How To Get in Shape for Soccer

Article by Phil Tucker

One of the most physically demanding sports in the world is a full length game of soccer. If you have ever watched a match, you will understand that the players often spend the entire 90 minutes running up and down the pitch, sometimes drifting forward, other times jogging hard, and sometimes sprinting as fast as they can to break away or catch up with an opponent. Soccer players are in phenomenly good shape, and they usually have thighs like barrels of muscle while their upper bodies are lean and ripped. How can you get ready for a soccer season most effectively? What is the best way to prepare for a good, grueling game of soccer?

The first aspect that must be addressed first aspect that must be addressed is the amount of running involved. You have to be able to run long distances at different tempos, and in order to do that you should begin with two different kind of running programs. The first is the Miles Makes Champions approach, in which you seek to build the basic foundation of fitness that will allow you to run for extremely long periods of time. This will involve an ever increasing amount of distance training, alternating during the week so that you are able to consume vast distances with little difficulty.

The trick however lies in blending this marathon-running approach to the kind of interval training that will lend you the explosive speed you need to be able to call upon. Toward that end, you should figure in some interval training to your work week, where you practice for shorter durations at running at varying speeds, some explosively fast, others merely hard jogs.

With your running under control, you need to condition your entire body through some cross training. Toward this end, few sports will condition your body and enhance your cardio like swimming. The added benefit is that swimming is very low impact which is crucial after the amount of running you will be doing, and benefits your whole body.

Finally, you should consider doing a few bouts in the weight room each week so as to develop muscular strength and power. You shouldn