6 Soccer Conditioning Drills To Up Your Game
Professional soccer has evolved rapidly in recent years, as the advantages of improved health, nutrition, cardiorespiratory fitness, strength and conditioning in the game have become abundantly clear.
Clubs across the world have made significant strides to attempt to compete at the very top by training their players in all these core elements of fitness and stamina. Today, elite players are stronger and fitter than ever before, and there is a huge amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to maintain these levels.
In this article, we'll be focusing on one aspect of the game that plays a key role in allowing pros to compete at the very top: conditioning. We'll explain what soccer conditioning is and why it's so integral to player and team performance, before providing a list of some of the best soccer conditioning drills coaches can use to get their players up to scratch at any level.
What Does Conditioning Mean In Soccer?
If you were transported back to the training ground of a Premier League club in the early 1990s, conditioning is a word that you wouldn't hear being thrown around too much. But nowadays, just 30 years later, it's inescapable; soccer conditioning is a crucial aspect of the game that simply cannot be ignored. What exactly does this term refer to, though?
Any big soccer fan will know that playing the game at a high standard requires excellent aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels. To play for 90 minutes in a professional match in one of Europe's top five leagues requires a huge amount of stamina, energy and endurance; players are constantly on the go, switching between rapid, high-intensity sprints, lighter jogs, and on-the-ball movement, while also regularly changing direction at speed.
Being able to do all these things while also maintaining a high level of technical proficiency on the ball and being ready to make a tidy touch, an accurate pass, or a pinpoint cross at any point is a skill that requires a huge amount of sharpness and energy. Soccer conditioning is all about getting players up to the physical level to execute these technical skills consistently in high-pressure match situations.
Why Is Conditioning Important?
Conditioning largely revolves around aerobic and anaerobic fitness (aerobic means endurance-based exercises and anaerobic refers to exercise that uses shorter, more intense bursts of energy). Excelling in these two areas is essential not just for technical performance but also for injury prevention and fighting against fatigue.
However, there are several other things players must do to ensure that they are ready to slot into a first team and perform to the required standard.
Soccer conditioning doesn't just involve on-pitch and off-pitch fitness-based conditioning; it's an all-encompassing player development tool, and this work must be accompanied by proper nutrition, sleep and rest, and the adequate management of training loads.
In order to fuel themselves for endurance and strength training that soccer conditioning involves, players must ensure they have a balanced diet that gives them high-quality protein for muscle repair and recovery, as well as incorporating other vital food groups such as carbohydrates and sugars.
Crucially, meals should be timed appropriately to fall in line with players' training schedules, ensuring they are energised for each session. On top of that, hydration is another integral part of conditioning, not just during training sessions but all the time — drinking water is vital for maintaining performance levels and recovering properly after sessions.
Another aspect of conditioning that doesn't always get the attention it deserves is psychological conditioning. To compete at the highest level, often facing intense scrutiny and criticism from fans and pundits alike, players need to be extremely mentally strong and able to focus on the task ahead regardless of the outside noise.
A key part of any conditioning plan — and something that is proven to help with psychological wellness — is sleep, rest, and relaxation.
6 Soccer Conditioning Drills To Up Your Game
Now that we've explained the concept of soccer conditioning and the various aspects of preparation it entails, it's time to work through some practical soccer conditioning drills designed to help players up their game and make a difference on the soccer field.
Before we get started, it's worth mentioning that conditioning requires both speed and agility training and more endurance-focused training. We're going to start by looking at the former before moving on to the latter with the last few exercises.
#1. Shuttle Runs
If you're leading a training session, the first thing you need to do is ensure that all players are warmed up; they need to have done some light jogging and some dynamic and static stretches before they get started (check out our guide to the soccer warm up for more information).
Once this is sorted, launch into some shuttle runs (also known as doggies or yo-yos). Place five cones in a straight line, with each cone ten metres away from the one behind it. Players should sprint from the first cone to the second cone, touching the marker before turning and sprinting back to the start.
They should then sprint from 1 to 3, back to the start, from 1 to 4, back to the start, from 1 to 5, and then back to start to finish. This should all be done as a sprint — once the players have had a 30-second rest, they complete the course again, and then once more after another 30-second break to complete the exercise.
#2. Ladder Drills
Agility ladders are a basic, affordable piece of training kit that any soccer coach will benefit from investing in. A number of different drills can be run using ladders; start off by placing two sets of ladders on the ground and lining your group up in two lines facing the ladders.
Ask players to run through the ladders at speed, placing one foot after the other in the gaps between each rung on the ladder, without touching the ladder at all. Once they've reached the end of the ladder, they should sprint back to the starting point and join the back of the queue.
As well as completing a basic forward-facing run, players can sidestep through the ladder and jog backward through it, using the same method.
#3. On-ball, off-ball running
Create a grid using four cones: the cone in the top right corner is cone 1, then going clockwise around the grid you have cones 2, 3 and 4. Place a ball next to cone 1. Players start from cone 1 and sprint around the entire grid without the ball.
They then run with the ball to cone 2, before stopping it there and again sprinting around the entire grid back to cone 2. They dribble the ball to cone 3, then sprint all the way around again to cone 3. They dribble the ball to cone 4 before sprinting around the grid without the ball.
Finally, they run with the ball back to cone 1 before completing a final sprint around the outside of the grid.
#4. Endurance/core strength team drill
This is ideal for a large group of players participating in a training session together. Split the group into teams of four, and set up a straight line of four cones for each team, with each cone ten metres apart.
There are four exercises going on at the same time here designed to test and build the endurance and core strength of each player. The first player in a team will perform shuttle runs, going from cone 1 to cone 2 and back, then cone 1 to cone 3 and back, and finally cone 1 to cone 4 and back, completing a total run of 120 metres.
Meanwhile, the second player in a team will complete a series of press-ups until player 1 has finished their drill. Player 3 will be completing sit-ups at the same time, while player 4 will be completing lunges.
Once player 1 has completed their shuttle runs, each player in a team will move up to the next activity, rotating around until everyone has completed each drill. Once this is done, the entire exercise should be repeated at least one more time.
#5. Beep Test
Probably the most famous endurance test in sport, the beep test is something that most footballers will have completed at some point, whether they play in the Premier League or as an amateur player far down the pyramid.
During the beep test, participants run back and forth between two points positioned 20 metres apart. Throughout the session, a pre-recorded audio "beep" sound plays out at specific intervals, dictating the required running speed for the group.
The frequency of the sounds increases as the test goes on, making the running more difficult and testing players' endurance to the max. Check out our in-depth guide to the beep test for more information.
#6. Small-sided games
After they've completed some of these intense conditioning drills, feel free to transition your players into a more fun, light-hearted but nonetheless effective method of getting back up to full fitness: small-sided games.
Unsere Jungs beim 6⃣𝐯𝐬.6⃣ im Training 🔥
— FC Bayern München (@FCBayern) October 5, 2024
Das ganze Duell könnt ihr hier anschauen: https://t.co/6irD8IQP2H 🎥#FCBayern #MiaSanMia pic.twitter.com/3tzZklEXtz
Use cones to mark out small soccer pitches and divide players into teams of 5-8 players, using tall poles to create a narrow goal at each end of the pitch (with no goalkeepers). Limit players to three touches per person, ban the ball from being played above head height to encourage quick passing football, and initiate a small-sided game to help build cardiovascular fitness whilst also working on technical skills.
If you'd like to find out how these kinds of soccer conditioning drills can be incorporated into a well-balanced, intentionally-timed weekly training schedule, check out our article on the phenomenon of tactical periodization, a soccer training concept that has had a huge influence on the global game in recent years.
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