for the strongest players to make up the best team possible. Sometimes, when the soccer tryouts are held, the coaches already know who their core team is, and they are looking for a few players who can fit in. But there are a whole lot of other variables that come into play. Once you know what a coach is actually looking for during your soccer tryouts, you can show off the skills and personality that will help you make the team.

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Skill

In most cases, coaches are looking at how well a player performs the skills that are necessary to play soccer. If you can't perform these skills consistently during soccer tryouts, it's hard to have believe that you will be able to during a game. Some of the skills that you must be able to perform at the soccer tryouts are: tapping the ball, controlling the ball, taking a shot, dribbling and passing. The coaches are also looking at your soccer knowledge and instincts.

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Conditioning

An average player with excellent conditioning will always catch a coach's eye. And so will the excellent player who is gasping for air 15 minutes into the soccer tryout. A coach will ask himself why this player didn't bother to get in shape or keep in shape. Being out of shape at a soccer tryout is saying that you 1) don't care, 2) are lazy and 3) not too smart if you thought being out of shape wouldn't matter. If you are out of shape, you not only let yourself down, but you let your team down as well.

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Attitude

Are you "coach-able?" Do you pay attention and try to perform all the tasks requested to the best of your ability every time? Or do you lollygag? Do you work on your weaknesses so you can improve your skills or are you too busy making fun of the other players? Are you intelligent enough to know that you don't know everything there is to know about soccer? Are you flexible? Are you willing to learn new skills, techniques and strategies? Will you learn another position without complaining?

Do you work hard all the time, even when the coach isn't watching you? When the coach asks the team to run four laps, do you run three laps and walk one? Or worse yet, do you run only when the coach is looking? Do you try to improve your skills away from the soccer pitch?

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Speed

There are positions for slow players, if they are soccer smart. Speed is not a static skill. If you work hard at it, you can get faster and quicker. Unfortunately, soccer tryouts are not the place to turn over a new leaf and decide to improve yourself.

If you are lucky enough to be blessed with some speed, do you respect your gift? Do you take care of your legs? Do you warm up and cool down? Do you avoid mixing it up during practice? Do you avoid doing stupid things that would put your knees at risk?

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Agility

What is your reaction time? Are you agile enough to avoid collisions during practice? Can you move forwards, backwards, to the left and to the right, as well as all angles comfortably? Can you regulate your movements from long and slow to quick and sharp. Do you lift your feet up off the ground?

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Dedication.

When a coach is building a team, it's imperative to know that the players he selects are going to show up for every single game and tournament. He needs to be confident that his players are not out partying and breaking the team rules. Do you care enough about yourself and the team that you will take care of your body? Will you respect the bodies of your teammates and not try to hurt them in practice? Will you show up for all the practices even if it's raining? Even if it's cold? A coach needs a player who will never let the team down.

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Are You a Problem Player?

Are you sassy and disrespectful to the coaches and the other players? Coaches know that kind of player is a cancer. If a player is mouthy during soccer tryouts, before the team is even chosen, it's a good indication that player could be a problem. Will you break team rules? Will you break the law? Do you do whatever you want, regardless of the repercussions? Are you disrespectful to the other players? Do you like to fight - verbally and physically? Are you overly dramatic? Is there always a problem? Are you a liar? Do you skip school? Are you smart enough to keep yourself academically eligible?

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Reputation

If you have caused your coaches and team problems in the past, there is a good chance that they are going to pass on you during these soccer tryouts. If you are trying out for a high school team, that's bad news for you, because there might not be another team to play on. But even if you're trying out for a club team, soccer is a small community, where everybody seems to know everybody, and coaches share information on players.

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Intelligence

Do you have enough sense to know when Coach needs you to shut up? Do you know enough to tie your shoes? Do you remember to come to soccer tryout prepared? Do you learn from your mistakes? Do you know when to push harder and when to back off? Do you know when to do what you're told? Can you read the field? Do you remember other soccer players that you play against and how to beat them? Sometimes during soccer tryouts, coaches don't tell you everything you need to know. They sit back and see if you can figure out what they want.

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: Personality

Are you a whiner? Are you a complainer? Is it always someone else's fault? Are you mean and hurtful? Do you ridicule other players? Do you like other people to fail, even your own team mates? Do you think you're better than the other players? Do you think that the team rules do not apply to you? Do you think that you don't have to show up to practice and games on time?

