Tag Archives for " agility "

0 #053 Agility and Competitive Shooting Games

Click Here to Listen to Podcast Click Here for the Show Notes

0 'Numbers' Game to Improve Anaerobic Power

By Alex Trukan

This exercise is focused on improving Anaerobic Power which is required for acceleration and speed qualities. ‘Numbers’ game is appropriate and fun for almost any age group and ability level. Apart from physical area, it also focuses on 1v1/2v2 or 3v3 attacking and defending scenarios. It can be also used to develop skills needed to deal with underload (1v2/2v3) and overload (2v1, 3v2) situations.

Set up and Directions
Set up a pitch of approximately 20x30 yards. Divide a team into two groups of equal numbers. Organise them on each side of the pitch, next to the goal. Each player should have a number. Place one goalkeeper in each goal. Take coaching position as shown on the diagram. Prepare spare balls.

The game starts by coach passing the ball into the playing area and calling a

0 Passing and Dribbling Square

By Alex Trukan

The passing and dribbling square exercise is focused on improving technical skills along with physical capabilities. The main emphasis is placed on aerobic endurance maintenance which serves as a basis to improvement in anaerobic power and capacity. Apart from that, this practice enables the group to develop two different core skills – passing and dribbling. That can be used to suit the needs of individual players.

Set up and Directions
Organise a square as shown on the diagram below (area size depends on the number and characteristics of players). Divide a team into two groups. One group of 4 players takes positions around the square with one ball per group. Every player from the second group needs one ball each and should take starting position inside the square.

The outside group passes the ball to each other in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. Players inside the

0 Circle Race

By Alex Trukan

The presented practice can be used across all age groups as a fun game as well as conditioning exercise. The main focus is on developing speed and agility when dribbling with the ball.

Set-Up and Directions

Organise eight cones in a circle and set min. 2 players on each cone. Every player needs a ball. The dimensions of the circle will depend on group characteristics. Each group has to have a designated number.

On the coach’s signal, a player from the first group called becomes an attacker and a

0 Passing Practice in Fours For Conditioning

By Alex Trukan

The passing practice in fours can be modified and used to develop multiple conditioning outcomes. Modification of this exercise shown below is focused on developing speed and agility. This physical component is required in 1v1 situations, during transition phase as well as in scoring and finishing scenarios.

Set up and directions:
Organize number (3) of rectangles as shown on the diagram, depending on the quantity of players. Divide players into groups of four, with each group having two balls. One player should be placed on each end of the rectangle and two players in the middle.

The simplest variation of this game requires middle players to show up for a pass, ask for a ball, play one-touch pass back to the outside player and

0 Change of Direction Dives

By Lawrence Fine, Author of the FineSoccer Coaching Bible.

Welcome to the Goalkeeping Newsletter. Today’s featured activity involves fitness, agility, change of direction and extension dives.

Start with a keeper in the center of the goal with 4 low hurdles between the center and a post. There is also a flag on the 6 even with that post. There is a server 10 yards from goal on the end line.

The keeper begins by jumping over each hurdle (sideways), touches the near post and then

1 Speed and Agility Circuit with the Ball

By Jebreel Bubtana

Improving your player’s speed and agility will help them get to the ball just ahead of their opponent, so working on this is something that every coach should be doing.

Set up the field as shown below (figure 1).

Each stage of the circuit is broken down as below:

1. The players must run by placing both feet
   Continue reading

0 Situational Agility: Face or Turn Back to Player

This post from our Soccer Conditioning Experts at SoccerFIT highlights an area that I'm always working on with my players: Facing up or Back to Pressure.

This post is taken from Sub Chapter 5.11- of our SoccerFIT Yearly Program, where we are talking about body position as it relates to soccer speed/agility, specifically regarding the ability to anticipate a situation and make subtle changes to the hard wired agility patterns based on desired tactical outcomes…

Body Position in Relation to Other Players: The third developmental coaching point is

1 Explosive Agility into 2v1

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise focuses on explosive agility before attacking in a 2v1 situation. Explosive agility, speed and power are key aspects of the top soccer players games. This exercise will help you to develop explosiveness in a high tempo situation.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below, showing the coach with a ball. There are two attackers in black and one defender in yellow.

Play begins on the coach’s call and all players perform agility before they can receive the ball. The defender must

0 Reaction time, Agility and 1v1s

By Jebreel Bubtana

This is a great exercise to work on your players reactions, endurance, agility and quickness, which are very important components for soccer players in order to get to a loose ball first.

Set up and directions:

Set up your field as shown below in figure 1. Split your players into two teams (you can set multiple fields up like this so that there is not much waiting time between goes) and they start behind the goal that they are defending. Mini goals or pugg goals are great for this exercise. To their right is a line of discs with a gate in front and to their left is a ladder with a gate in front. The coach will start with the balls in the middle of the area to one side.

The next part you can do a number of ways but I will give you an example. When the coach

1 Checking and First Touch Exercise

Jebreel Bubtana

This technical warm up works on movement to create space away from a defender (checking) and first touch at various heights.

Set up the field as shown below in figure 1.

The player without the ball will sprint to the disc on the right (check to the disc) to start the exercise. As soon as they as they

0 Combination with Through Ball

By Daniel Severn

This week’s exercise is a two player combination play which includes give & go’s, agility, a through ball (in which the weight and timing of the pass are key) and also crossing and finishing. It is a continuous exercise that focus’ on many aspects involved in the game. Short, fast-paced repetitions with longer breaks between each rep’ will help develop excellent anaerobic cardio.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below.

