How to Improve Soccer Power

Mark Kislich provides some advice on improving your soccer strength and speed (power).

Improving power or explosive strength and speed in soccer is a big deal. Ask a player what he needs to work on, and 9 out of 10, the answer will be: "get faster and more explosive".

And they are right. These qualities are essential for a dominating performance in soccer and many other sports. Note: I am not a scientist, and I do not know much about research, so I would like to give you my take on this based on experience and logic.

This advice comes straight from the trenches. The theory is good, but it has to be backed by practice, in my opinion. I do a lot of work with association football (soccer), and my approach has proven effective repeatedly: I am applying the same strategies for myself, like many others.

The Problem

Speedwork (sprinting) and power training (plyometrics) are important, effective, and have their rightful place in modern training periodization for soccer. But on its own, this type of training is not enough. Let me explain. Since power and speed are important, many players and coaches train for these qualities, which is all they do as far as physical development goes.

Here is why that does not work

To become faster and more explosive, it is imperative to lay the foundation for both. That foundation is the strength. It is a simple equation: to become faster, you must first get stronger. If you sprint, you become faster. If you train for power, you become faster. But only up to a point, and then progress stalls. That is because power is a function of strength and speed. So, to continue improving, you first must get stronger. Once that is achieved, you can get back to speed and power work, converting that strength into soccer-specific, usable speed and agility.

The Solution

When a player comes to me, I begin by making them stronger, more stable and injury-proof. We start working on power and speed only once they have a sound, stable basis of strength. That way, soccer performance will continue to improve consistently. To quote legendary strength coach Al Vermeil: "It is all about who gets there first and under control."

Let us reverse engineer this for a bit:

No Speed-Endurance without Speed
No Speed without Power
No Power without Strength
No Strength-Endurance without Strength
Strength is the Basis to Everything

Strength will enable you to build power, power begets speed, and speed has to be made before building speed endurance. Now it is all fine and well to say get stronger, but that needs to be done right, too. You could, for instance, do powerlifting, and that would undoubtedly increase strength levels, but would that be right for your sport?

The Strength Qualities important for Soccer

Let us take a look at exactly what is needed in football:

Power/Speed-Strength, with its three sub-categories: starting, explosive and reactive strength
Power Endurance (Speed-Strength Endurance): the ability to be powerful repeatedly and/or with incomplete rest
Functional Hypertrophy: muscle-mass in the right places that delivers

But how to go about this, and how should you periodize it?

We break up the training into different phases. Please forgive me if I oversimplify this here. I want a complete beginner to understand and use it out of the box. In this example, we use three phases:

General Preparatory Phase (GPP)
General Intensification Phase (GIP)
Specific Preparation Phase (SPP)

Schedule this depending on the length of your offseason, the SPP should be finished about a week before a training camp or just before the season begins in earnest. That is to allow for super-compensation and complete recovery.

General Preparatory Phase

This is the primary phase, where we build a foundation of functional hypertrophy and concentrate on structural balance. So single leg work is emphasized, and the repetition range should be between 6 and 12 on average. I usually use a 9-12 repetition window, but it depends on many other factors like age, gender, training experience, position played, etc. But for a beginner, start with 9-12 repetitions. I would allow for a minimum of 2 weeks and not much more than four weeks for this phase.

General Intensification Phase

We begin to lift a little heavier in this phase, building up more strength. A beginner should not go too heavy right away. That could be damaging. If this is your first year and following a 9-12 repetition window in GPP, I recommend eight repetitions here. It is not pure strength work, but for someone who has never done professional resistance training before, this is just the ticket to building up strong muscle and delivering on the pitch.

Specific Preparation Phase

In this phase, you are finally allowed to do your speed and power training because now, at last, you are ready for it, and there is a sound basis of strength to convert into explosive action, both in the weights room and in a match.

You could try for five repetitions in the power clean, some explosive medicine ball work, and mainly focus on sprinting and cutting drills. Careful with the sprinting distances, though: above and beyond 40 meters (absolute speed), the injury risk increases significantly, especially for hamstring pulls. It is imperative to work into it slowly, meaning periodizing the speed work. That, or do not go for greater distances than 30 meters in all-out sprinting - cutting drills can be your answer here.

So, there you have it: a significantly simplified yet handy template to structure your offseason build-up work. If you apply these guidelines, you can rest assured that optimal results will follow.

Season Maintenance

Another major mistake I see in international soccer nowadays is this: all strength work is completely dropped once the season begins. Now, it is clear that football has to come first, and I am well aware that modern players have an extremely high workload to deal with during the season. Nonetheless, you must maintain your strength and hypertrophy (muscle mass) levels, which is crucial for several reasons:

It is the only way to improve your physical potential from season to season. The way it works is that you get better (stronger and faster) during the offseason, then keep all you got during in season, and build on that higher level come next offseason. So you never look back.
If you get weaker, you get slower, and as explained above, strength is the engine behind power and speed.
Weaker muscles cannot stabilize the joints properly: the injury risk sky-rockets.

The good news is that to maintain your gains, one short session every 7-10 days on average is enough. We do two sets of 6-8 repetitions for two exercises for each muscle group.

Page Reference

If you quote information from this page in your work, then the reference for this page is:

KISLICH, M. (2012) How To Improve Soccer Power [WWW] Available from: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/article082.htm [Accessed

About the Author

Mark Kislich is from Iceland and works with Olympic and other elite athletes as a Strength and Conditioning Coach. He keeps fit with weight training and judo.


