Summer Training Schedule to Increase Your Technique on the Ball

In part 1 of our summer training schedule, we provided a path for taking your fitness and athleticism to another level before the beginning of tryout season. Our next training schedule focuses on improving your technique on the ball. This encompasses how well you pass and receive the ball, along with your ability to maintain control of the ball under pressure.

You see, there’s a distinct difference between good ball-handling and great ball-handling. Lots of young players can shoot, dribble, pass, and receive the ball with their strong foot. Only some, however, can do all four just as effectively with their weak foot, and that’s where your opportunity lies – improving your weak foot is the fastest way to up your level of play.

Summer is your opportunity to become ambidextrous, or “two-footed”, as we say in soccer.

How to Become Two-Footed

If you’re willing to put in the work, you can get to the point that your weak foot is as good as your strong foot in 8 weeks.

Becoming two-footed doesn’t require any fancy drills or exercises. Basic drills like juggling, wall passing or cone drilling are just fine, you just have to focus on getting as many touches as possible.

We suggest starting with juggling the ball with your weak foot. You should aim to get approximately 500 juggles - but don’t worry about how many juggles you get in a row. Instead, focus on total touches. And if you’ve never juggled with your weak foot before, it’s perfectly fine to let the ball hit the ground between juggles.

Next, do 250 wall passes with your weak foot. Do two touches – one to receive the ball, one to pass. 

Both of these drills should take about 30 minutes combined. So, if you do both drills every single day for a week, that’s 7,000 touches with your weak foot. Over the 8 weeks of summer, that’s 56,000 touches. At this point, you’ll notice that your weak foot doesn’t feel as “weak” as it used to.

More Ways to Strengthen Your Weak Foot

To improve your weak foot even further, set up a few cones and do some inside-outsides with your weak foot.

If you’re an attacking player, you should also practice shooting and finishing with your weak foot. When you’re training with your friends and you find yourself in a 1v1, try to maneuver around the defender and shoot with your weak foot. 

Why Training Your Weak Foot Makes You a Stronger Player

Using your weak foot will be extremely frustrating at first. For most players, they feel their weak foot is pretty far behind their strong foot. The truth is most of that is mental – they know what they have to do, they are just not as confident with their weak foot. By forcing the matter and getting 50,000+ touches, you’ll rewire your brain and be much more confident.

But that’s another reason improving your weak foot is so helpful: Not only are you improving your technique; you are improving your resilience and mental strength as well. Anyone who can power through such a frustrating obstacle will almost certainly emerge as a mentally stronger player.

As former pros, we learned very early in our careers that resilience and soccer IQ are just as important as fitness and technique. 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. Trust us, coaches will be looking at all four components when evaluating potential recruits during try-outs.