Soccer heading techniques are vital for air power in the game of football. The team that dominates in the air can win the ball in the vital danger zone in front of the six yard box both when defending and attacking, and that team can win the ball from long goal kicks. Heading skills also enable a team to use the long ball tactic bombarding the opposition with long passes towards their penalty area.
The correct part of the head to use is the forehead as shown in the photograph. This is the hardest and flattest part of your head, and it will give you better control over where you want to make the ball go as well as giving greater power.
Football passing techniques are vital for keeping possession and controlling the game, and many parts of the foot can be used. The simplest and most accurate method for short distance passes is to use the inside of the foot, which presents a large flat surface to the soccer ball. The instep is used for long ball passing, the heel can be used to pass behind us, and the outside of the foot can be used to pass the ball quickly to the side of us, or to bend the ball to pass it around an opponent. Passing drills are important for sharp, accurate play, and to learn effective use of space.
The simplest and best technique for short passes is illustrated in the photograph. The head is over the ball, the body is well balanced, and the ball is kicked with the inside of the foot which is the flattest part of the foot. Sometimes this technique is used for short-range shots at goal, and even for taking penalties, because of its reliability. The disadvantage is the lack of power.
The passing technique shown here is used for short passes, but corner kicks, and played over fifty or sixty metres into your opponents' penalty area are also passes if they reach one of your own players. The long ball tactic can be highly effective if your team has tall players with strong heading ability, or fast forwards, who can run behind the defence, but there is a high risk of giving the ball away. Accurate short passes with supporting runs into space allows a team to keep possession, and build an attack.
The football block tackle technique is an essential skill, because any team must be able to win the ball. If you cannot tackle you are left relying on intercepting passes when your opponents make a mistake. Tackling allows you to compete for the ball, and take the initiative.
The block tackle starts by planting the non-tackling foot firmly on the ground to provide a firm anchor. The inside of the foot is used for tackling, not the toe, and it's important to put the full weight of the body behind the football, and to get the head down over the ball. In the photographs, notice how the player making the tackle is well-balanced, but the player being tackled has been caught off balance.
As with any tackling skill, timing is crucial. Try to tackle when your opponent is off balance, or lets the football go too far in front of him. This is often called "showing too much of the ball". Another good time to tackle is when your opponent looks down at the ball.
Fitness Requirements
As with many sports, football has high demands with regards to fitness requirements, both aerobic and anaerobic to maintain a high level of fitness for matches. Football involves intermittent activity of changing intensity within the field of play. It involves unpredictable cycles of activity and rest dependant on the pattern of play and the length of the game. A full ninety minute match requires high levels of aerobic fitness among other components. The unpredictable nature of the game means that energy demands are sometimes extremely high and sometimes fairly low; it has been said that the work rate of a midfield player at professional level is similar to that of a good marathon runner. Therefore a football player must have a good aerobic endurance base if he or she is to last the full game without becoming excessively tired. The fact that the game involves acceleration and deceleration, changes in direction, angled runs and running backwards means that there is an increased energy cost of the exercise.
There are general and specific fitness requirements, all of which are a demand on a performer in a football game. General fitness is the ability to carry out everyday activities without excessive tiredness and still have enough energy to cope with emergencies. There are five main aspects to general fitness, which consist of the following:
- Cardiovascular endurance- keeping up with the match pace and running
around the pitch.
- Cardio respiratory stamina- keeping up with match pace and running around
the pitch.
- Muscular endurance- constant running around the pitch and making passes and tackles.
- Strength- exerting force upon the ball when shooting
- Flexibility- shooting, tackling or passing from difficult positions
Specific fitness is the ability of the body to carry out set tasks effectively and efficiently. It usually requires some sort of learning some of them consist of:
- Power- shooting quickly
- Agility- when a player gets the ball and turns out to switch it
- Coordination- looking up and passing the ball
- Speed of reaction- when a player hears a call for the ball, how long it takes for
him/her to pass it
- Timing-choosing to tackle when the ball is away from the opponent’s feet.