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Improving power or explosive strength and speed in soccer is a big deal. Ask a player what he needs to work on, and 9 out of 10, the answer will be: "get faster and more explosive". And they are right. These qualities are essential for a dominating performance in soccer and many other sports. Note: I am not a scientist, and I do not know much about research, so I would like to give you my take on this based on experience and logic. This advice comes straight from the trenches. The theory is good, but it has to be backed by practice, in my opinion. I do a lot of work with association football (soccer), and my approach has proven effective repeatedly: I am applying the same strategies for myself, like many others. The Problem Speedwork (sprinting) and power training (plyometrics) are important, effective, and have their rightful place in modern training periodization for soccer. But on its own, this type of training is not enough. Let me explain. Since power and speed are important, many players and coaches train for these qualities, which is all they do as far as physical development goes. Here is why that does not work To become faster and more explosive, it is imperative to lay the foundation for both. That foundation is the strength. It is a simple equation: to become faster, you must first get stronger. If you sprint, you become faster. If you train for power, you become faster. But only up to a point, and then progress stalls. That is because power is a function of strength and speed. So, to continue improving, you first must get stronger. Once that is achieved, you can get back to speed and power work, converting that strength into soccer-specific, usable speed and agility. The Solution When a player comes to me, I begin by making them stronger, more stable and injury-proof. We start working on power and speed only once they have a sound, stable basis of strength. That way, soccer performance will continue to improve consistently. To quote legendary strength coach Al Vermeil: "It is all about who gets there first and under control." Let us reverse engineer this for a bit: No Speed-Endurance without Speed No Speed without Power No Power without Strength No Strength-Endurance without Strength Strength is the Basis to Everything Strength will enable you to build power, power begets speed, and speed has to be made before building speed endurance. Now it is all fine and well to say get stronger, but that needs to be done right, too. You could, for instance, do powerlifting, and that would undoubtedly increase strength levels, but would that be right for your sport? The Strength Qualities important for Soccer Let us take a look at exactly what is needed in football: Power/Speed-Strength, with its three sub-categories: starting, explosive and reactive strength Power Endurance (Speed-Strength Endurance): the ability to be powerful repeatedly and/or with incomplete rest Functional Hypertrophy: muscle-mass in the right places that delivers But how to go about this, and how should you periodize it? We break up the training into different phases. Please forgive me if I oversimplify this here. I want a complete beginner to understand and use it out of the box. In this example, we use three phases: General Preparatory Phase (GPP) General Intensification Phase (GIP) Specific Preparation Phase (SPP) Schedule this depending on the length of your offseason, the SPP should be finished about a week before a training camp or just before the season begins in earnest. That is to allow for super-compensation and complete recovery. General Preparatory Phase This is the primary phase, where we build a foundation of functional hypertrophy and concentrate on structural balance. So single leg work is emphasized, and the repetition range should be between 6 and 12 on average. I usually use a 9-12 repetition window, but it depends on many other factors like age, gender, training experience, position played, etc. But for a beginner, start with 9-12 repetitions. I would allow for a minimum of 2 weeks and not much more than four weeks for this phase. General Intensification Phase We begin to lift a little heavier in this phase, building up more strength. A beginner should not go too heavy right away. That could be damaging. If this is your first year and following a 9-12 repetition window in GPP, I recommend eight repetitions here. It is not pure strength work, but for someone who has never done professional resistance training before, this is just the ticket to building up strong muscle and delivering on the pitch. Specific Preparation Phase In this phase, you are finally allowed to do your speed and power training because now, at last, you are ready for it, and there is a sound basis of strength to convert into explosive action, both in the weights room and in a match. You could try for five repetitions in the power clean, some explosive medicine ball work, and mainly focus on sprinting and cutting drills. Careful with the sprinting distances, though: above and beyond 40 meters (absolute speed), the injury risk increases significantly, especially for hamstring pulls. It is imperative to work into it slowly, meaning periodizing the speed work. That, or do not go for greater distances than 30 meters in all-out sprinting - cutting drills can be your answer here. So, there you have it: a significantly simplified yet handy template to structure your offseason build-up work. If you apply these guidelines, you can rest assured that optimal results will follow. Season Maintenance Another major mistake I see in international soccer nowadays is this: all strength work is completely dropped once the season begins. Now, it is clear that football has to come first, and I am well aware that modern players have an extremely high workload to deal with during the season. Nonetheless, you must maintain your strength and hypertrophy (muscle mass) levels, which is crucial for several reasons: It is the only way to improve your physical potential from season to season. The way it works is that you get better (stronger and faster) during the offseason, then keep all you got during in season, and build on that higher level come next offseason. So you never look back. If you get weaker, you get slower, and as explained above, strength is the engine behind power and speed. Weaker muscles cannot stabilize the joints properly: the injury risk sky-rockets. The good news is that to maintain your gains, one short session every 7-10 days on average is enough. We do two sets of 6-8 repetitions for two exercises for each muscle group. Page Reference If you quote information from this page in your work, then the reference for this page is: KISLICH, M. (2012) How To Improve Soccer Power [WWW] Available from: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/article082.htm [Accessed About the Author Mark Kislich is from Iceland and works with Olympic and other elite athletes as a Strength and Conditioning Coach. He keeps fit with weight training and judo.