Different Types of Soccer Warm Ups

Intro to types of soccer warm ups

A warm up is the most important part of your training session or game. A warm up should start slowly and gradually involve all your muscles to prepare for physical effort. It has also several physiological benefits.
Soccer is an active and also physically demanding sport. The importance of warming up properly prior to your game cannot be overemphasized. The risk of getting injured is greatly reduced by increasing your overall muscle elasticity. You need to always be on your toes and capable to work at 100 percent directly for the kick off.

There are generally 3 types of warm ups in soccer:

• Passive Soccer Warm Up
This warm up type includes massages, steam baths, hot showers etc. My experience is that the most common passive warm up is massage. You will not see this type of warm up so often in amateur teams. But in professional soccer this is a must. However, if your team can afford a masseur then you are a lucky one. My experience is that there is nothing better than getting a real massage before a game. You will feel like a newborn and be in great shape for the game

• General Soccer Warm Up
This type of warm up will increase your overall body temperature. This is achieved by moving most of your major muscle groups that are associated with playing soccer. This warm up is great after a massage :-) You need to keep in mind that you are actually not warming up physically with a passive warm up. What you are doing is to soften your muscles to make them ready for the general warm up

• Specific Warm Up
This warming up type concentrates on the positions of your body that will be used for the upcoming activity, ex stretching your legs to prepare for a shooting exercise. This one is good if you have recently made come back from a muscles injury and need to stretch properly to avoid getting injured again

My experience is that the most widely used type of warm up is the general warm up. However, soccer players don’t willingly stand and stretch their legs, thighs etc. They will do everything to avoid it and as soon the coach
turns his or her back on them, they will directly start to kick a ball. You should try to avoid doing this because warming up properly will surely increase your performance on the field.