Soccer is a game of speed, and creating an effective speed atlantic sports performance training program is one of the most important things a coach can spend time on. I have also seen many coaches and athletes struggle with developing speed, so this article will explain some of the principles that need to be understood.
Effective speed training in soccer should focus on teaching athletes how to move efficiently and increase the power they can transfer to the ground during that movement. A lot of time and energy is wasted on doing drills for the sake of doing drills without understanding how those drills are supposed to help.
People pick out a series of exercises on the internet or at a training camp, put them together in an arbitrary order, and then call that a speed training program for soccer. Without a thorough understanding of how speed is developed, your speed training program will never produce optimal results. Let’s take a look at the important factors of an effective speed training program in soccer.
Four factors for an effective speed training program in soccer.
An effective program must include important elements from different areas of science: Physiology, Neurology, Biomechanics, and Motor Learning. Note that “drills” are one of the scientific areas we need to draw from. Drills are simply a means to develop one of these areas. Understanding how a particular drill affects the human body is key to drill selection and speed training in soccer.
Biomechanics and motor learning – Athletes need to learn how to apply their power to the ground in a way that allows them to move more efficiently. Not everyone needs to run, cut, and accelerate the same way, but there are certainly ways that are more effective than others. These techniques need to be understood and taught to young athletes so that they do not make gross mistakes in their movements.
Exercises should be selected that teach athletes how to best transfer their power to the ground. They also need to be taught in a way that produces real movement changes. I often see soccer speed programs that superficially focus on mechanics, but when you look closely, it’s all just waste. Things like A-skips, B-skips, ladder drills and mini hurdle drills do nothing for most soccer players, and yet they are drilled into them over and over again.
Instead of incorporating an exercise for the sake of it, understand what each exercise teaches and select only those that are relevant. Wall exercises, for example, can be used to teach the mechanics of forward bending, high knees, and a powerful backward push during acceleration. However, if you include the exercise in your program only because you saw someone else do it, the exercise is a waste of time. It is absolutely essential that you take the time to teach athletes HOW to do the exercises and HOW to move.
Remember that motor learning is very specific to the skill being practiced. This means that you can only improve the skill you are practicing, and very little can be transferred from one movement to another. In other words: If you practice jumps and ladder drills, you will get better at jumps and ladder drills. If you practice sprinting and accelerating, you will get better at sprinting and accelerating. What do you want to get better at?
Of course, some movements are difficult to learn and require “pre-exercise”. Examples of drills that help athletes learn acceleration are the wall or high jump and drop drills. One exercise may work perfectly for one athlete, but not for all, so you need to teach the same skill in different ways. However, always remember that the goal is to teach athletes how to run faster, not how to perform an exercise. The exercise should always be a means to an end.
