How to Speed Up in Soccer

There are two main types of speed in the game of soccer, physical speed and mental speed. Physical speed includes things that you can do to improve your speed in the game. Although you are born with certain genetic types and although you develop different types of muscle fibers (called fast twitch and slow twitch) throughout your life, which help determine how fast we can be, speed can always be improved through some simple exercises that can be performed in either a team setting or as an individual activity.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Field space
• Cones (or other types of markers)
• Stopwatch

1. Work on our first step acceleration. To do that, we need to work on the first five yards of our run. Take two cones and place them five yards apart. Stand, or have your player stand, at one cone and lean forward until they are falling. When they get past the point of no return, they must sprint to the second cone. Progress this to having the player sprint from a jogging-on-the-spot start, to then jogging towards the first cone for a few steps and exploding to the second cone. The key here is for the player to explode towards the second cone and to push off from the first step in their sprint stride.

2. Work on sprinting with a change of direction to the left and right. Have three cones set out, a start cone, another cone five yards away, and another cone five yards to the left of the second cone (putting the cone diagonally to the left is probably best). Then have the player jog from the start cone to the second cone, and then explode towards the third cone from the second cone. Repeat for right turns also.

3. Work on sprinting from a 180-degree turn. Place three cones 5 yards apart in a straight line. The player runs backwards from the first cone to the second cone, and then turns and sprints from the second cone to the third one.

4. Work on alternating jogging and sprinting, with five cones set 5 yards apart in a line. Have the player jog from 1st to 2nd, then sprint from 2nd to 3rd, then jog from 3rd to 4th, and finally sprint from 4th to 5th.

5. Next we can work on agility. Place 4 cones in a 10-yard by 10-yard square. Have the player sprint standing at the bottom left corner of the square. They then sprint up to the top left cone, go around the cone and sprint down to the bottom right cone. When they get to this cone, they then turn left around the cone and sprint up to the top right cone.

6. When this work has been achieved, reaction speed can be developed by working on the same aforementioned drills but with the progression that the players don't begin the repetition until some visual or auditory cue has been made, such as a coaches whistle, or the drop of a ball

Tips & Warnings

• Speed work is always best done at the beginning of a session, right after the warm-up.
• Speed work should be done in short bursts, with a work-to-rest ratio of at least 1 to 6, meaning 1 part repetition to 6 parts rest.
• Make the speed work fun and competitive to keep players engaged.
• Work on speed for no more than 30 minutes in a team setting, and 20 minutes in an individual setting.
• Over a period of a few weeks, there should be visible increases in the speed of players; but be aware that the gains are usually small, but often enough to make a player more effective on the field.
• Relate all speed work to the game with examples, such as forwards beating defenders to the ball, or defenders getting back to defend fast enough.
• Never do any training session without at least 15 to 20 minutes of a good warm-up and dynamic stretching program.
• Never train for speed when players are tired or fatigued.
• Always be aware of rehydrating the players.
• Always utilize a good ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury prevention program when working with agility exercises, expecially for girls.

Who Can Help:

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Resources

• Speed Agility Quickness