Strength Training for Girls in Youth Soccer
If you think that strength training means building bulk, think again. For soccer players, strength training means strengthening the body in ways that are relevant to the sport. This is especially important for female players because as the game has become faster and more physical, knee injuries have increased. Differences between men and women include the fact that women have a narrower notch at the end of the femur that can cause the thigh bone to pinch the ACL. Women's hamstrings and glutes develop slower than their quadriceps, which stresses the knee and can be a factor as to why women suffer more knee injuries than men. Strength training can help avoid some of these injuries.
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Preventing ACL Damage
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Tearing the anterior cruciate ligament is one of the biggest dangers that soccer players face, but there are ways coaches can help girls avoid the injury. A proper warm up and stretching along with plyometrics and such exercises as single leg squats and side-to-side hops over small hurdles can help players learn to move their bodies properly and strengthen the knee.
The Santa Monica ACL Prevention Project's PEP Program is designed to reduce ACL injuries suffered by female players. Its exercises includes a warm up, stretches, strength, plyometrics and agility drills that will enhance the power and control in the muscles that support the knee. It requires using about a third of a soccer field, with areas set up prior to training for the warm-up, stretching, strength, plyometrics and agility exercises. The ACL Prevention Project's website features a drawing of the field layout and exercise descriptions.
Interval Training
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Soccer players spend a lot of time in games going from periods of low intensity movements to sudden bursts of all out speed with changes of direction, often stopping quickly and starting back up again. Interval training involves periods of intense action followed by recovery in order to simulate these conditions. Another example of high intensity periods of activity followed by low activity and short rest periods include circuit training, which combines reps of such upper body exercises as pushups and shoulder dips, core exercises such as crunches and abdominal bicycle kicks, and lower body exercises such as squats and lunges with brief periods of rest between exercises. Yet another example is Indian sprints, which involves a line of players jogging slowly until on command from the coach the player at the end of the line sprints to the front,. This continues until the original leader returns to the front of the line.
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Soccer Specific Movements
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Just as soccer is a sport with quick changes in aerobic output, there are also quick changes in direction and movements such as jumping up for headers and other situations that bodies need to be prepared for. Two-foot and one-foot hops, such as side-to-side or back and forth over a small hurdle, and quick feet through agility ladders, quickly getting both feet down between each rung of the ladder, simulate soccer movements that will build strength in young females players.
Resistance Training
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Soccer players don't need to pump iron to have the mass of a body builder. However, resistance regimens using rubber bands and box jumps can create the resistance needed to build muscles that are strong, fast, and durable. Repetitions of exercises such as squat jumps (feet shoulder-width apart, arms by the sides, squat and jump as high as possible while reaching for the sky, land on the toes and return to a squat position) and burpees (while squatting, place your hands on the ground out in front of your body, kick backwards into a pushup position, quickly go back to the squat, and then explode into a high jump) use the body to provide resistance and develop muscles.
Nutrition
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Soccer players need proper nutrition before and after training and games. Proper carbohydrate intake and use of fluids is critical to getting the most out of any young female player's workout. According to PPOnline's "Nutrition for soccer players," soccer players need 2,400 to 3,000 carbohydrate calories daily in order to have the correct 2,400 to 3,000 leg muscle glycogen levels. The report said eating small meals of 600 calories of carbohydrate prior to competition and 16 to 18 calories per pound of body weight during peak training periods, as well as drinking drink 12 to 14 ounces of a sports drink prior to competition and half-way through competition will ensure adequate carb levels.
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References
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- Photo Credit junior girl soccer - going for a goal image by Robert Young from Fotolia.com
