Soccer Fitness - You Don't Need to Run Long Distances!

If you interested in playing football (or soccer as it ismost lively of player will be running and then stopping
known in the US) or if you are an experienced player,as the game will have natural stoppages for things
you might already realise that there is a lot of wrongsuch as injuries, free-kicks and corners. Interval training
information and routines that are used bywill prepare the average footballer much better for this
unknowledgeable football trainers. Every football playertype of stop/start type of sport.
and coach must try and educate himself that trainingUnfortunately, this type of old fashioned thinking is still
methods have evolved. Now it is time to use modernquite common amongst football trainers and coaches.
and sophisticated physical training programs for gettingUnlike marathon runners, a football player needs to act
the desired fitness and strength to play the game well.fast and change direction all of the time. He simply will
One of the most common football fitness mistakes isnot get enough strength for playing football by training
doing long distance running. Many people stillto be a marathon runner.
recommend running for long distances for footballersYou still here stories of poor training methods such as
and many teams still use this as part of their overallthe player who was forced to run around five
fitness program.kilometers per day on a concrete track as part of his
The truth is long distance running is not needed for theexercise routine. This type of training can cause strain
football fitness. The sad part is, those recommendingand stress injuries, and also can be mentally dulling.
long distance running often have good football as farThese mistakes that can cause injury should be
as skills and tactics are concerned, but have littleavoided at all costs when you are formulating a
knowledge of fitness. There are also so called onlinesoccer fitness program.
soccer gurus who recommend long distance runningFootball players don't have the same type of attributes
for football fitness, and yet they only really interested inas athletes have for running long distances. In reality, it
selling badly researched information products towill run the risk of adversely affecting both a
amateur footballers.footballer's physical and mental capacity.
It may seem counter-intuitive but if you are a seriousSoccer training must done with small intervals including
football player and you want to get good fitness, youjogging, sprinting, dribbling etc. For practice, soccer
should avoid mistakes such as long distance runningplayers can play small games where they can do lot
one-paced non-explosive running.more stopping and direction changing. These
A good soccer fitness program should consist ofmovements will of course help them to react fast in
interval training and sprints. As you know, there is nothe game. Soccer is not a nonstop game and a player
player that runs for the entire game time. Even theneeds to train to recover his strength in intervals.