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These athletes are all class 1 soccer players and are in very good general condition. They will have skills & tactics soccer training in the evenings Tuesdays & Thursdays and skills & conditioning soccer practice Wednesday evenings. They will also have soccer matches both Saturday & Sunday every other weekend.

we are going on 10 weeks of strength training to include absolute strength, speed strength & a little strength endurance. After the 10 week period the athletes will resume school and we will have only the max effort leg day (Mondays). We will run lots of short sprints on Wednesdays. Most of these players are honors students and their homework load during school is more than I had in college.

Monday – Max or Heavy Effort Legs

Buffalo Bar Box Squat
warm up: 55 x 5, 75 x 5, 95 x 5, 125 x 3
Work sets: 145 x 1, 165 x 1, 185 x 1, 205 x 1, 225 x 1 245 x 1,1,1 (3minute rests)
technique: 145 x 5/8 with perfect style
(if athlete can continue with excellent form we keep going up on singles until form gets loose.. this is usually 90-95% of a mx effort. Since these athletes are not training to be lifters we do not go to failure ever.). weights given are based on expectation for 5’8″ 150lb soccer players. I have a couple squatting 300 and they sprint as well.
Variety of standing abdominal work then range of motion movements and we are done. About 45 minutes working ina group.

Tuesday – Heavy Effort Upper Body.

Dumbbell Military Press
Warm up: 10 x 5, 15 x 5, 20 x 5,
Work Sets: 30 x 3, 40 x 3,3,3,3
Technique: 20 x 8/10

Neutral Grip Pull Up
body weight x 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5
Variety of abs lying and standing. Range of motion movements and we are done. About 35 minutes.

Wednesday – no lifting

Thursday – Speed/Starting Strength Legs

Buffalo Bar Speed Box Squat (40-60% max weight plus minim jump stretch bands for doubles or traiples with explosive start and short rest periods.

warm up: 55 x 5, 75 x 5, 95 x 5, 125 x 3
Work sets: 145 + mini band for 8 sets of 2 (short rests)
Testing Speed of lift 165 + mini x 1, 185+ mini x 1. check for slowing.
Pick a hamstring lift like stiff DL, pull through or reverse hyper
2 sets of moderate weight 10-15 reps. we want to build hamstrings to protect knees.
Variety of ab work mostly standing. Range of motion and done. About 40 minutes.

Friday – Speed & General Strength Upper Body – May be skipped depending on next day matches.

Barbell Push Press:
Warm Up: 45 x 5, 65 x 5, 85 x 5
Work Sets: 115 x 3, 135 x 3,3,3,3

Jump Stretch Band Tricep Press Down
4 sets of 8, 1 set of 12/15
Dumbell or band lat/rear delt exercise:
2 sets of 8, 2 sets of 12/15
Dumbell or band hammer curl
2 sets of 12/15

Notes: every two weeks we change base exercise for legs: buffalo bar box squat, gerard bar deadlift, safty squat bar, barbell, or dumbbell deadlift, barbell Box Squat. For upper body we alternate base exercise from Dumbell Push Press, Dumbbell Bench Press, Barbell Push Press, Barbell Bench Press or hanging strap push ups or all jump stretch band front presses..

Some of these athletes are in other sports so we correlate the pressing movements to their sports. No barbell pressing for throwers we use dumbbells or closed kinetic chain movements for them.

We also do sprinter type skipping and stride exercises aas warm ups on soccer training days and as main exercises on soccer conditioning days.

when we get back to school we will alternate the heavy leg lifting day with a sled pushing/pulling day. We use a lot of sled pushing for players who need to improve starting speed.

I hope this is useful. We have had great success with powerlifting style weight training, sprinter style skipping & stride technique work and specialty sled work for many years. Our soccer & baseball players are regulalry the fastest we see and several turn into track athletes as well.

Pat:

i will put up a program I just set up for 15 year old male soccer players. Of the 14, including the keeper, 4 particpate in track. three sprinters and a jumper. The sprinters in their first track season as freshman ran 11.3., 11.5, and 11.8 in the 100m. They all made 19 plus long jumps with no practice. The jumper went 39.6 in the triple jump. Two of them ran varsity as freshmen.

They have two weeks soccer practice under their belts and will start lifting June 23rd. As a measure, three of them lifted with me just before the past high school track season started. Six leg workouts and six upper body. Their group with three others averaged 115 lbs on the first squat work out and 85 on their bench ( we did not do much bench). After six weeks they averaged 225 for the squat with 2 going 245 and 245 deadlifts and 135 on the bench. Granted they are novices so improvement comes very quickly but with a solid sprint coach they went from mid 12s to mid 11s in the 100m. I think the lifting helped.

Pat

Pat

My position usually comes down to sport specific coaches applying bodybuilder type workouts and periodized programs which go from one phase to another to their athletes with intent to improve strength, power or speed. The general result is a little of these with considerable weight gain. Definitely a negative from a speed point of view. If one utilizes roating maximal strength exercises and speed strength exercises absolute strength, speed strength, power and strength speed can all be continuously trained throughout the year with minimal weight gain and only moderate impact on revocery ability. Typical muti set high rep routines create a large impact on revery with minimal gains, except in increased body weight. Separated periodized programs (only used in the US) improve recovey impact but work single aspects of strength at the expense of others. Clearly this is not maximally efficient.

Finally, a couple big issues with me (former weightlifter and powerlifter) is the use of cleans. while good exercises if you plan to be a weightlifter they are technical lifts and few if any non-lifter athletes ever learn enough skill to use them with maximal weights. Additionally, being complex movements they lend themselves to a need for direct coaching and higher than necessary incidence of injury. I love weightlifting but it is a sport into itself and there are other simpler and more efficient methods to improve strength components for non-lifter athletes. The second item is the misstatements made bycoaches relative to strength exercise performance. In example, a promanent coach claimed a great powerlifter developed great deadlift strength by doing deadlifts and so only deadlifts should be used for leg strength. Well, the powerlifter in question clearly is one of the greatest of all time but she used variations of box squats extensively to develop her deadlift ability. Oh and by the way, she follows a Westside program and competes for Westside. In my opinion she is the top female powerlifter of all time and is likely extremely fast for 20 meters. Of course I have never seen Amy run. She uses maximal effort and speed strength workouts in her protocols. I am a big proponent of deadlifts but the coach apparently did not know the background of the lifter to whom he referred. It reminds me of football tryouts where the number of 225 bench reps one does is considered important. All other things being equal I would prefer the play with the highest weight for a single. He can do the reps anytime and his first heavy hit on his opponent will be harder.

Tear em up!

Pat

.

I assume that you are using Westside as the template?

I can see your argument for using deadlifts and reverse hypers etc instead of the so called power lifts but is there any purpose “speed” benching when you are not seeking to deveop the technical ability to bench press fast or indeed any need to have a max bench day at all ?