Soccer is a sport that millions of people around the world enjoy watching and playing. Whether you pull on your soccer shirt and join your local soccer team at the weekend, or you simply wear your favorite team’s shirt and cheer them on with a drink or two at your local pub, becoming a pro soccer player has crossed the mind of many people.
However, despite lots of people having a dream of making it as a professional player, only a small number of highly skilled individuals have what it takes, and once you get there it takes a whole load of strength and determination to stay on track. In fact, even professionals find it hard to stay on track at times, particularly when it comes to their training.
Unfortunately for players, missing training sessions can have a huge impact on their performance on the pitch. This is why training when you are a professional soccer player is extremely important. But how do professional soccer players train? If you want to know how to train like a professional soccer player, then here are some of our top tips to help you:
Types of Training Pro Soccer Players Complete
Soccer players have to complete many different types of training to remain in peak physical health. Here are some of the different types of training:
- Interval training – soccer players have to work hard on their cardiovascular fitness. They do this by completing interval training. This helps professional soccer players to have more stamina during matches, as well as increase their speed.
- Lower body lifting – although interval training helps to strengthen the legs, interval training alone is not enough to develop strong legs that allow players to sprint up and down the pitch multiple times during a match. This is where lower body lifting comes in. Lower body lifting not only helps to increase a player’s speed, but it also improves a player’s core muscles too, which can help to stabilize their body.
- Balancing exercises – most people do not realize that professional soccer players complete balancing exercises, but they are an extremely important training technique. Balancing exercises help to work all of the muscles in the body. They can help with flexibility, strength, and coordination. Not only that but completing these exercises can also help to reduce a player’s chances of becoming injured or pulling a muscle during a game.
- Juggling with feet – one of the most iconic workouts soccer players complete off the pitch is juggling with their feet. This skill is a great lower-body exercise that can help to boost coordination. Not only that, but it also helps to improve a player’s non-dominant foot too.
Eat a Balanced Diet
If you want to be able to train like a professional soccer player, you need to eat the right type of food. Intense physical exercise requires adequate calorie intake. Professional soccer players have to make sure that they take on enough fuel before a training session, and before playing in a match. This allows them to play at their full potential.
Take Some Time Out
Although training is an extremely important part of being a professional soccer player, it is also important that professional soccer players take some time out from training to relax and unwind – check these top tips here, but there are several ways they can do this. Go to the movies or on a bike ride. Try going on a hike that’s not too strenuous. It’s good to get away from the game sometimes too.
Recover and Recuperate Properly
If one part of soccer has changed over the last few years, it is fitness, diet, and nutrition. The correct training plan and diet can bring you to peak condition for performing, but it can also help you to recover and recuperate after a match too.
The less time you spend nursing niggly injuries and aching weary bones, the more time you have to prepare for your next match and nail another amazing performance. Inadequate recovery between games can have a huge impact on your performance on the pitch, so getting into the cycle of train, play, recovery is important. Following this regime will not only help your muscles to repair quicker, but it will also stop you from suffering burnout too.
However, this is not the only type of recovery you need after a training session. You also need mental recovery too. Take some time out to process your performance in your last match, and do not be too hard on yourself.
Be Patient
To train like a professional soccer player, you need to have patience. Lots of people find training hard to begin with, even professional soccer players find some training sessions difficult. Do not be too hard on yourself, instead, take your training one day at a time. Start slowly and slowly increase your training regime until you are happy with it. Just remember, no matter how hard training sessions may be at the start, they will get easier the more you do them. Be proud of your achievements, and do not expect too much of yourself.
There are many reasons why professional soccer players need to train regularly. Not only does it help to get their bodies ready for playing soccer, but it also helps them to stay healthy and look good too. As well as this, training can also help them to improve their reflexes, strengthen their legs, and increase their speed across the pitch. All of these are enviable athletic attributes that soccer players possess thanks to regular training sessions. If you want to train like a professional soccer player and get all of the benefits of training like a pro, then follow our advice above.
Individual training is essential for any aspiring professional athlete, so in this video I share my tips to help you structure your sessions for optimal results. Use this guide to format your training sessions and improve areas of your game that will help you become a better player.