FALL TRAINING STARTS AUGUST 16TH
Lunge/Step Up Technique Video:
There are a few exercises that we teach at the Soccer F.I.T. Academy that really help us develop our soccer specific strength and power, and thus set the stage for explosive speed and agility. However, 2 of these exercises have many variations that can dramatically effect the outcome of the exercise. After posting yesterdays video, I received a question about the significant forward body lean in the... [Read more]
Strength, Power and Speed in Game Situations
Many of our players talk about wanting to improve their speed and/or strength. Most of them think about running form (track workouts) and upper body strength (bench press workouts), but as you watch this short clip, in many situations these types of speed and strength don’t really come into play. Instead, core strength and the ability to use the rapid deceleration to acceleration transition is... [Read more]
Fall Weekly Recap: Week 2
This week has made me realize how truly blessed we are to have this environment from which to train! Over the last 10 years the first few weeks of a new season are usually about teaching some of the basics, orienting new athletes to our system and really just starting over. This year is different…. Of the 250 kids that we have training with us right now, 90% of them have been in the program before... [Read more]
Homework: Week 2 Fall (In-Season)
This week’s homework is something you should consider on an off-day or non-tournament weekend. We are looking to do several things during the fall season. Improve upon summer fitness (maintain/build aerobic capacity) Improve speed and ability to repeat near max levels in a fatigued state Improve recovery heart rate (which will allow you to repeat burst of speed late in games) If you are not... [Read more]
Top 10 Programs on the Cybex Arc Trainer
Top 10 Arc Programs: Not only do I run the Soccer F.I.T. Academy, but I also own several other sports performance testing and research centers that specialize in program/protocol development. From time to time we work with equipment manufactures to study the effects of their equipment within a specific population. We got an Arc trainer 3 years ago, and thought it would be a good, low impact piece... [Read more]
Fall Weekly Recap: Week 1 (TESTING)
This was the first week of the fall session at the Soccer F.I.T. Academy and we spent the first day putting in some of our pre-season tests. We use a variety of test that measure speed, agility, strength, power and then we put in some tests that we feel are very specific to soccer. One of these is a new test this year that focuses on soccer specific speed/agility and requires players to make a variety... [Read more]
2010 Soccer F.I.T. Academy Wall of Fame Selections
This year was one of the toughest selection ever for our player of the year voting… First of all we only give this out to graduating seniors, who have decided to take the next step and play in college. This year we had almost 40 players take that step! So, as you can imagine, it was very, very hard to select a few players from this group of amazing kids! Here are our criteria for selection… To... [Read more]
Response to the Cybex Arc 1 on 1 off Challenge!
I recently posted a challenge workout on the Cybex Blog Page and received quite a few responses. This Challenge Workout is one of many that we use on in our fitness program, and it is one of our most popular because of it’s ability to demand strength, power, strength endurance and heart rate recovery. It is a simple 1 minute on : 1 minute off for 30 minutes program that starts off at 35 resistance... [Read more]
Losing the WILL to WIN…
I commented on a post in a soccer forum last night and I thought I would also share the post here. The question was centered on the topic of…”Is it okay to push kids to WANT to WIN?” This is a very sensitive subject in this country and the more people I talk to the more complex the answers get. Here is a summary of my reply…. [Read more] Read More →
The role of a soccer fitness coach…
I just got back from a strength and conditioning conference in Orlando where I ran into quite a few friends and coaches from all over the world. We got to share ideas, drills and programming strategies and it truly was a very motivating week. I talked to former players about what they felt had best impacted their play, and fitness coaches about what they felt had produced the best results. I even got... [Read more]
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