Warm-up activities serve several important functions. They raise muscle temperature and increase suppleness, promote increased blood flow and oxygen supply, improve muscular contraction and reflex time, and help prevent muscle strains and next-day soreness. The duration and intensity of the warm-up can vary from one practice to the next, and from one team to another, depending on individual needs. Generally, players should warm up enough to begin sweating, which indicates that muscle temperatures have elevated. This might take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the temperature, humidity, and general environmental conditions. Obviously, players won't have to warm up as hard or as long on a hot, humid day in August as they will on a cold, blustery day in December.
Any form of activity that involves repeated action of large muscle groups can be used in the warm-up. Traditional exercises include stretches coupled with old favorites such as jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, and knee-bends. This type of warm-up is commonly called an "unrelated" warm-up because it does not involve soccer-specific movements. While nothing is inherently wrong with an unrelated warm-up, players typically prefer a soccer-specific warm-up, which is more appropriate from both a mental and physical perspective. A soccer-specific warm-up might include skill-related warm-up games that involve passing or dribbling skills or might take the form of games that stress movement, mobility, and agility. The games described in this part are intended to add variety and spice to the warm-up while achieving the primary objective of preparing players for the vigorous training to follow. Since most of the games (though not all) have players use one or more soccer balls, skill development is an added benefit of these games.
Physical conditioning can be maintained, and in some cases improved, through many of the games described in this section. Essential components of soccer-specific fitness include flexibility and agility, mobility and balance, aerobic and anaerobic endurance, muscular strength, speed, and power. Players can improve soccer-specific speed by performing exercises that require sudden changes of speed and direction along with deceptive body movements. Quickness, balance, and an ability to change direction suddenly are as important to a soccer player as straight-out sprinting speed.
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