- Speed- getting to the ball before the opposition
All of the above are demands which a player has when playing football, however I feel the following are more dominant than others:
Cardiovascular endurance because football is predominantly an aerobic sport. This is the ability to exercise the entire body for long periods of time. The word cardiovascular means hearts and blood vessels. You can never separate these areas as they are interdependent to get oxygen into the body, distribute it and get carbon dioxide out.
Agility because it is important that a player can move quickly in different directions e.g dummying a player left and going right. This is the ability to change the position of the body quickly whilst keeping the whole body under control.
Muscular endurance because it is important that a players muscles can continue working to full potential throughout the game. This is the ability of muscles to maintain and repeat contractions without getting tired. Many activities need both cardiovascular and muscular endurance and football is one of them.
Speed because it is necessary to be able to move the body at high speeds e.g a race to the ball. It is the different rates at which a person is able to perform a movement or cover a distance in a short period of time. This means speed is needed to move either your whole body or just part of it, which is very common in football.
The four fitness components I have just described, I feel are the most predominant ones in a game of football and hopefully using my personal exercise program to improve these, it will also improve my game. Here is how I can test these elements to provide a base data to assess whether my programme is successful or not.
Cardiovascular Endurance- Bleep test – where you run twenty metres in time with the bleeps from a cassette until you are too tired to carry on. You results are obtained by recording the level you reached.
Agility- Illinois Agility Test- where you set out a ten by ten square with a set of cones running down the middle of the grid which are 3.3 meters apart. You run through it like so:
You record the results by timing how long it takes to complete the square.
Muscular Endurance- The Squat Test- where you do as many squats as possible in one minute.
Speed- Thirty meter sprint- a simple thirty meter sprint where you gain results by recording the amount of time it takes you to complete the task.
Using these results as a data base I will produce a personal exercise program to improve these fitness elements. Here are my results:
- Bleep Test- I reached level 13-3.
- Illinois Agility Test- I completed the test in 16.21 seconds on astro turf.
As you can see I am in the average sector, however this is for men.
- The Squat Test- I managed 47 squats in one minute.
Squat Test (Men)
You can see that if you count me in the 18-25 band, I am in the good section.
- Thirty Five Meter Sprint- I ran this in 4.91 seconds.
You can see that I am near the top end of the ‘good’ band.
Personal Exercise Program
Now that I have worked out the areas that I am going to train, I can plan my programme using the following principles:
1. The principle of progression.
This means starting slowly and building up gradually. The body takes time to adapt to the increased demands on it. If I overdo exercise I could risk torn muscles and joint injuries. The fitter I get, the harder it is to gain further improvement. This shows I am starting to reach your full potential and if you keep exercising at a constant level, my fitness will stay at that level.
2. The principle of specificity.
This simply means that I must be specific on the areas you train and the methods you use to train them and they must relate to the sport you are training for. This way the right muscles get the right amount of work needed to improve.
3. The principle of overload.
Fitness can only be improved by doing more than I usually do. People can improve their fitness by basing their programme on FITT. Which means increasing; Frequency, Intensity, Time they do it for and the Type of exercise they do.
4. The principle of reversibility.
The means that any adaptations that occur due to training will be reversed when I stop. This is why you must train three days per week otherwise I lose the effects before the next session starts.
Other factors
Regularity and Recovery
I must balance exercise and rest. To train hard seven days a week will only begin to have diminishing results, as my body has no time to rest. At the same time, exercising only once a month will not increase your fitness by much, if at all. A rule is to exercise every other day, or three/ four times a week, interspersing days of rest and days of training. This applies to competing athletes and health fitness trainers alike.
Individual needs
Whether training to compete or training for health, everyone has different needs. People vary in height, size, shape and preference. Therefore, even though they have the same goals they may not reach them by the same means. Someone who naturally builds muscle quickly may not need to do as much weight training, but concentrate more on cardiovascular activity. Someone who has back trouble may need to concentrate on this area and the antagonistic muscles in the abdomen to support the body where it is weaker.
Methods of Training-
Continuous Training- Continuous training is a good way to improve my aerobic system. I could overload by increasing the time, distance and speed. However, this could get boring and includes no skill work.
