ERFORMANCE
P
SOCCER
CONDITIONING
A NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO IMPROVING SOCCER PLAYERS
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Technique Based Speed Training
for Soccer: The Three Principle and
Practical Training Considerations
T
Chochi Valenzuela
he challenge for every soccer coach is to make speed training simple and transitioning speed training into soccer­
specific speed training. I saw it as a player it benefited me mid­way through my pro career. As I learned the aspects
of speed training, I saw that it’s not that difficult if it’s presented in the right way. As a coach, if you know how to
teach a player to pass the ball, shoot it or head it, you know it’s technique based. If you can do that, all that is needed
to start implementing speed training into practice sessions so the players get the benefits of speed training, is learning what techniques
to teach and how to teach them.
I have noticed that there is no shortage of desire to learn how to do speed training—everyone wants it. It’s something every
player wants to have and every coach wants fast players on their team. In the past, coaches have actually gone and looked for the
fastest players they could find—we have all heard about the kids with blazing speed but no ball control. As coaches we put those
speeders out there and hope something will happen. The rest of the players are left hoping that something will come of their natural
ability and genetic powers.
Coaches must realize that speed training is a technique and that athletes can learn to become faster through learning proper
techniques. Knowing and applying this concept makes all the difference in the world. Instead of going out and recruiting fast players,
you can develop the players you have to be, play, think, and run faster just by implementing good techniques.
Unfortunately, the information on how to do this is not readily available to the average coach or person. This is what I do to
bridge the gap between the technical aspects of speed techniques and bring it down to coaching terms. We hope that we can make it
fun and not hard to learn.
BGN
INT
The Three Principles of Technique­ Based Speed Training
#1­Take Competition Out of Teaching Speed
The very foundation is you must take the out competitiveness. It seems weird to start off with this principle because we are
dealing with athletes who, by their very nature are competitive. But principle #1 is how I start all my camps and clinics. I have the
kids look around and I say, “Your job isn’t to be the fastest one here. Someone on your team will always be the fastest. Just like the
gunfighter from the Old West, there’s always a person with a faster draw out there, you just haven’t come across it YET. If you get
to the game and you are the fastest on your team but you come up to another team and they have 3 players faster than you and your
skill is based on your speed, then all of a sudden it’s nullified.”
I tell them at the onset that the goal is not to be faster than the others in training. If your job isn’t to be faster then the players
around you, who are you here to get faster than? You want to be faster then yourself. This idea or approach takes competitiveness
out of it so they aren’t comparing themselves to others. The biggest downfall in speed training is comparing yourself to others. The
players look to see if they are getting faster and better, and they are looking at their own experiences, which lays the foundation.
When the competitions come, they can do it for fun or compete against the clock, which gives them a measure of what they are
looking for.
#2­Set Up the Program So Athletes Can Succeed
The Second Principle is training in a way for them to succeed against the clock. Are they getting faster? This means that you
will have to test the athletes, do the program and retest them to show results. This is a great motivator and keeps the athletes involved.
It is important to remember that the rate of improvement will diminish as the athletes develop their techniques. Learning technique
is the first big step. It’s all about technique because speed is a technique.
#3­Technique, Good Technique­First
In soccer you have different types of speed, but we are going to focus on physical speed for now. In my clinics, I break it
into two sections. One is quickness, which I define in soccer as moving in short spaces. We work on the speed ladder in 10­15 yard
spaces where you never really get the chance of a full stride before you must turn direction. For quickness, it’s all about how quickly
you get your feet back to the ground and how explosive are the first 3 steps. In soccer, in the first 15 yards, players are rarely making
runs in a straight line. From 20 to 60 yards, you will make a sweeping run or maybe suddenly change the angle of the run. We call
that pure speed.
The first concept in mechanics is that you want your athletes to be up on the balls of their feet so they are elevating their
body. Most coaches say they want athletes to run on their toes, which is misleading because it slows them down. You actually want
them to run on the balls of their feet. They should drive their knees towards the target and pump their arms.
I am going to differentiate between quickness upper body technique and pure speed upper body technique. In a shorter space,
you don’t have time to do the arm swing you would use for long strides. For long strides, we call it eye socket hip pocket. Your arms
are bent at a soft 90­degree angle and you drive your elbow back as far as you can and then without straightening out your arm,
bring your hand forward so your fingertips are about at eye socket level and then drive back to your hip pocket.
For shorter spaces, I call it alligator arms. You want to bring your hands closer to your shoulder so your arms look like a V­
shape driving the elbows forward and back across the centerline of the body as fast as possible. If you are standing and you section
the front half of your body to the back half of your body. Your elbow is going to go into the front half and into the back half. Your
arms are over the midline, but the elbow is going parallel. It’s like a robot. Your arms don’t move across the front of your body, they
just go right in front of the socket, down from the shoulder joint and go forward and backward.
