In this series of football blogs, you’ll be learning from Santosh Kashyap – former Indian footballer and Mahindra United player, with over 36 years of experience playing and coaching football. He is a FIFA and AFC Instructor, with an AFC Pro Diploma. He has also founded the Santosh Kashyap Soccer Schools in Mumbai to train young talent.

Starting with a warm up is an important step for any sport. It prepares your body and mind for high-intensity exercise, and lowers the chances of injury during play. The following exercises are useful to warm up before any football practice session or even an actual game.

Warm-up Exercises Without the Ball

Begin with 2 rounds of jogging as a group, around the field. Now, build in some dynamic coordination while jogging, with arm rotations, knee ups, front kicks, sideways arm raise, backward leg raise, and so on. This elevates your warm up, involving every part of your body. Next, move on to ladder exercises. Ensure you do this with quick stepping. There are many variations you can practise with the ladder on the ground. It helps improve your speed and coordination – two crucial parameters when you’re moving on the field.

Next, divide yourselves into two groups and compete with speed relay runs. This helps you develop control during acceleration and deceleration, and prepares your body and mind for an actual game situation. Getting accustomed to quick changes during play and adjusting your body accordingly is an important skill to develop.

Warm-up Exercises With the Ball

The warm-up routine until now covered exercises without using the ball. Next, we focus on building ball familiarity through passing and shooting. In groups of two, practise continuous passes keeping the ball on the ground. Switch to tapping, where one player throws the ball and the other kicks it back to their hand.

Now control with the thigh before tapping the ball back to the player’s hand. In similar fashion, control with the chest and tap the ball back to the other player. Once you’re comfortable with this, practise heading the ball back to your partner. You can also try jumping high and heading the ball downwards. This is what we refer to as an attacking header because of the force with which the ball hurtles down.

Ignoring a warm up is a recipe for disaster as it can land you in serious injuries during practice or the actual game. Make sure to include these exercises starting today and make it a habit. The next post will introduce passing the ball, along with the technique of supporting and receiving as well. Continue reading to learn this new skill in football and advance your training.