Soccer Tryouts - What Coaches Look For: The X Factor

The X factor is that little something extra that you bring to a team. Sometimes a coach will take a player who doesn't have the skill, the speed or the agility of the ideal soccer player. Sometimes it's because the player tries so hard and plays with so much heart, that they are an inspiration to the other players. Sometimes the coaches feel that with a little more time and training that individual can become a very good soccer player. Sometimes the player is a motivator, cheerleader and a natural leader.

Last, but not least, many times a coach has to choose a player (or not choose a player) based on gut instinct. Many times soccer tryouts cannot reveal the true worth of a potential player. Most coaches don't get the chance to know you as a person before they make their team selection. They can see your skill, but they can't know what a hard worker you are unless you show them on the field. They can't tell how dedicated you are unless you show them. You aren't going to get a chance to have a nice sit down conversation with the coach. How you handle your soccer tryouts will reveal what the coach needs to know and whether there's a place for you on the team.

So, the moral of the story is: Be on time. Be prepared. Try your hardest. Be respectful. Give it all you got. And good luck!

What is Commitment in Soccer?

 

 

 

http://www.victorysoccerclub.com/youthstrengthconditioningprograms.html

 

 

Commitment is a type of motivation. It is the ability to stick with a program, method, or philosophy and apply it daily over a long period EVEN in times of adversity.

How do you stay committed to your practice plan and goals?

The first step to improving commitment is to identify beliefs or distractions that sabotage your motivation. Armed with this information, you are in a position to change your attitude for the better.


Three Ways Soccer Players Sabotage Their Own Commitment:

1. Impatience with improvement: Soccer players often want a quick fix, something that works immediately. If it does not work fast, they are prone to throw it away and not try it again.

2. Fear of trying and not succeeding: Are you afraid of going after your dream and not succeeding? There are no guarantees that if you work harder and put all your energy into getting better your game will improve. But some players can't stomach the fear of not reaching their goals if they give it their all.

3. Over-training Syndrome: Training too much can also cause you to spin your wheels because you are mentally and physically exhausted. Your body needs rest, your mind needs a break. Yes, it is possible to work too much.

The fist step in making positive changes is to identify self-sabotaging beliefs, rationalizations, generalizations, or behaviors that undermine your motivation to be successful. Then you will be ready to change your behavior to increase commitment.

Off Season Training

“The more you sweat in times of peace, the less you bleed in times of war,” is a saying that is certainly full of wisdom. Off-season training is one area where athletes can get a tremendous bang for their buck. This article aims to provide wisdom, based on knowledge and experience, for training in the off-season.

Before we get into specifics, we have to define what the off-season actually is. The off-season is a period of time when an athlete is not participating competitively in their sport. Team sports like soccer, basketball, and baseball have a clearly defined off-season. Seasons in other sports such as tennis are not as easily defined. And with the oftentimes overly demanding schedules of many youth sports teams, many young athletes jump from travel to all-star and then varsity high school teams hoping to get ahead, never leaving any time for an actual off-season.


It is critical for all athletes, professional to youth, to have some sort of off-season built into the year. Playing sports at competitive maximums is taxing on the human body. High school pitchers undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery, tennis players with wrist and rotator cuff issues, and knee/ankle problems from the repetitive stresses of jumping and landing on the basketball or volleyball court are all predictable consequences associated with overuse and lack of rest for young athletes. It is what would seem to be common sense: You cannot race a car hard every single day at the track without something eventually breaking down. The human body responds in much the same way.

If you cannot play your sport in the off-season, then what can you do? First, I am not going to tell you that you cannot play your sport in the off-season. What I will tell you is that you should not be competing in your sport in the off-season. In fact, competing in your sport is the definition of being in-season. This downtime is an opportunity to perform technical skill work or practice but at a much lower intensity and volume than during your competitive season. For example, this would be the time a basketball player could improve dribbling skills or a tennis player technical stroke work. The key takeaway here is you are not playing your sport at competitive max or “racing speed.”

So what should the training be like when an athlete is not in season? Off-season training for youth athletes should focus on improving foundational movement patterns and general strength and conditioning. In fact, this should be the bulk of the work done in the off-season. This work helps establish a base for the future. Improving fundamental movement patterns like jumping, landing, decelerating, squatting, hinging at the hip, pushing, and pulling all improve overall athleticism. The conditioning work done to the aerobic system in the off-season provides the base for the higher-intensity demands to come in the pre-season and competitive seasons. The improvement of general strength creates the potential to sprint faster, jump higher, and throw harder during the competitive season. You simply cannot build these qualities in the middle of a competitive season. Instead, you must build these qualities in the off-season so they can be expressed during the competitive season.