Our central midfielder starts with the ball at his feet, dead center, around 30-40 yards from goal (dependent on age/ability). Our wide player starts behind a

1 Technical Conditioning

By Daniel Severn This week’s exercise can be used as a technical warm-up or as the main technical focus of the session. There are endless variables with this exercise; I will share some of my favorite ones at the end. This works best if the players can be paired up, but there is also a

3 Continuous 1v1 Under Tight Pressure

By Daniel Severn

This week we have an exercise which will work close control, changes of pace, protecting the ball and plenty of skills and trickery. The exercise can be used as a fun game after a warm up or as the technical part of your session as you can focus on many different aspects of the game in this situation.

Set Up and Directions
Players will work in pairs, with one ball between two. The exercise is set up in a 20x20 yard area with small, 1 yard gates scattered around the area.

Through the diagrams, I will show the exercise running with just one pair of players but I would often use around four or five pairs working at any one time.

When play begins, the two players will compete one versus one to score as many points as possible within the time limit. The players score points by

0 Racing to Finish the Cross

By Daniel Severn

This week we focus on speed and agility combined with crossing and finishing under pressure. The exercise works best when run as a competition as this adds extra motivation for the players. Speed and Agility are obvious essentials in any game of soccer as players in any role or position on the field will benefit from having good speed and being more agile. The crossing and finishing aspects are more honed towards specific positions, so depending on the situation of your team, (whether you rotate players in positions or if your players have set positions) you can work a little bit of positional specific training into this exercise, especially for your outside defenders and midfielders. A good warm up should be performed before this exercise as it is played at a very high tempo.

Set Up and Directions
The exercise is set up as shown below with the coach positioned centrally around 30 yards from goal. The coach must have a supply of soccer balls to keep the exercise fluid. We also have two wide players, positioned on each wing. Each will have three cones laid out in front of them which they will use to perform agility. The wide players will act as neutrals and should try to play crosses into general areas, trying not to favor a team, but giving the players a good chance to score from the cross. Two teams will line up on opposite sides of the goal (minimum two players per team) with a goalkeeper in the goal.

Play begins with the coach playing a pass out to either wing (left wing in the example below), the winger then shuffles through the cones as quickly as possible and then

0 Agility, First Touch and Speed Dribbling

By Jebreel Bubtana

This exercise works on your player’s first touch, speed dribbling and endurance. This is another exercise that can work very well with your team for preseason training.

There are 4 stations as shown below (figure 1), with your players spending 5 minutes at each station before moving onto the next.

Station 1:
The player must shuffle in and out of the cones before receiving a pass from the feeder. The ball must be controlled with the

1 Agility, Receiving and Dribbling Circuit

By Daniel Severn

This week we focus on agility and technique. Agility plays a huge part in a players’ ability to perform in a game, soccer has so many changes of direction and the more agile players have the best chance of reacting in many different situations – defending, dribbling, intercepting passes to name a few. Technique is also key to a players’ performance, without a good first touch and dribbling skills, a players game can become limited. Developing these aspects of the game can only enhance performance.

This circuit is designed to work groups of 2 or 3 players at a time. I would set up 5 stations exactly the same to allow a full team to work at the same time.

Set Up and Directions
Each station should be set up as shown below. If you do not have a ladder you could use cones to mark out the agility aspect of the mini course.

Player one begins at the start of the ladder and Player two will begin with

0 Endurance, Agility and First Touch

By Jebreel Bubtana

This exercise works on first touch with different parts of the body as well as agility, coordination and conditioning, which is great way to start your pre-season training.

There are 3 different stations as shown below (figure 1), with players spending 4 minutes working before switching with the feeder and then moving on to the next station.

Station 1:
The player must run through the ladder placing both feet in the gaps of the ladder, after this is done they must sprint to the feeder who will be holding the ball out in

0 Crossing and Finishing with Agility

By Daniel Severn

This week the focus is on scoring goals from crosses. I have added in some ladders and need for short sprints to help improve the players’ agility and explosiveness. During this exercise the players will be in pairs as attackers and are required to work explosively in order to get on the end of the crosses and score goals. This is a continuous exercise that you will need a minimum of 10 players plus a goalkeeper to run. The short sprints, agility and sharp changes of direction in this exercise will all help develop your players’ anaerobic capacity.

Set up and Directions:

Firstly, set out ladders in front of your wide players (LW and RW) around 25yds from the end of the field. Add cones centrally, around 30yds from the goal – this is where your pair

1 Soccer Specific Endurance Training With Shooting

This conditioning article has been created by Gabriel Celante when he was running preseason training for BRASA – Brazilian Soccer Academy.  This session helps to develop soccer specific endurance, agility, leg power, and shooting skills from different distances. This session can also be used for individual training.

Organization

Divide the field as showed in the diagram.

• Station A
• Station B
• Station C
• Four players in each station
• One Goalkeeper in each goal

Instructions

• Players perform for four
  Continue reading

1 The First Touch Box - Agility, Control and One-Touch Passing

By Daniel Severn

The first touch box is an exercise I love to use with all of my teams. With this exercise you can work on the players 1st touch from the air, on the ground, first time passing, volleying, heading, chest/thigh control – the possibilities are endless. Agility is a key aspect of the game that is developed thoroughly with this exercise due to the high tempo and constant changes of direction. It is also easy to add in competition to this exercise, having the players compete as teams, or against the players within their group, will only add to the intensity.

It can be used as either a Warm-Up or as the main Technical part of your session.

As there are so many aspects to this exercise; control, aerial control or first time passing/volleying, we can adjust accordingly to suit all age groups and levels. I will share some of these variations at the end of the article.

To start, you will need to divide your players into groups of 3. Two players will have a ball, one without. The two with the ball will stand on any two sides of the square. The third player will begin in the center of the square as shown below. I set up 4 of these squares all approx 5m x 5m, allowing 12 players to be involved at the same time – this number changes depending on the number of players in your practice.

The First Touch Box – 1. Set Up.

Here is how