Before playing sports of a certain intensity, it is advisable to spend some time warming up. The purpose of this is nothing more than preparing the body for the best possible physical activity during exercise to avoid injury and possible discomfort. If you have soccer, this article will interest you because below we will tell you what is the best warm-up for soccer so that your speed and strength are optimal to lead you to victory. Something that, by the way, your clothes and your football boots will also play an important role in.
The importance of stretching during warm-up in football
Stretching is one of the main stages of any warm-up. The purpose of these exercises is to raise muscle temperature and thus reduce the risk of tears the next time you play. The stretch stage should be about 15 minutes long and involve all muscle groups. Namely:
- Neck . To warm your neck, tilt it to the right and left. Also do some full moves.
- Upper limb : Place your arms together and extend your arms over your head as much as possible. To stretch your elbows, bend and extend your arms and do a few reps. Don’t forget to do the puppet turns.
- Buttocks . Bend one leg and lift it until the knee touches your chest. Do several reps with each leg.
- Quadriceps . One of the most comfortable quadriceps exercises during warm-up is to bend the knee and bring the leg up to the buttocks so that the heel sticks to them.
- Knees . To warm up your knees, you can do circular motions with each of them. Do 8 reps.
- Gemini : With your legs extended, bend over and pull the lift towards you until you feel the twins are working. Hold on to each leg for a few seconds.
- Ankles: Perform circular motion with your right ankle and then your left. Do 8 reps.
- Adductors . It is very important to heat the adductors. To do this, bend one knee and extend the other leg. Sit down as far as you can and with one hand reach the ankle of the outstretched leg.
- Psoas . Finally, don’t forget to stretch the Psoas. Bring one knee forward and bend it, resting your forearms on it. Extend your back leg as far as possible. Keep on foot for about 10 seconds.
5 general warm-up exercises
Once you’ve warmed up all the muscle groups, it’s time to do a general warm-up. It will be much more dynamic than the previous one and will last about 10 minutes.
1. Race with the knees up
This exercise is common in the field of athletics. The idea is to run with more knees raised than necessary. The goal is not to move, but to raise your knees well.
2. Ass Run
This exercise is very similar to the previous one. The difference is that instead of lifting your knees, you need to focus on your heels as you should try to reach your glutes.
3. Race to the ground
Another dynamic general warm-up suggestion is to run and at some point bend over to touch the ground with your hands. When you join, jump and repeat from the beginning.
4. Rear Race
A very common warm-up in football is backstroke. Known as retrorunning , it works by strengthening the knees for training.
5. Ball contact
In the last part of the warm-up, remember to include contact ball drills, such as simple passes between partners, shots on goal or rigging.