 It does not matter how good your skills are. If you want to be a stand-up player, you need to be physically fit. In this video, I'll show you a handful of soccer conditioning drills you can use to take your fitness to the next level. You can have all the skills in the world, but if you aren't physically fit, you're not going to be able to make the impact on the game that you would like. You won't be able to get on the ball as often as you would like. You won't be in the right spot at the right time. When you do get the ball at your feet, your legs will feel heavy because you're out of shape. Being fit makes the game easier, and I'm sure you can relate to this. Being unfit, it makes the game very difficult and unenjoyable. When you prioritize your fitness, you get yourself into great shape. You're going to have more fun and you're going to be more effective on the field. You can use this video as a resource for ideas on how to improve the different areas of your fitness. This first drill is tempo runs. You're going to work from 18 yard box to 18 yard box. I'm just going to take off and go about 60% on my top speed, really focus on opening up your stride, focus on good running technique, calm breathing. When you get to the other 18 yard box, you're just going to slow down, walk to the end, walk back to the top and repeat. This next stamina drill is called short and long. You're going to work hard on the long lengths of the field from corner flag to corner flag. When you get to the end, you're going to jog slowly and recover. You're going to work hard, let's say about 60%. When you get to the end, you're going to focus on your breathing, your recovery, slow jog. As soon as you get to the other corner flag, you're going to take off, put in that work and repeat all the way around the field. I call this drill four corners. I would usually use it as a finisher to a workout. You're going to start on one corner flag, running a figure eight to all four corner flags and finishing where you started. You're going about 60, 70%. The whole way, no resting in between, just focusing on good technique. It's so important when you get tired, focus on your breathing, but focus on your running technique. You'll find when you get tired, you get sloppy with your arm pump, your knee drives, your foot placement. So as you get tired, focus on that good technique. If you ever freeze, feel flat-footed or heavy-legged when you have the ball at your feet, these agility drills will help you feel lighter on your feet and sharper. When you're practicing agility drills like these, it's really important that you push yourself. If you make mistakes, trip over the ladder, the ball or your own feet, that's not a problem. That's probably a good thing. It means you're pushing your comfort zone and that's the only way that you're going to get faster and sharper. So when you're challenging yourself and you make mistakes, stay positive, shake it off and go again, realize that it's just part of the development process. Its first COD drill is just a basic cut. It seems like it's nothing, but really it's everything. Learning to do the basics very well is going to help you be more explosive on the field. So this seems like nothing, but take it seriously. Your ability to quickly change direction, sharply get away from an opponent will make you more effective on the field. Ever changing direction, focus on your body positioning. So you want to jump into that turn, get low to the ground, push off with power and really focus on those first two, three steps, carrying yourself away in the opposite direction. Watching myself doing these drills, I really want to focus on getting lower to the ground and pushing off with more explosive force. Here are some jumping plyometric drills to help you improve your vertical so you can win more headers and be more dominant in the air. However, these drills are also going to help you become more explosive so you can sprint faster and have better overall movement on the field. This first speed drill will help you with your basic understanding of body positioning when you are sprinting and especially accelerating. You want to think about leaning forward, almost falling forward. Imagine a straight diagonal line from your heels to the top of your head. When you run like this, you'll be able to generate more power as opposed to standing up straight. Hill sprints are a great way to add some resistance and help you with an explosive acceleration. Finally, you want to think about practicing basic sprinting. You can do 20 yards, 50 yards and even move into 100 or full field sprints. You need to look at sprinting as a skill, something you practice. Most people just think you're fast or you're not. Well, really sprinting comes down to technique. Yes, some of us are blessed with more pace than others, but if you improve your technique, you can improve your speed. If you're wondering how many repetitions to do, how many sets, how much rest between each drill, don't worry about that just yet. Just make sure you're subscribed to my channel because later in this week, I'm going to release a video that will explain exactly how to plan your individual training routine. And it doesn't matter if you watch these videos if you don't do anything with them. So if you take nothing else from this video, I want you to change your mindset towards fitness. Fitness is something that you want to do. Yes, I said you want to do it and that may seem crazy, but if you want to win, you should want to prepare. You should want to get yourself in the best physical condition that you can because when you do, you'll be so much more effective on the field. The game will become easier to you. So want to do the fitness. Look forward to those sprints. They're making you better every time you do the stamina and agility drills. You want to do fitness. Number two, view your movement as skills that can be improved with practice. So just as you would look at your shooting as a skill that you can learn about, you can understand, you can practice more to improve, you need to focus on your running, your sprinting, your change of direction, your sharpness and quickness of your feet. These are all skills that will get better if you practice them more. So if you are unhappy with your running technique, if you are unhappy with your speed or your ability to change direction quickly, you can do something about it and you need to do something about it because now you know it's just like any other skill with practice, with understanding, it can become better. So instead of feeling sorry for yourself, it's time to do something about it. And number three, be consistent. It takes time to see noticeable results. Everyone wants to get faster after one sprint. You want to improve your stamina after one fitness session. It takes time, but you can improve your results faster if you do things more frequently. So instead of destroying yourself with a two hour fitness session once a week, maybe do 10 minutes of fitness every single day. Your consistency is going to produce the results and the changes that you want to see in your game.