Why Warm-up?

• Players should always warm up, even for a pick up game with friends or when preparing to do conditioning. A good warm-up will help prevent muscle strain and injury and allow players to push themselves more during the actual competition.
  
  

Basic Warm-Up

• Start with jogging. According to Soccer Universe, you should start every soccer warm-up with some light jogging. Even people who are just going running should jog for a few minutes first to warm up their muscles, then stretch, then start running. This also serves to get the heart pumping, which for optimal performance should be at least 120 beats per minute.
  Soccer players warming up should jog forward and backward and side to side. While running straight, gradually increase your speed until you're close to a sprint and your heart is pumping much faster. Just don't start sprinting when your muscles are cold.
  
  

Static Stretching

• Stretching increases flexibility, which determines the range of motion of a joint and its surrounding muscle groups. More flexibility is generally considered better because a joint can move further before suffering an injury.
  At some point in your warm-up, stop and stretch your hamstrings, quadriceps, calves and groin muscles, as well as your arms and back muscles. Be careful to not overextend your muscles stretching.
  
  

Dynamic Stretching

• Many coaches use dynamic stretching, which combines aerobic movements with stretching. According to soccertraininginfo.com, this type of stretching includes movements like leg swings, high kicks, jumping, high knees and back kicks. These moves isolate specific muscles and muscle groups.
  Focus on exaggerating these moves: pump your arms while skipping or do high skips, take long strides and swing your arms while running from side to side and make sure to have contact between the heel and the rear end for the back kicks. This will widen your range of motion while warming up the muscles.
  Be sure to do a basic warm-up for a few minutes; don't jump into dynamic stretching when your muscles are cold.
  
  

Skills Warm-Up

• Avoid too much repetition, which will bore the players and cause them to not warm up quite as vigorously. Soccertraininginfo.com encourages coaches to do work on repetitive skills, like passing, one-touch ball movement, one-on-one challenges and controlling the ball with both feet, inside and out, but not to do the same exercises every day.
  Coaches can implement all sorts of ball-handling games to get players dribbling the ball; other options include dribbling or passing around cones, one of many forms of keep away, the three-man weave or playing small-sided scrimmages in which players can only touch the ball with one foot, must score with their heads or some other limitation.
  During practice warm-ups, try different drills and games and figure out which are most effective.
  
  

Mental Preparation

• Particularly during a pre-game warm-up, demand focus and intensity from your players. They should be concentrating on the competition and going through their warm-up drills with precision and focus. Don't push too hard physically, but don't let players slack off either.