Each sport and athlete has specific needs, and if you are serious about getting the most out of the off-season time, I would hire a knowledgeable and experienced trainer. But the bottom line is to do your homework and find someone who thinks long-term and has your best interest in mind. With that being said, in a typical 4-12 week off-season, three of the most common goals are to develop the aerobic energy system, improve general strength, and clean up movement patterns.

Regardless of the sport, a well-conditioned aerobic system is essential. Obviously, a well-conditioned aerobic system will benefit someone like a distance runner or soccer player. However, what most people do not understand is that a fine-tuned aerobic system provides benefits in almost all sports.

This is because the aerobic system (energy with oxygen) is responsible for replenishing the fuel for the anaerobic energy system (energy without oxygen). In other words, football and tennis players need their aerobic system to replenish the anaerobic systems that allow them to perform bursts of high-intensity work intervals. This is a tremendous advantage late in the game during the competitive season, and it can only be accomplished by doing some work dedicated to improving the ability of the cardiovascular system to deliver oxygen to working muscle. Although training for peak aerobic performance has been shown to compromise anaerobic performance in elite athletes, this potential drawback is not typically significant enough to be of concern to a young athlete who has far more to gain in terms of positive body composition and overall fitness levels.

Another benefit of aerobic training in the off-season is that it promotes recovery. Delivering oxygen-rich blood throughout the body aids in rebuilding tissues that take a beating during the competitive season. In addition, it is relatively easy on the nervous system. The nervous system is typically taxed heavily during the competitive season with all the quick movements and maximal muscle contractions. Conversely, aerobic training is characterized by sustained or repeated submaximal efforts, providing low-level neurological stimulation. Examples of aerobic training include long runs, swimming, or biking at a heart rate of 130-150 beats per minute,
Off-season training for youth athletes should also have an emphasis on lifting heavy things and putting on some muscle mass. The force a muscle is able to produce is directly related to its cross-sectional area. If you want to be able to run, jump, and throw harder next season, strength training is essential. Strength training simply means you are going to stress the muscle by lifting something heavy, and your body will respond by making it bigger and stronger. An athlete does not have to go to the weight room or have access to fancy equipment to strength train. In fact, for most youth athletes, body weight is the best place to start. After all, if you cannot move your own body weight appropriately, adding 50 pounds on top of your back is asking for an injury.


When strength training, the focus should be on movement patterns rather than on specific muscles. For example, you want to improve strength in fundamental movement patterns such as squatting, hip hinging, pushing, pulling, and core stability. This is easily done with body weight, free weights, sandbags, and resistance bands. It is not easily done with the machines you find in most gyms that isolate specific muscles and joints.

Building a solid foundation of strength in the off-season is followed by learning how to express that newly developed strength during the pre-season and fully expressing the strength in the competitive season. The key here is to focus on improving general strength in the off-season and then working during the pre-season and competitive season to apply it.

The final objective of the off-season is to clean up movement patterns. This is the time to make sure you can absorb force correctly, clean up fundamental patterns, and develop good posture. This aspect of training is becoming even more important in today’s society. Think about the amount of time children spend sitting on the computer, texting on their phone, and sitting in classrooms. It is causing an epidemic of bad posture and inefficient movement in those compromised positions. Even worse, training and competing in them is a major contributing factor to several youth sports injuries such as spondylolysis (stress fracture in the lower back) and shoulder injuries. When you spend all day hunched over and your lower back is in excessive curvature, you develop poor posture, and this can set off any number of ailments when training load is increased.

The above pyramid of athletic development shows why movement patterns are so important to develop in an off-season training program. Clearly, movement is the base for all sports skills. You cannot layer fitness and sports skills on top of dysfunctional movement without eventually paying the price, and the off-season is the best time to develop those skills since time and effort playing sport are at a minimum.

It is impossible to prescribe an all-encompassing general workout for the off-season because the needs of each athlete and sport are unique. Some athletes may need to spend more time developing strength and others improving conditioning. However, below is a very general look at the typical week of training in the off-season. Planning training or periodization is a science in and of itself, but one of the biggest things to notice below is how the training is spaced out. An athlete cannot work hard 3 or 4 days in a row and then take 3 or 4 days off. Training is nothing more than applying stress to the body. The body then adapts to the stresses placed upon it. The real physical changes happen between rather than during workouts. Understanding the importance of rest and proper nutrition between workouts will maximize success and allow you to train both hard and smart.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Dynamic Warm-Up Aerobic Training	Dynamic Warm-Up Strength Training (AM) Sport-Specific or Agility Work (PM)	Dynamic Warm-Up Aerobic Training	Dynamic Warm-Up Strength Training (AM) Sport-Specific or Agility Work (PM))	Dynamic Warm-Up Aerobic Training	Dynamic Warm-Up Strength Training (AM) Sport-Specific or Agility Work (PM)	Off Recovery & Regeneration

If you look at everything presented about off-season training and put it in the context of the bigger picture, it becomes clear how important it is when thinking long-term. If you understand that, then I will let you in on a little secret about developing champion athletes.

