Soccer Fitness Training - Tips For Peak Performance on the Soccer Field

Great soccer fitness training can elevate your game helping you accomplish the next level of play or the next level of your career. The right program from a good trainer or coach can be the difference between going pro and leaving it all behind after college or high school. When considering soccer fitness training, it's important to understand the basics to make sure your training is as well rounded as possible. It's important to make sure you are hitting on all the most important areas of training, including the proper nutrition, adequate warm-up, and specific drills for endurance, strength, agility and speed.

The Soccer Training Diet

While, it's obvious a certain level of fitness is involved to be an excellent soccer player, it should also be noted that the food you eat is vital to how you play and the player you become. To achieve a healthy diet you need to consider what are you eating. Get rid of the bad and increase the good. Take a notebook and record everything you eat for a week. For inspiration, rent and watch the movie Supersize Me. If that does not change your outlook on fast food, nothing will.

Once you cut out fast food and all the junk it's important to increase the good foods in your diet to a recommended calorie intake that can be established with your coach based for your height, muscle development and activity level. Fresh fruit, whole grains and lean meats are all amazing sources of fiber, protein and iron all of which you need to build muscle and speed. Even more important than your daily diet is the food you eat directly before a game. Avoid fried or fatty foods, whole milk, cheese, marbled meat and anything super sweet. It's also a good idea to avoid foods that digest harshly, like beans, pickled cucumbers and spices.

The Soccer Training Warm-Up

A good warm-up is essential for an effective daily workout routine and, especially, on game days. A good warm-up will raise your heart rate slowly and stretch your muscles well for the strenuous activity ahead. This warm-up should include flexibility exercises, a light jog and a good game of keep away in which you and the other players circle up and go through a variety of juggling challenges, one on one drills and games of possession. This gets your body and mind prepared for the action.

The Soccer Training Workout

For training your body to handle the stress of intense soccer action, it's important to have the right kind of workout to build the muscle you need and develop the skills necessary to perform your position at a high level. Your workout should include a routine geared around a variety of exercises including aerobic, anaerobic, plyometirc, balance exercises and some creative techniques to keep your muscles guessing and from getting stagnant in their development. For aerobic, jogging on a daily basis is a great way to keep your muscles toned and work your heart to stay in great cardio shape. Anaerobic, which is generally in the form of interval training, is the best way for soccer players to increase speed and endurance. The other forms of soccer training can be developed with the help of your coach, trainer and doctor to find the best mix of all the different exercises for your specific body and goals.

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Setting a Vision For Peak Performance in Sports

When we talk about sound preparation for coaching for Peak Performance in Sports, we are referring to the grand scheme of things. No effective coach can perform his coaching job properly without a vision of where he/she wants to lead the team to. It does not matter at what level of play the coach is involved in. Whether it is high school, college, varsity, professional or international levels, coaches must come into their job with a clear vision in mind. Very often, this vision is determined by the organizations hiring the coach. The person been hired must fit the bill of what the sports organization intends to achieve.

When Chelsea FC hired Jose Mourinho as their Head Coach in 2004, they got a coach who could deliver the results, but not the flamboyant playing style that their owner craved for. Although Mourinho won two Premier League titles, it was not sufficient to keep him in the job as he preach and coach a style of effective and discipline soccer, focusing on grinding out results instead of playing beautiful soccer. Here is a case of a coach with a vision of playing mechanical soccer for success, whilst the team organization was looking for a coach who could deliver beautiful soccer with success. The marriage here was never sound and Mourinho's departure was inevitable.

This kind of story and outcome is a loud call for all coaches and owners of sports organizations to be aware of when filling the most important position of the team. When looking for a coaching job, coaches must actively look for the best match in terms of team philosophy. Money and incentive can be huge draws, but ultimately, it will result in a poor working relationship if the manager or coach cannot express his/her coaching philosophy on the playing field. Owners must also be fair to coaches and be out front with their prospective hires. Just because the coach is reputable and successful does not mean that he is the right person for the job. The team's philosophy must be communicated to the coaches before the job is confirmed.

Once a common understanding is established - when the coach understands the requirements of the job and when the organization is frank with the type of job to be taken. It becomes so much easier for the vision of the team and coach to be established. The coach will be able to whole-heartedly devote his energies in ensuring that this vision is communicated to the players. Let him/her get on with the coaching job with minimal interference and peak performance in sports for the team will follow naturally.

It is important for the coach to set his vision early and communicate this to his players as soon as possible. The vision must have a long term horizon of where he/she intends to lead the team. This vision also needs to be supported by short, medium and long-term goals. For instance, a high school baseball team's vision as set out by the coach might be to become the most recognized team in the region in 10 years time. When people think of baseball in this region, the school's name must come to mind. In 2 years time as part of the goal, the school might want to make it to the playoffs. As a medium term goal, the school might want to reach the finals in 5 years' time. The long term goal could be a winner or regular finalist in ten years' time. That will fulfill the vision as set out by the coach right from the onset when he/she took up the job, and management must support this vision.

Setting the vision is an important step in ensuring that sound preparation can take place. This will lay the foundation of what is to come in terms of designing and planning a good sports programme for peak performance in sports.

Premier League

Football Managers - Improve Your Behaviours and Improve Your Players' Performance

The job of football manager must be the toughest and most stressful management role on the planet. There is no hiding. Your results are immediate - once or even twice a week. Club Boards and fans want instant results. Poor performance is punished ruthlessly and in public. Humiliation is a constant companion.

Under this constant pressure one can understand why many managers rant and rave on the sidelines, on television, radio and in the press. However, they are unaware that their aggressive and insulting behaviour is damning their players to continued poor performance.

In today's competitive world almost all football managers know that at Premier League level most players are equal as far as fitness and skills go. What makes the STAR, what makes the exceptional player is mental fitness. It is mental fitness that wins games.

So why do many managers behave in ways that damage their players' mental fitness? Surely it can only be ignorance (in it's true meaning) - because every manager wants success for his players and club.

So here are seven things a football manager must do to build his/her players' mental fitness

1.Promise openly, right now, never to criticise any of your players in public. Not even if it's justified. You'll do your straight talking in private and if you decide to fire a player you'll do it in the most decent way possible.

2.Tell your players that you like them, that you think they are great players and that you know every one of them does the best he/she can in every game. You trust them.

3.Do whatever it takes to get fun and enjoyment back into the team. People cannot perform at their peak when they're afraid, worried or unhappy. Make having fun your main objective. Work hard - yes! Win games - of course. But let's not beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. Let's get the fun back in our football and our lives.

4.Genuinely praise even the smallest improvement or the tiniest spark of brilliance and praise openly. Especially when things are going badly. Big fires start from small sparks. Really look for things to praise.

5.Stop shouting, mocking and insulting - even in private. Your macho ego may feel good but it does your players no good at all. In fact, they'll subconsciously hate you and will play badly to spite you - and they won't even know they're doing it. Concentrate on helping people do better - not on crushing them with sarcasm.

6.Make it your main goal to help each individual become the best player he/she can possibly be. Be seen to be helping players with their careers. If your club cannot satisfy the playing or wage aspirations of a brilliant player, work with him to find the best transfer possible. Imagine the effect this will have. Players will give you undying loyalty and effort when they know you are there for them.

7.Find ways to keep players' minds focussed on success. Every day - several times a day make statements that predict success and expect success. Do not even hint at losing! Allow time for players to visualise that success - everything comes from a dream.

Yes, some money to buy in talent is helful but it is not everything. Seriously apply these seven rules for two weeks and see your team improve beyond what you ever thought possible.

FIFA WORLD CUP Premier League