what would you suggest for 14 and 15yr old teenagers who need to develop more upperbody strength in order to compete with those at professional levels?
At present they are half way through the season in their own league but will have trials at professional clubs come the summer. The scout has already noted they are physically not as mature/developed as their counterparts.

I'm particularly interested on where you stand with regards to the parameters of training for this age and secondly whether heavy lifting could adverseley affect the ossification process. Would resistance training be enough?

Any suggestions would be most welcomed...

Let me preface this post with the understanding that any exercise performed incorrectly could be detrimental (at any age). But over the past 10 years we have been implementing strength based exercises for young soccer players (12-18 years old with no issues).

Another issue that you are battling is going to be the combative nature of the two major training components of soccer … Speed and Conditioning. Speed (especially acceleration and agility) is primarily a strength/power application and the stronger and more explosive the athlete, the faster they have the potential to become. Conversely the aerobic nature of many conditioning programs for soccer is very counter productive to holding on to this strength and power and thus creates a disadvantage for those young players wishing to add size and strength.

My recommendation would be to focus on more interval training in your conditioning drills, especially speed intervals that stress heart rate recovery, but still force the athlete to move at full sprint speed. This should communicate to the body the importance of maintaining muscle mass while building up specific speed endurance.

Second we have a full progression of strength training that begins with body weight and moves into light medballs and dumbbells before progressing into the heavier weights. This model is all based on strengthening specific movements so as not to lose power and speed as we introduce resistance. This program is available on our new educational website: www.AthleteFIT.com

The second phase of this is listed on the home page as a FEATURED WORKOUT and is FREE to the public, with video links to all the exercises. Remember this is the second phase of an eight phase progression, but it does set the stage for increasing resistance without losing speed.

I definitely agree with Scott on the combative nature of Speed and Conditioning. At the end of the day, if I had to choose between upper and lower body development for youth soccer, I will choose to develop the lower extremity and movement skills before really focusing on upper body strength.

With regards to your original question of developing upper body strength, it is a little bit of a difficult question. With a great deal of training experience with athletes 10-22, I've become acutely aware of how difficult it is to speak in gereralities about these kids. Young athletes in the 14-15 age bracket are very different in their maturity levels and development. What you are probably seeing is a combination with a lack of training background, combined with boys who may be a little behind others with regards to their maturation.

With that being said, every athlete needs to go through a progression of lifting exercises which starts with easy and controlled, and evolves to complex and explosive. Scott's website has some great stuff on it, and I encourage you to take a hard look at it.

In general, as an easy starting point, begin with bodyweight movements and go from there. Things like pushups, pullups, lunges, squats, and other simple movements can be made more difficult with changes in hand placement and combining movements into complex routines. These are very safe and total body body in nature and will provide a basis of strength and stability for later movements.

Other exercises that are very safe for a novice lifting are some of the complex routines with either dumbbells or a barbell that Scott has on the website. They can be very difficult with relatively light weights and little equipment, and are very functional overall.

Whatever you do, at this age with relatively little experience, the movements are more important than the weight. Teach proper movement patterns and progressions in a safe and functional manner and you will see quick results. The heavy weights will come later.

Thanks lads,
thats sound advice
will check out the website

regards

Any exercise done without the ball is a waste of time!! specially with children. Try to develop their technique and tactical knowledge and forget upper strength or lifting weights.

In soccer when talking about intensity you should refer to emotional intensity and not physical. Remember the ball moves faster than a person.

Seriously?!? ANY EXERCISE?

I am not a big advocate of keeping soccer players off the field and forcing them to spend long hours in the weight room. But... I have seen young players that were somewhere between good or mediocre players, step up their game and become very good, because they added some strength, speed and confidence through weight training in addition to what they were doing on the field with the ball.

Also, you can't tell me that we should not add additional, developmental stimuli to training programs. Simply focusing on the ball, all the time, may not adequately develop other areas of their game (speed, strength, reducing pain or risk of injury). Remember this was a 14-15 year old player we are talking about, not a 10-12 year old.

And finally what are you referring to with the emotional intensity comment???? ...the ball moves faster than a person??

The new website is www.soccerfitacademy.com and it does have loads of video and programming tips for this age group.

I do agree with one thing in his post. The ball does move faster than the athlete, which is why you need to train to be faster, more agile and more fit than your opponents.

If we are talking about athletes under the age of 12, I don't think that we should do a lot of off of the field training and focus much of our time on on-field bodyweight movements and basic movement skills to get what we need.

Once our athletes get a little bit older, they must train off the field in order to maximize their potential as an athlete. Scott has a lot of great info on soccer training, or you can visit my site as well for some basic and general information on creating better athletes.

Hi Mitch,
i would go even further and say that olympic lifting should be taught from the ages of 5-6yrs up (movements, not weights)

today's lfestyle and environment has changed the physical capability of kids, children and teenagers. we have never sat down, crouched over or been car-ferried about as much as we are doing now.
i have seen this in our u13's and 14's with basic movement skills and lack of co-ordination an issue. this can be attributed to lack of strength in the hips with a combination of weak glutes and core muscles. There is a case that our sedentary lifestlyes (by comparison to 15-20yrs ago) may predispose us to more injuries.

I know that the olympic weightlifting chief in Germany, Martin Zaweija (1982 olympic medallist) is advocating olympic lifting in children.

I am working with 16yr olds at the moment and would love to do some work on speed, but to get any lasting benefits, they need to work on their strength, most don't even have a foundational level of strength so we have to start here. 4-8 weeks later we can move to maximal and endurance before finally getting to power
imagine the amount of time i would save if they had a base level strength or more?

Footballfan-

I agree with you completely. Before I moved to the college level, I was working in a private facility which housed an Olympic weightlifting team. If the opprotunity arose, we started kids as early as age 8 with Olympic movement patterns. These athletes were in the program to become better lifters and worked very much on technique. Of course, that early work set them up for a lot of great things down the road. Keep in mind, though, this was in a very structured and controlled environment. The reason I don't typically recommend such training to most people, is that if you know what you're doing, you can do great things for that athlete in the future. If you get it wrong, you can do great harm. So, not knowing the knowledge background of many coaches, I don't typically recommend this to a general population.

To further your point, go out to any playground with 3rd graders and watch them play and move. Virtually all of the kids in the 5-9 age bracket have very good running mechanics and can change direction very efficiently. This is because they are spending much of their time playing and haven't been ruined by days of sitting in chairs, being carted around and their nervous system hasn't had to react to a growth spurt. Everyone was given the ability to run well at birth. Environment skrews them up. Once they hit puberty, they tend to grow quickly, loosing mobility and control over their extremities. As their growth slows, they will get some of that back. But, if you can bridge the gap with good, fundamental training during puberty, you will likely maintain a lot of those good skills and mechanics and they will do very well at age 16. You have to be careful not to make it work at that age, or when they're 16, they will hate it and drop sports all together.

I agree with your other point in that strength is the fundamental basis of all athletic movement. Without enough basic strength to control and propel your body, you can't move efficiently. So, you are doing things right to start with basic strength and move from there. Of course, if the basic strength is present, you can focus on other, more advanced skills.