[ilya123]

I'm 14 and I take soccer very seriously. Over the past years i've been playing mostly on the right wing until this year when the coach put me on the left. I thought that this would be a good time to work on my left foot. Except I don't know how to improve the strenght of my left leg, I know I should control the ball and shoot it more with my left, but I don't know how to physically make it stronger. What simple exercises can I do???

[Dino428]

Spend some time in the gym, work on the leg lift machiens dont use much weight at all. With a kid your age to much weight can damage the knee. but if you stay light and work on good form i think you will find that this will improve your strength a great deal.

[blech]

kick, kick, and kick some more. weight training can help, but one of the best ways to build up the muscles is doing the precise movement you want to focus on.

[Elroy]

Be careful about training only one side of the body. In fact, don't do it. If you want to improve your left foot, use it more. Take three kicks left for every two right. I doubt that one leg is that much stronger than the other. The difference is nerve path training.

At your age, get good, professional, adult advice before you begin any serious strength training.

[JohnW]

Originally posted by Elroy
Be careful about training only one side of the body. In fact, don't do it. If you want to improve your left foot, use it more. Take three kicks left for every two right. I doubt that one leg is that much stronger than the other. The difference is nerve path training.

At your age, get good, professional, adult advice before you begin any serious strength training.

Elroy nailed it, ilya. At 14, any weight training you do needs to be supervised by an adult.

Besides, the only time you should isolate the right or left side of a set of muscles (obviously unless you are alternating left, then right) is when you are recovering from surgery or significant non-weight bearing (crutches)--and then you do it under the supervision of a physical therapist.

I am not saying you are too young to weight train, just that you need someone to work with you on technique, which exercises work which muscles, etc.

Almost diametrically opposed to that is developing skill/touch with your left foot. You can do this anytime by yourself.

Assuming you already know how to shoot correctly, you can go behind the net and shoot using your left foot. Do sets of 10. First work on form with stationary ball, then move to rolling ball.

Take a few steps further back and you can do the same thing with crosses.

If you air dribble and are dominant in right-footed touches, work in alternating left foot touches, then two left-foot touches, etc.

I had the opposite problem as a left-footed player, so one of my coaches would only let me juggle with my right foot. It was frustrating at first, but it helped me develop that foot.

Good luck this season.

jgw

[uniteo]

okay, here's an exercise to develp the quad. Get a chair and put it in front of you, left leg bent foot on chair, right foot on ground. push onto left foot and up so you're standing on your left foot only on the chair, repeat. then do your right leg. As it gets easier try to do it faster, more explosively.

Be carefull not to fully extend (straighten) your leg. Whenever your doing lifting with your legs, especially when you are bearing your own weight (i.e. not seated) you want to keep a slight bend to your leg so you do not hyper-extend the knee.

If you work on quads though, you also need to work on hamstrings (that is the muscle group that allows you to lift your knee toward your abdomen). So make sure when you run you lift those knees and if you lift weights do hamstring curls. Developing quads at the expense of hammies can lead to pulled muscles.

Best thing you can do though, is kick with our left, paying special attention to technique... make sure you follow through completely and I find that when I use my left (off) leg, I often kick to stiff-legged - I don't flex at the knee as much as I should so that when I carry through the ball there is less power from the extension of my lower leg and so less use of my quads...get that heal up towards your a$$

[faizalenu]

Originally posted by ilya123
I'm 14 and I take soccer very seriously. Over the past years i've been playing mostly on the right wing until this year when the coach put me on the left. I thought that this would be a good time to work on my left foot. Except I don't know how to improve the strenght of my left leg, I know I should control the ball and shoot it more with my left, but I don't know how to physically make it stronger. What simple exercises can I do???

==> As personal trainer, I would bet that your left leg already is as strong as your right. If it was not, you would probably have a lot of back play.

The reason that you cannot kick as hard with it is that you are not as coordinated with it.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

[Reality_Al]

[I don't know how to physically make it stronger. What simple exercises can I do??? [/B][/QUOTE]

One of the simpliest things I have my U-14's do is find a wall and practice 100 to 200 touches off the wall to warm-up.
I just finished a session with my nine year old. She is developing her right and left. She sends it to the wall, collects and cleans it up, then sends it back with the other foot. For 100 reps, then a water break. For a 15 to 20 minute exercise, this works control, collection and, as she backs further away from the wall, strength and technique.