Soccer Fitness - Weight Training

Soccer Weight Training

If nature didn't gift you with a perfect body, and don't worry, that's the case with most of us, getting there can prove quite costly. Buying a couple of "Tips and Tricks" E-books and hiring a local trainer to create a workout program for you can easily relieve you of a couple hundred dollars. We can also chip this cost a bit and try to make up a program of our own, but let's face it, most of us don't have the experience and knowledge required to get it right.

So where could you go to get an expert's opinion but at the same time not break the piggy bank entirely? I'm guessing that's the same question Sports Workout asked themselves when deciding to create their innovative E-training service. It's such an easy concept to digest that I'm left clueless on why no one thought of it earlier (or have I just missed it?).

Basically, you'll have your own personal, one-on-one professional instructor giving you a training program, training tips and feedback on your progress as you provide him with information. As a soccer player, you'll be competing with your opponents, but make no illusions, you're competing with your teammates as well. You're only in the team because you're currently playing well, but a streak of poor performances and that guy on the bench will take your spot.

The same thing happens in mirror mode, if you're the guy on the bench. So gaining an edge over your teammates and opponents in terms of soccer fitness is crucial and that's the benefit of using a specialized workout program, like the one Sports Workout's E-training service can provide.

When you begin your E-training workout program, you'll have to give your instructor a series of data that he can work with. It's important that you are exact and honest about the information you give your E-training instructor, otherwise you'll end up with a program that's tweaked down to fit someone else. The assessment form that picks up your information includes your immediate and future goals, your exercise and fitness history, your food journal and food habits, your health history, lifestyle, MD green light and so forth.

Based on these, a professional trainer can offer you a program that suits your needs and is on the same level of difficulty as your current abilities. If you practice a particular sport, it's very important that you explain your goals in detail.

For example, if you play as a defensive midfielder and you want to improve your overall fitness levels and specific skills needed for midfielders, your E-trainer can give you a soccer fitness program that's hand tailored to your needs. As a defensive midfielder, your most important physical traits are stamina, work rate, strength, agility and jumping (headers).

Given this information, a trainer can set up a running program for you to follow to increase your stamina and work rate, a weight training program to increase your overall strength and aerobic exercises to increase your agility and jumping abilities.

A lot of these exercises that you are being given come with short animations that teach you how to perform them correctly as well as short pieces of information detailing the position of your body, the mechanics of the exercise and so forth.

Just like working with a local trainer, your E-trainer will be able to track your progress, through specific data that you'll need to send over. Again, his ability to create the best workout program for you is if you're completely accurate and honest about your progress. But E-training is not the only interesting thing Sports Workout has put up for grabs.

You can also buy an e-book from their "Ultimate Guide to Weight Training" series. I checked out the Ultimate Guide to Weight Training for Soccer, since that's my expertise and I can say I did find parts of the book extremely informational. Everything from general soccer conditioning to specific muscle fitness for soccer can be found in there.

I'm guessing the book can be used with great success by a soccer player, young or adult and even by a soccer coach to prepare a weight training program for his or her team. And if you combine the book with the soccer fitness workout schedule given to you by your E-trainer, the results can be truly spectacular.

Although there isn't a website out there that can provide nearly the same services as Sports Workout, I have to say I found some minuses as well. I might be too picky here, but the soccer fitness animations and information weren't always as intuitive and helpful as their creators probably hoped they would be. On a few occasions, I had to Google for additional info on a specific exercise, although I guess I could have asked my E-trainer and get some explaining on the exercise as easily.

All in all, Sports Workout's E-training service is probably the best of its kind you'll find on the Internet. Does it beat having a local trainer do your workout programs and help you out? Probably not, but it's the next best thing and it's a lot cheaper. Instead of paying monthly fees reaching hundreds of dollars for your fitness program, you'll only be spending as much as $1 per day with E-training. Sounds like a bargain to me.

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