I began taking the sport of soccer seriously my junior year of high school as I had decided that it was the sport I wanted to focus on when wanting to play a collegiate sport. Now my high school was not a big high school, nor did it provide any strength and conditioning through the school so I had to learn the training both physically and tactically for me to play at the college level.

I will be going over the physical aspect of my journey, but I am referring to the working out that goes into playing soccer. Out of all the sports in the world, soccer is probably the greatest example of speed and endurance mixed with above average muscular strength. I had to start running 3x a week in endurance long distance running to build up that feeling of running for long periods of time. Soccer, however, is more than just running for 45 minutes, halftime, than another 45 minutes. During those 45 minutes you have to be able to run at top speeds at any moment of time than for you to switch back to a manageable pace than repeat while being competitive the entire time. Therefore, when you train for soccer you have to train for those moments of explosive speed. Therefore, in the offseason I started to do fartlek’s, which is run, jog, cruise, sprint. Each one of these stages are more intense than the last and push your body to adapt to different conditions of running. This combined with the distant running will bring your conditioning up significantly. The endurance running doesn’t have to be as frequent as people think and can just add in a day of casual sprints as the fartlek is also over a certain amount of distance. That was the cardio side of the training I went into preparing for collegiate soccer. The next is the resistance training that I went through when I was in college. Obviously, no preparation is perfect, and I did not take weight training seriously coming into school as I came into school 6’1 and 165 pounds. I did not take weight training weight training seriously until the end of my sophomore year. That’s when I would take it seriously and incorporate it into my everyday life. I would go every other day and hit all muscle groups throughout the week. I would go chest and triceps, back and biceps, legs, body weight and core, and then shoulders and arms if I felt like I needed to as they are both accessory exercises. Even though soccer is mainly based through your legs its important to do other muscle groups to be well rounded and those other muscle groups will also prove useful with different aspects of the game. I also recently started to incorporate plyometrics into my work outs as I should have done it sooner. Plyometrics has helped me immensely with my movements and also my functional movement when it comes to my soccer game. They are something that all athletes should investigate when they want to compete seriously for their sport.

For the skill side of soccer, the skills you should work on all depends on the position you are planning to specialize in when you go into school. All players should be able to play all positions on the field, but some specialization should some in when you are playing. I play central midfield so there are certain skills I should be good in. I should be able to pass the ball without any mishits or errors. I recommend getting a buddy and hitting the ball with all sides of your foot for any situation that arises during a game. Passing long and short should be practiced as facilitating is the main job of a midfielder. The midfield should be an adept dribbler and multiple different cone drills can be done individually to increase being comfortable to dribble with both feet. Midfielders must be able to control the field so their presence must be known. They are the backbone of the team and must be the most consistent player on the field.