Along with speed and touch, the ability to shoot a soccer ball is a vital part to almost every soccer player’s game. No matter where you play on the field (other than maybe goalie), you will most likely have an opportunity to take shots at some point in your career. Shooting is obviously one of the most important aspects of anyone’s game because that is just about the only way you can get a goal. Everyone should have the ability to strike a soccer ball.
Scoring is one of the most entertaining parts of soccer and to score, you must first learn how to shoot. Shooting is a great skill that can easily be learned on your own and practicing shooting is easy with minimal equipment. To learn the basics of shooting, many people find it helpful to work on getting a feel for the ball before learning how to really strike it. In other words, it is crucial to take baby steps when learning how to shoot.
To the inexperienced soccer player, many think shooting is just swinging your leg at the ball. But the reality is, there is a lot of technique that goes into perfecting your shot. From the time you stepped onto a soccer field, all you wanted to do was shoot and score. However, not knowing the basic technique is a great way to get injured or just straight up embarrass yourself.
Before you even start shooting around or doing anything active for that matter, it is important to properly warm up and stretch. Many people just jump right in to shooting. This is when most injuries occur. Shooting requires muscles and tendons such as your hamstrings, hip flexors, groins, quads, calves, achilles tendon, and your IT band. It is very important that you properly warm these muscles up and stretching them before even thinking about shooting. Many kids get injured because they do not warm-up or stretch. If you have ever had an injury, you know this is a major setback in your training.
Along with developing certain muscles, it is important to develop a proper technique. In soccer, there are two major types of ways to shoot: with the laces and with the inside of the foot. Shooting with the laces produces a much more powerful kick. Power kicks are a great way to shoot from long distance especially if you can be accurate with them. Shooting with the inside of the foot provides a more accurate kick. This type of kick should be used for close range shots because you have more surface area on the inside of the foot as opposed to the laces.
Source 1: http://www.soccer-training-info.com/soccer_shooting_skills.asp
This webpage gives great information on the basics of shooting. It provides a video for those who are more of a visual learner. This webpage also lists some other types of shooting that are more advanced and it gives you tips and pointers on how to perform each kind of kick.
I like this website because it explains shooting in a way that is much better than the way I did. It supports my claim that shooting is an important part of everyone’s game. Also, This webpage gives some shooting drills that I find very useful for everyone, no matter what skill level or age.
Source 2: http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/soccer-stretching.html
This webpage gives great information on stretching specifically for soccer and it shows several stretching exercises that people should do before and after soccer games. This source is great because not only does it give you typical static stretches, but it also explains how dynamic stretching is beneficial.
This source is relevant to my posting because it explains how to stretch the muscles that I noted in my posting. Being a soccer player, I find that most of my injuries are associated with these muscles or tendons. I feel as if you stretch these muscles, your risk of injury due to shooting is dramatically decreased.
Source 3: http://www.nike.com/nikefootball/content/training/downloads/pdf/Master_Accuracy_en_US.pdf
This pdf file is part of the Nike training videos that I use to train. It gives reliable training exercises that the pros use and it is a great way to train if you have a couple of friends that want to help you or just get some training in for themselves. It gives a great description for each drill and it categorized by weeks and days. That way, it will be easier to keep up with.
I believe that to be the best, you have to train like the best. I noted in my posting that there were multiple ways to shoot a soccer ball. In these drills, I know firsthand how much it will improve each aspect of your shooting game such as inside of the foot, laces, volleys, shooting on the run, and pretty much any other basic method of shooting.