One of the main rules for speed training is the faster your arms go, the faster your legs go. One of a player’s biggest mistakes
is trying to do big arm swings with quick and short steps—this throws the whole upper body, lower body coordination off. Once the
players get the techniques, it should be practiced over and over in the speed ladder, which is the most important training tool for
soccer in the last 15 years. It’s about foot speed, quickness, agility and coordination. It addresses all the aspects and athletes needs,
especially in soccer player coordination, foot speed and balance.
Using the Speed Ladder Properly
I have noticed coaches don’t know how to use the speed ladder properly. Any coach or parent can see the benefit working
on the speed ladder will provide. We draw the line between a coach’s desire and how to implement it for training sessions. It’s almost
getting to the point where parents ask if they have a speed ladder to do speed work. As a coach, you must get educated on how to
use it; partly because it’s a necessity in the next 5 years and the kids love it. They will get faster and they will enjoy the game more
as a result. They control their body, they enjoy the game more, they are faster, and they enjoy being an athlete.
The most obvious mistake I see coaches do in using the speed ladder is that they focus on the lower body only. Speed isn’t
a lower body phenomenon. Soccer players are notorious for having poor running posture because it is a ground­based sport; they are
looking down at the ball and are hunched over it. Their knees are bent; they are trying to get their center of gravity closer to the ball.
Their arms are along for the ride when they do the speed ladder. When this happens, it’s the equivalent of carrying two bags and run­
ning through the airport as fast as you can. Your arms aren’t moving. That’s exaggerated, but when you have someone next to you
with the proper technique, they will blow by you on the first 3 to 5 steps because they are pumping their arms. The speed ladder is
there to build technique first and speed second. Another mistake coaches make is they try to add speed too quickly.
With Ball Considerations
You hear that speed training is great but once the ball is introduced, everything breaks down and you go back to carrying the
bags in the airport. The question becomes how can this obstacle be overcome. To answer this we have to remember that speed training
doesn’t happen in a week or a month. It is my experience working with players at training sessions once a week that it takes them 8­
12 sessions or 2­3 months of weekly training for it to even just show up on the field. That’s not even having it mastered.
There are different running techniques, with and without the ball. The goal of speed training is to be able to implement speed
techniques as much as possible while you are dribbling the ball. Soccer players are going to notice they actually have techniques
very different from other sports. There is running with and without the ball and moving and cutting with and without the ball. What
is most challenging for speed training in soccer is the kids must learn different styles of running for different situations. Once they
learn those, they become a “fast player” because they have spent time to develop the habits of speed. I see this with players here and
there. They are now the fastest players whereas before, they may have been midway in the pack. This result is because their technique
is better and all their efforts are going in the direction they want their body to go instead of all over the place. They get to the ball,
and now they are faster because they know the difference between running and running with the ball.
Let’s look at running with the ball. If you are dribbling the ball over a 40­50 yard space, you are blowing down the sidelines
with the ball and you touch the ball. Once it leaves your foot you are then sprinting. It’s controlling your stride length, touching the
ball, and getting back into your sprinting technique again. If you don’t have any sprinting technique, you are going to be slower with
every touch of the ball. With fast feet and quickness, your first three steps are more explosive and you are actually going to get to
the ball quicker in game situations.
Over and over, the quicker you get to the ball, the more options open up, which leads us into the real hidden benefit of speed
training. If you are working on the physical technique of speed training, you will actually have to process what is going on faster be­
cause all of a sudden, things are coming at you faster. The biggest hidden benefit most players have noticed is not only are they
moving faster, they are also thinking faster. That is because of the fact that everything they are doing now is happening faster. They
get out to the soccer field and not only are they physically moving faster, they are thinking faster and a whole new world opens up
for them.
Imagine a center circle of the soccer field. A player is standing right in the middle of it and a ball pops out. He may get to it;
he may not. But he is going to give it his best effort because there is a 50/50 chance he will get it. You move that ball 2­3 yards
outside the circle and that is when he knows because of his experience that he can’t get to the ball. Not only doesn’t he give the
effort to get to the ball, he stops thinking at the edge of that circle. He doesn’t think about the options available if he gets to the ball.
What happens with speed training as coaches work on the speed ladder? Players start working on their foot speed quickness
and technique and that training itself will actually get their first 3­4 steps quicker and longer—they will be able to cover more space
in a shorter amount of time. As you build the habits of speed, your first 3­4 steps are going to be quicker anyway because you have
built up this habit. What happens is the ball just pops out there and by habit, the players will start to explode toward it. Somewhere
between the center circle and the 10 yard line or the center spot in the circle and the 10 yard line, they will realize they can actually
get to the ball, a ball they have never gotten to before. The moment they get to the ball, a whole new world opens up because they
have never had the ball in this situation before, and now they can start looking at what else is possible.
The hidden benefits are that they are thinking faster, realizing success, and their self­esteem skyrockets. Their experiences
of being soccer players and athletes skyrockets, too. Their whole enjoyment of the game goes up because they are working on and
improving their technique. O