Why Suzy Should Skip?
By Executive Sports Performance Director Ken Vick
Sports Performance is a contributor to SoccerNation and provides valuabel tips of improving performance for youth and adult soccer players.
At Velocity Sports Performance, our experiences working with players from MLS, NCAA Schools, and the US National Team have shown us that soccer players can improve speed & agility with consistent use of simple drills.
Skipping isn’t one of the first things you see when you watch a soccer game. Yet, we highly recommend all kinds of skipping for soccer players. So if training is supposed to improve your performance, why do it? Doesn’t training need to be specific to soccer?
TRAINING:
The first thing we need to consider is what specific means in a training context. An athlete undergoes Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands in a training program. Most people judge specificity by the way a drill or exercise looks. If you hook up some bungee cords, and do a soccer movement, it must be specific right? Unfortunately the answer is NO.
If training specificity meant it had to look just like the sport, then the only thing every athlete would do is just play more. This is what we did 50 years ago. However, soccer players at the highest levels around the world know better.
Training specificity should match bio-motor and physical demands with the sport demands. As an example running at various speeds for time and distance can be an effective method of conditioning even if it’s not a soccer game.
Skipping is a great drill for soccer players because it is specific in the following ways:
- Requires coordination of the whole body in multiple planes
- Develops a short contact time and high ground impulse for speed and agility
- Can be performed forward, backwards, laterally and even vertically.
Athleticism
The first point is often over looked in our early specialization culture. To be the best soccer player possible, you first need to be a well rounded athlete. Overall coordination is a big part of this. The ability to maintain a rhythm and coordinate body parts is part of fundamental athleticism. The more athletic fundamentals you have, the more soccer specific movement challenges you can solve.
Impulse
One of the keys to speed and agility is impulse; that is putting a big force into the ground in a small time. When I talk about skipping, I’m not talking about picking daisies. I mean fast, explosive movements. Try being quick and efficient in these different skips:
Acceleration Skip – knees punch up to almost hip height and drive back into ground
- Lateral Skip – Same as Acceleration skip but now moving sideways. The trail leg has to drive your body
- Low Skip (forward, backward, lateral) - Quick skips with the feet coming no more than 6” off the ground. Speed matters here in all directions
- Crossover Lateral Skip – Do a skip moving sideways, but cross the trail leg over in front of other leg and drive it back into ground.
- Skip and scoop – Every third skip, drop into a lunge position and scoop your arm through a big range of motion
- Hundreds of other variations you make up
Put It to the Test
Your team should try all of these skips. See who can do them or who can’t. Listen to foot contacts. They should be crisp and quiet not heavy and plodding. The body should appear coordinated in arms and legs. The core should be stable with good posture.
Try adding a variety of skips in your warm-ups. It will help develop athleticism, speed & agility, and prepare you to play.
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