 When you are performing a header, it's extremely important that you keep your eyes on the ball. Most players close their eyes and hope the ball hits them, rather than focusing on exactly where they want to meet the ball with their head. It's near impossible to keep your eyes open at the point of contact, but do your best to focus on the ball until it meets your head. Make contact with your forehead, not the top of your head and definitely not on your nose. You want the ball to come flush off the center of your forehead. To produce power, you need to engage your whole body. An athletic stance and slight bend in your knees will allow you to have more balance and generate power, but the real power comes from using your total upper body. Bend your body back and then forward through the ball. You are not just using your head and neck muscles to create power, you are using your whole upper body, snapping back and forward through the ball. To produce accuracy, you need to guide the ball with your follow through. Push the ball towards your target with your head and upper body. This is another reason it's so important to keep your eyes open when performing headers. Jumping headers follow the same principles. Keep your eyes on the ball, make contact with your forehead, snap your body back and through the ball, push the ball towards your target with your follow through. Jumping headers are all about timing. You want to attack the ball and meet it at your highest point. If your timing is off, you'll either catch the ball too low or too high and you won't be able to direct the ball where you want it to go. Focus on your footwork. You want to be moving towards the ball rather than jumping from a standstill. If you need to take one or two steps back, then a few quick steps forward as you leap in the air and attack the ball. Learning to read the flight of the ball takes practice, but after a while you will understand when to start your jump. Just think about attacking the ball rather than letting it come to you and jumping forward if possible, meeting the ball in the air at your highest point. If you're performing a defensive header, especially in your own defensive third, you just want to think about getting that ball as far and as wide as possible. You don't want to clear it into the center of the field if possible, you want to get it wide. If you can hit a teammate, that's great, but really you're trying to clear your lines, get distance on the ball, get height on the ball and make sure that you get it out of trouble so your team can get out of the field. So if he's throwing me the ball, again, throw a little lower please. If you don't know about me, I used to be a huge underachiever, but through obsessive self-improvement, I found my success. Earned a college scholarship, played for my national futsal team, a YouTube channel with over 100 million views, I've helped players worldwide, and I'd love to help you improve faster and achieve more. If you want to improve faster and achieve more this season, use the Soccer Success Planner. It's 100% free, players all around the world have already used it to improve. You can download it right now, there's a link in the description below. Removing up divisions to making national teams players who use the Online Soccer Academy get results. Access elite level coaching and training, become a complete player, make a difference on the field and get noticed when you play. Limited spots available, apply today, start improving tomorrow, link in the description below.