Summer Training Schedule to Increase Your Fitness

When soccer coaches evaluate players, one of the first things they look at is your physical fitness. Specifically, coaches want to see that you can continuously run at a high speed for short intervals and then quickly recover. High-level players maintain their speed throughout the entire match, since the need to push yourself and sprint can arise at any moment.

The summer is the perfect time to build a training schedule to increase your fitness. Trust us, coaches can tell which players are and aren’t physically prepared on the first session of the season. And being the fittest player on day one will change the trajectory of your season.  

To ensure your spot in the front of the pack, we’ve put together this summer training guide for increasing your fitness so you’re fully fit when try-out season begins.

Establishing the Goals of Your Training

When you’re talking about fitness levels, we have to start with the end in mind – what shape you want to be in when practice starts. This means you have to schedule recovery time (which is essential for repairing muscle tissue, preventing injuries, replenishing energy stores, and boosting mental health) in addition to consistently putting in the work.

What does that look like?

For running, we recommend five or six short workouts per week (three or four days of a 10-minute workout and two days of a 15-minute workout). For strength training, two times a week is the cadence to target.

High-Intensity Interval Workout Sample

High-intensity interval training is particularly appropriate for soccer because it mimics the type of running an elite player does in the average game. You’re constantly running at a fast pace, resting for a brief period, and then running at a fast pace again. High-intensity interval training improves your ability to run fast and recover, so you can do it over and over again throughout the entire game.

For Reference: we’re going to be using a numerical system to represent how fast you’re running. If you’re at a 1, you’re walking, whereas a 10 is a full-on sprint as fast as you can.

This is one of our favorite high-intensity interval workouts.

First, you’re going to do 7 minutes of 20-second runs, keeping your speed at a 7 or 8. So, run at a 7 for 20 seconds, rest for 20 seconds, turn back and run at a 7 for 20 seconds, rest for 20 seconds, and so on, for 7 minutes (for players 14 and older, the goal is to get across the full field in 20 seconds. If you can’t do that, that’s ok – most important is going at a 7). 

You’re going to be pretty tired when you hit that 7-minute mark, so now you get to rest for 2 minutes.

Next, you’re going to do 5 minutes of 10-second runs, again at a 7 or 8. Same idea as the first exercise.

You want to do this routine twice a week. This will boost your baseline fitness massively when the first practice rolls around.

How to Measure Your Progress

If you do this workout twice per week, you will almost certainly see significant improvements in your speed and recovery. How can you tell? Put it this way: A high-level player should be able to run at a 5 or 6 for 60 minutes. Maintaining this pace is so comfortable for you that you can easily breathe, think, and speak clearly while you’re running. So, if you want to track your progress, go for a run at a 6 and see how long it takes you to feel winded.

Increase Your Top Speed

One of the most common misunderstandings is that people are either fast or slow. The truth is, speed can be taught.

Of course, that doesn’t mean anyone can become Usain Bolt – genetics will have a factor in your top speed…but so will your running mechanics. This is why plyometrics are so important.

Here is a great series of drills that will take you 10 minutes to finish and will increase your speed. Do this 4x per week for the summer and you will be noticeably faster at the end of the summer than you were at the beginning.

Though fitness is mandatory for high-level soccer, it’s not the only aspect of your game coaches will be looking at. That’s why we’ve created a summer packet that targets the four key components of a high-level soccer player: fitness, technique, soccer IQ, and resilience.