Fartlek Training- The actual word means speed play in Swedish and it involves many changes of speed. It can be used to improve both aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. This type of training is good for football because it involves lots of changes in speed, just like the game itself. However, there is not much motivation to work at maximum speed.
Cross Training- This is where I would use other forms of exercise to help me get fitter for my sport. However it is complex and sometimes is hard to relate exercises to a sport.
Interval Training- in interval training I would follow a fixed pattern of fast work followed by slow work or rest. I could overload by increasing the number of reps or sets and reducing the rest time between the sets. It is possible to use this training for either aerobic or anaerobic work and provides a good motivation to work hard because it is carried out in sets.
Circuit Training- This is a good way to organise muscle or skill training. In circuit training you do a different exercise at each station e.g squats, press-ups etc. I could overload by increasing the time spent on each activity. A plus is that you can adapt the circuits to focus on anything you wish e.g to work more on skills.
Using the information I have gathered I can produce a Personal Exercise Program that should hopefully support my needs best. I will incorporate Interval training into the programme because I feel this is the best all round training method.i will construct a programme for three weeks and then repeat this in the second three. I have decided that it will be best if I train on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday with rest days in between. This way reversibility will not occur but I will still be rested. My programme will go as over page, it is only three weeks long because I will repeat it in the same pattern of improvement in the second half, raising the level each weak.
Before every training session, I will start by carrying out a warm up which goes as follows:
- Slow jog for 3-4 minutes to warm up the muscles.
- Stretch all the major joints and muscles to increase the range of movement. I will hold each stretch for around 10 seconds.
The warm up is just some light exercise to get me ready for the main training activity.
I will also carry out a cool down at the end of the training session, this is to help my body recover after the exercise and goes as follows:
- Slow jog for 2-3 minutes to help keep circulation going and in turn clear away lactic acid from my muscles faster.
- Stretch all the same muscle and joints as you did in the warm up to prevent stiffness and aching.
Results and Conclusion
After completing my personal exercise program as planned I retested myself for the fitness components I had been training in my P.E.P using the same test as before I had trained. These results should really determine whther or not my personal exercise program (P.E.P) worked to my advantage. Here are the results I gained:
The Bleep Test- testing my cardiovascular endurance- I reached level 14.3
This is a great improvement from my initial testings and as you can see, I have improved in this test by 1 levels, which shows that the cardiovascular side of my training was very good and work well.
The Illinois Agility Test- testing my agility- I completed the test in 15.5 seconds
This is another improvement from my first tests as I have gained 0.71 seconds from my original time. However, I think this is only a small improvement because my agility testing could have been a little more intense.
You can see that my test result is now at the top of the ‘good’ section.
The Squat Test- testing muscular endurance in the lower body- I managed 52 squats in one minute.
This is yet again, another improvement as I have managed a further 5 squats in the space of one minute. This reflects upon the quality of my cardiovascular training as it has improved muscle endurance as well as cardiovascular endurance.
I am now in the ‘excellent’ section, whereas before, I was in the ‘good’.
The Thirty Five Meter Sprint- testing speed- I ran this distance in 4.74 Seconds- This was the final fitness component and test I set out to improve in my Personal Exercise Program and as you can see when comparing it to my first test, I have improved by 0.17 of a second.
You can also see that I have moved up a band into the ‘very good’ section.
If I was to carry out the entire personal exercise program again with the option to make amendments to it, I think I would change the agility training because it was not very specific because I assumed that if I improved all of the other fitness components that I set out to, then agility would improve as well, even without such a high intensity and specificity of training. My predictions were correct and I did improve my agility, but my it only improved by a small margin, which I believe can be made larger if the changes I have just mentioned are made. However my P.E.P still worked very well because it improved ALL fitness components it set out to.
If I was to continue with my training now, I would almost definitely increase the intensity in the same pattern that I have done throughout my six weeks of training, this, in essence, should increase the improvement of the four elements of fitness once again.
I could extend my program by adding more specifically football related exercise to it. For example, when resting in between repetitions, have a passing drill or shooting frill set up instead, however, this is only after the person has completed a full 6-10 weeks of the program.
Bibliography:
– internet site
- internet site
M. Lee (1993) Coaching Children In Sport. London : E & FN Spon.