Most parents and coaches are only concerned with the short-term. They want to win the big game next week, win the tournament this weekend, or make the U-12 all-star soccer team. They may achieve those things, but they take shortcuts to get them, such as skipping the off-season. Those shortcuts eventually catch up.

On the other hand, the true champion athletes are focused on the long-term from the very beginning, and they never take shortcuts. They do the work in the off-season, and over the course of years, they develop outstanding conditioning and strength while often avoiding injury. They also are the ones who may have missed out on winning the championship in 7th grade, but they eventually end up with scholarship offers and notable accomplishments when it counts.

To conclude, I hope this article sheds some light on just how important off-season training really is to in-season performance. If you pay the price of time and sweat during the off-season training, you certainly will reap the benefits during the heat of the battle in-season.

Full Back

A defensive position. Fullbacks operate either side of the central defenders, with one on the left and one on the right. Together with the central defenders and goalkeeper, they are tasked with stopping the opposition from scoring.

Being a Full Back in Soccer can be a real challenge.

Make sure to never dive into tackles. Instead, try and shepherd the attacking to the touchline, away from the goal itself.

When you have the ball, either make a pass or run with it yourself. If you pass, run up-field into a good position where you can receive a pass. If you run with it, make sure you rush straight back after losing possession. Many goals are lost due to out of position fullbacks.

Make sure you stay in line with the rest of the defense, this way you're not playing an opposing attacker onside.

Playing Full Back Requires Good Strength and Accuracy

When playing Full Back you need to pose good strength and accuracy abilities in order to succeed in this position. You also need to be fast because your mission is to stop your opponent's fast running forwards from scoring.

Tryouts 2014/15
 

Must Have "Skill"

The most important skill as fullback is to have good heading ability and courageousness in one-on-one battles. Keep in mind that your opponents will do everything to score, which requires you to do everything you can to stop them from doing that.

Of course, there will be situations when you need to take a yellow card to prevent your opponents to score, but this is difficult to avoid. To avoid yellow and red cards try always to figure out your opponent's next move, and do not rush into situations.

Also, instead of tackling your opponents try to calm down and wait until your opponent makes his/her move. This will confuse your opponent and will force him/her to make mistakes. By calming down you will also spare yourself many unnecessary yellow and red cards.


Possessing good technique is necessary when playing fullback, especially when serving your teammates with cross passes where precision and accuracy is a must.

Defensive Midfielder

A defensive midfielder is perhaps one of the most important players in a modern game. He/she can change the tempo of the game.

To be a good defensive midfielder, he/she needs to have many attributes and skills.
First and foremost he/she should always put the team first instead of one self.
He/she should always be ready to provide cover for the back four defenders at all times. Hence he/she should always operate in and around the circle center area. He/she should always be ready to anticipate any attack launched by the opposing players.

The defensive midfielder should always be the first to provide good, clean and hard tackle to the opposing players. By doing so it is hoped that the defensive midfielder can temporary upset the flow of the attack.

The defensive midfielder is also expected to intercept, keep possession and distribute the ball to his fellow teammates.

In order to accomplish all of the above, the defensive midfielder is expected to have a very good stamina. He/she is expected to last the entire duration of 90 minutes plus extra time. Where other players may fail in their fitness endurance, the defensive midfielder is expected to carry the team towards the finished line.

Besides stamina, the defensive midfielder is expected to have strong determination to succeed in his role just like his/her other teammates. He/she should be very determined not to allow opposing players to get past him/her area of control. He/she should be the first to put in a strong and clean tackle on the opposing players. He/she should have the vision to distribute the ball to his/her fellow teammates.

Once the defensive midfielder regains control of the ball from the opposing players, he is expected to pass accurately and effectively to his fellow teammates. He/she should be tactically aware of where his best options to lay a pass to his fellow teammates.

In today’s modern soccer game, the defensive midfielder must be a very intelligent player. He/she must be proactive and must be ready at all times to anticipate his/her opponent moves.

Having a good defensive midfielder is very crucial to a team. It could mean success or failure for the outcome of the game.