Sunday, January 6, 2008

The Optimal Soccer Warmup

By Jeff Cozzier



The optimal soccer warmup involves complex movements and dynamic stretching. You should always have a warm up session prior to any soccer training. While you are training to increase the overall effectiveness of your skill and technique in soccer, it is important to warm up the muscles throughout the body to ensure that you reduce the chance for injury. Soccer training is physically tolling on the body and you greatly increase your risk of injury if you fail to prepare the body prior to your workout. Possible injuries include muscle sprains, muscle strains and tears. I will share with you the overall importance of a warm up prior to soccer training in this article.


Muscles that have not been proper;y warmed up are often extremely tight. The tighter that a muscle is, the more chance it has of being damaged under tension. During soccer training, you introduce your body to a wide range of tense movements. Some of these movements include turning in a quick fashion, twisting in often unnatural ways, as well as simple and complicated stretching. These types of movements can result in numerous injuries. Some examples of these injuries include muscle sprains, strains throughout the various muscles, and even tears in the delicate tissue of the muscles.


The Optimal soccer warm up will create "warmness" throughout the muscles. These warm tissues are able to be more reactive than their cold counterparts. This reduces the amount of tension that the muscles naturally contain. Engaging in a our warm up prior to soccer training is a form of relief for the muscles. Furthermore, if muscles are relaxed, your soccer game benefits. The way that it benefits is that it increases the overall speed at which you are able to perform, the power at which you move, as well as the ability to maintain a higher level control of your techniques.


Optimal soccer warm ups include forward lunge and reach, back lunge and reach, side longes and diagonal lunges. These are all very good because they warm up the large leg muscles and make you stretch through your hips and core. You should also include 90-90s, scorpion stretches and sumo squats. Once you've gone through this circuit you should do some light ballwork to fully get the brain and body engaged.


Some of the ballwork that you might do to get started iincludes rotating the soccer ball with your foot in a circular motion. This is a great way to loosen up those muscles in the legs, ankles, and feet. You may wish to stretch out your arms by holding the ball over your head and moving it in different positions, such as side to side and front to back. Using the soccer ball in conjunction with your soccer training warm up sessions can be a very effective and exciting method.


Prior to the start of your soccer training, you need to engage in warm up activities such as these. Without proper warmups there is too much risk of injury.But with proper warmups optimal performance can be achieved.








For additional soccers training tips check out http://www.OptimalSoccerFitness.com


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