Development of speed and acceleration is crucial in football training. This post covers warmup exercises as well as drills with/without the ball to be more quick and agile on the field. The warmup exercises ensure your body is prepared for speed and acceleration, else there is a higher chance of injury such as muscle pull or tear. Start with a round of slow jogging around the field.

Warmup Exercises

Next, we move on to dynamic exercises to warm up your body. While slow jogging, practise raising your knees, alternately. Repeat the same drill but by bending your legs backward at the knee instead of knee ups. Now switch to hand rotation (forward and backward) while continuing with the slow jog.

Proceed to sideways jumping jacks and then continue with the jog. Maintain some distance and raise one leg backward (while looking forward) and keep moving, alternating the leg. Repeat this with raising the leg forward and then sideward in the next round.

Get into groups of two, and begin the following dynamic exercises. With one arm on your partner’s shoulder (crossed over his arm on yours), practise swinging your leg forward and backward. Switch the leg, and also try swinging it in a sideways direction.

Ladder Exercises

Ladder exercises are an integral part of football training and warmup sessions. Ensure quick footwork and keep your chin up throughout. Repeat the ladder exercise (speed walk) but by moving sideways over it. Practise with a side change as well. Next is the inside-outside ladder exercise, stepping in and out of successive ladder boxes.

Now combine the ladder speed walk with a short sprint and then walk back. Ensure you cover all the steps without skipping any. Once you’re comfortable with speed, we’ll work on acceleration. For this, repeat the ladder exercise, but halfway through, speed up and run forward (skipping a few steps).

Coordination Exercises

The second part of this tutorial guide focuses on improving coordination while moving with speed and acceleration, with the ball. Stand in two groups, about 15 metres away from the goal. The coach will kick/serve the ball towards the goal; the leading member of each group has to run forward (competing with the player from the other group), get to the ball first and shoot at goal. This sort of healthy competition is good during practice sessions to keep you more motivated.

We progress to increasing the 15-metre distance and repeating the same exercise. Speed up, accelerate, finish and then decelerate before walking back to your starting position. It is a good idea to factor a 30-second rest period or recovery time between each shot.

We increase the distance to around 25-30 metres from the goal, to test your speed, acceleration and endurance. The recovery time also increases, requiring around 1 minute rest after each sprint. It’s important that you score after putting in all the effort into the sprint. So, pay attention to your finishing move, concentrate and shoot at goal.

While speed and acceleration are critical skills to develop, you also need a healthy dose of coordination and agility to emerge victorious. Keep reading the next post to know which all exercises are useful to improve coordination and agility.