Have you seen gym injuries? Have you seen seemingly fit people pass out after a few minutes of a workout? If you have, then you’ll understand the idea behind this article.
Before you undertake any physical exercise, you have to warm up. If you need to be told this, then there’s a problem.
This article doesn’t focus so much on why you have to warm up, though (a little more on that topic later). It focuses on breaking down the most efficient warm-up drills that soccer players can do before training or a game to be able to perform well.
Why Warming Up is Important Before a Soccer Game?
Here’s why warming up before your big soccer game, scrimmage or practice is important.
Gets Blood Moving Through Your Body
Undertaking any athletic endeavor will stretch your body and put pressure on your bones. Blood has to flow much more freely in your body so that you don’t overexert your body and deplete your energy reserves.
Stretches Your Muscles Out
A lack of physical activity causes your muscles to rest. Going into a physical activity without waking them up is a recipe for disaster.
Helps You Avoid Injuries
One of the disasters that can occur as a result of resting muscles being thrust into heavy activity is injuries. Warm-ups help to limit the risk of these injuries.
Helps You Mentally Prepare
Most importantly, warm-ups get you in the right frame of mind before your big game or intense soccer practice.
10 Soccer Warm-ups
Now, let’s take a look at 10 great soccer warm-ups!
Passing Warm Up
Passing the ball around is one of the basic skills in soccer. You can read all about it in this article.
Poor passing is the difference between your team chasing the game for the full 90 minutes and finding some breathing space to execute tactics. This is why coaches usually make this an important drill in every training session.
There are several variations of the drill but the one that you can do alone is by practicing with a wall. To do this, just pass the ball to the wall in front of you and control the ball on the return with either leg.
Use this drill to train both legs so that you will be able to make passes with both of them in-game.
Sharks and Minnows
This drill is mostly for youth soccer teams, especially U-6 to U-8. The aim of this drill is to teach ball handling and dribbling. To learn how to dribble a ball, read this article.
The idea behind this drill is to have two “sharks” – players without a ball – chase down “minnows” – players with balls – in order to make them sharks. The coach sets up an area that’s big enough to make the kids work without getting tired and gives each minnow a ball.
The aim is for each minnow to dribble their ball from one end of the zone to the other and for the sharks to intercept them and kick their ball out of the zone.
Minnows whose balls are kicked out become sharks, reducing the number of minnows until there’s only one left.
For older and non-youth players, the zone of the drill can be much bigger depending on how many players are involved in the warm-up drill.
Soccer Tic-Tac-Toe
Tic Tac Toe is a popular game that’s been around for ages. Also called “noughts and crosses”, the game involves players placing their chosen markers in an empty 3×3 grid and trying to make a diagonal to win the game.
In soccer settings, players are given different colored cones and made to dribble their balls towards the empty 3×3 grid set by the coach in order to create the diagonal.
It can be done with and without the ball and with as many players as possible. The aim of this is to help players get some short sprints in with and without the ball so that they can be warmed up enough to sprint in actual practice or official games.
Circle Rondo
This is just like Sharks and Minnows but with one ball and one shark. There are other differences between both warm-up drills, as listed below:
- Very fast-paced.
- Circle rondos are played in a circle and not in a square grid.
- Players in a circle rondo must not leave their positions.
- Players in a circle rondo have to pass the ball around to move it.
- The “shark” only has to intercept the ball and not kick it out of the circle.
- The player whose pass is intercepted becomes the “shark” while the previous one replaces them in the circle.
This warm-up drill is a brilliant one that helps soccer players wake their focus up as they prepare to mark opposition players.
Figure 8 Dribbling
This is a good change from the regular dribbling drill that will have you weaving in and out of cones in any fashion. To set up this drill, follow the steps below:
- Create two 5×5 yard grids about 5 yards apart.
- Place two training sticks in the middle of the grids approximately 3 yards apart.
- Set a cone on each end to create a pentagon.
- One player starts between the training sticks with a ball.
- Players should play at full speed for one minute and then rotate with a partner.
- Set up different obstacle courses depending on the number of players.
After setting this up, the player will dribble in a figure-eight pattern around the training cones and through the center training sticks without any restrictions.
Zig Zag Dribbling
Before you get confused, you should know that this is the cone dribbling drill – the same one which you line cones up in a straight line and weave in and out of them till you get to the end of the line.
What this drill helps you achieve is mastery over the ball when you have to change directions due to a defender blocking your path to goal.
To do it with a teammate instead of cones, follow the steps below:
- Dribble at your opponent and move either to the right or left to get the defender to shift their weight to their opposite foot.
- Fake a pass or a shot, then collect the ball and change your direction with a cut. The defender will struggle to get their footing back and recover quickly.
- You now have the freedom to keep going, pass or shoot.
Catch Me If You Can
This soccer warm-up drill is geared at making players faster when dribbling.
Soccer is a difficult sport to play because running with a ball at your feet is much more difficult than running without a ball at your feet.
This is even more difficult when a defender is on your tail and coming at you at full speed. This is why players always train for speed and why most coaches value players like Messi and Ronaldo, who are insanely fast dribblers.
This drill is done with two players chasing after each other around a square zone while dribbling a ball. The difficulty level can be increased by adding cones to mimic a zig zag drill.
Clean Your Room
Clean Your Room is a very tough soccer warm-up that doesn’t feel like a warm-up in practice but an actual game.
In soccer, scenarios exist when one or two defenders are faced with the daunting task of stopping a counterattack from the opponents with three or more players. In these scenarios, the defender(s) have to “clean their room”, that is, get the ball out of their half.
This drill helps defenders mostly because it shows them what it feels like in game to deal with a barrage of attacks. The defenders in this drill rarely win, but they become more focused to stop attacks and buy time for their teammates to provide defensive cover.
Fill The Bucket
Fill The Bucket is a drill that is done for fun in youth soccer. Coaches do this to get the kids hyped up for practice.
To perform this drill:
- Divide the kids into two or more teams of three players each. Place two players opposite one player a distance apart and place three balls at each end.
- Place a bucket (a small square grid) at an equal distance in the middle between the players.
- Have two players from each team dribble into their team’s buckets, then across to the other side. The player without a partner waits for a tag at all times.
- The first team to fill their bucket with all six balls wins.
Line Passing Combination Warm-Up
This is a passing drill that can be done with three or more players. It teaches players how to combine with each other and make quick passes between lines no matter how far they are from each other because quick passing is important.
To perform this drill, line up the five players opposite each other and let player one pass to player two. Player two passes back to player one, who passes to player three.
Player three passes to player two, who passes to player four. Player four passes to player three, who passes to player five. Player five passes to player player four, who returns the pass to player five to restart the drill.
Final thoughts
Remember, soccer is a simple sport, but its execution is difficult.
Do not take warmups for granted if you’re a soccer player or any kind of athlete. Even if you’re not an athlete, doing warmups before going about your day is good for you.
Soccer warm-up drills don’t just help players prepare for practice or a game, they teach fundamentals of soccer making tactics easier to absorb.
There are so many warmups to choose from, but the ten mentioned above are the most popular ones that cut across all levels of soccer.
