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It is not a simple task to be completely fit to play a match of soccer, it relies on many different forms of fitness. I will break them into categories to help simplify the process.

1)Flexibility, Stretching: This is of coarse most important just before the beginning of a soccer match to help prevent injuries, but what most people don't realize is that it is also very important to do on spare time to increase flexibility. Being flexible in soccer helps with many aspects of the game, such as being able to turn quickly, or stop shots that an inflexible person would not be able to. To increase soccer flexibility, Simply do stretches that help stretch the muscles in your legs and hips, other areas of the body are not as important in soccer but should still be stretched to prevent injuries. Practice stretching your legs daily, and you will see that once applied in soccer, your legs will get alot less tired when you run.

2)Endurance and Aggression: This is probably the most important part of becoming a good soccer player. No matter how much skill a player has at soccer, he can still be beaten by someone who can run faster for longer periods of time simply by running past him. This is a very easy skill to train, all that needs to be done to improve endurance, is to run or jog daily. Try to never stop unless you are done running, if you get tired of sprinting move to a slow job until you have built up the energy to run faster. This is helpful because in soccer there should not be many points where you are not at least jogging on the soccer pitch. To increase aggression, try timed sprinting. Place a marker about 50 yards from where you start, and time how long it takes you to reach it, and try to shorten your time as much as possible.

3)Control: Ball control is the best for making you look professional. It also helps immensely with shot accuracy and other elements of a soccer game such as controlling how far ahead you tap a ball when running, and how well you can control a pass. There is many ways to train this, but what i found was best is simply keeping a soccer ball around the house. And just dribbling it during the day. If this doesn't work for you, there is many drills that could help with this such as setting up cones and dribbling around them. Also it helps if you are good at juggling a soccer ball with your feet, head, chest, and knees.

If you can manage to put time aside each day to train on each of these areas, you will be a completely fit soccer player in no time.

Learn more about this author, Stan Harris.
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