I'm a high school player on a tiny private school team, and I'm mediocre at best :/ I recently discovered what my coach meant when he said when you're shooting the ball, it should "flow". I have one problem though, how do you get more distance and power on the kicks?
You start with using proper technique. If your technique is proper than the variance in power and distance will be determined by how you strike the ball (like selecting a different golf club for a shot). Instep drives are the most powerful. Back heels are the least powerful. And so on. It sounds to me like your coach's comment was trying to improve your technique. Whenever we first learn a movement, because of the way the brain works, our movement tends to be disjointed--not one smooth movement. The smoothness comes from practicing the movement. My suggestion is practice instep drives with both feet and after a week ask the coach if he sees any improvement. No matter what his answer is, follow up with asking for his advice on what you should work on next to improve.
I showed him my shot recently and he said it was pretty good, but my shots always spin and idk if that's good or bad also
One thing a lot of people don't realize is that soccer is very much like golf. Strength while important has much less to do with power than people often think. If you prefect your shooting/passing technique your accuracy, distance, and power will naturally improve. If you are shooting with your laces you want to use the hardest part of your foot to drive the ball. I often tell myself to make sure the people behind you have a clear view of your sole as you are striking straight through the ball. The importance of pointing your toes cannot be stressed enough. Make sure your knee is above the ball as you are striking it, and you keep your head down looking at the ball as you strike it. The power comes from your thigh, the quadriceps. With an instep strike it's a similar concept, just a different motion. You want to try to use the same part of your foot as you do with the laces drive. The problem could be a lot of things. Shooting is hard to perfect. It takes a lot of practice and still you will never be perfect. Youtube is a gold mine for football tutorial videos. I recommend checking several out. Best of luck!
Only if you mean for it to spin. Is the ball doing what it is you want it to do when you want it to do it? Distance and drive are primarily achieved through the back swing phase and the follow through phase. When you bring your leg back to kick the ball, it should be one, smooth complete motion until the follow through. Think of a good golf swing, baseball swing or tennis swing: back swing, contact, follow through. Same principle. So work on your kicking motion. In addition, you can address it from a strength standpoint by strengthening your core muscles and overall body strength (kicking is total body movement). Pay attention to the posterior chain muscles as soccer players tend to overdevelope the front muscles, like quads. But it's mostly technique. To control how the ball spins, focus on making contact with the diff. quadrants of the ball using different surfaces of your foot.
Here is an exercise that is supposed to help with shooting power. Been focusing on my core strength since I read that article a few months ago. It has made a slight, but noticeable difference.
Distance primarily has to do with the speed at which your foot makes contact with the ball. The greater your foot speed, the greater the distance. Of course, the assumption is you are striking the ball in the right place, with the correct part of your foot.
I'll ask this here seeing as i dont want to have a thread for it. Im trying to work on my distance passing with mixed success, im pinging some very sweetly whilst others lack distance and accuracy. Im focused on putting my standing foot correct distance to the ball and pointing to the target, slight angle on run up, large clean back swing, focus on hitting the ball with my instep just under the midpoint of the ball. Ive noticed when experimenting with my swing and follow through, when i use a kind of snap motion (ie less back swing and follow through but a faster swing) the ball flies truer and more accurate. When i take a larger swing and focus on hitting through the ball im not getting a clean contact on the ball at all and it doesnt go where it is intended. So is it correct for me to now practice the quicker smaller swing, or do i need to persist with the large swing and follow through until i correct the technique somehow? im quite tall btw
Inconsistency is a technique problem. Get someone with good technique to watch you strike the ball and coach you.