Proper warm up is important for all sport persons, no matter what sport they attend to. Even more, it is important for youth players because they are more fragile and gentle. Absence of proper warm ups or no warm ups at all can cause significant damage to players. For the reason of soccer being so energetic sport, it is very important for youth soccer players to do their warm ups every time before the game or training starts.
Sometimes, because of their age and inexperience, it could happen that they skip stretching their muscles because they do not understand the importance of it and because they are not supervised. That is why couching is so important. Right and professional couch would never miss on doing stretching properly because young players can get serious injuries that can prevent them from doing any sport ever again.
Parents should also get involved into educating their children about proper warm ups as one of the most important aspects of sport. This is inevitable part of every exercise and every sport so teaching your children about it from the beginning of their involvement in sport will do just good to them. Proper stretching lowers the risk of unnecessary injuries, improves flexibility and speed.
In case that you as a parent notice that your child, along with other children, is not getting the proper stretching before the training or the game, you should definitely react. In the form of the suggestion, it should be applied to the couch that stretching should be included. Your child is affected by it so there is no place here for delaying it.
The proper warm up for youth soccer players should last from ten to fifteen minutes. If it is on hot summer days, it can be shorter. It should include the stretching and also skills typical for soccer game as passing, dribbling and shooting. Goalkeeper should have stretching like others but the rest of the warm up should be characteristic for his part of the job on the field, keeping the goal. That includes warming up his upper body, too.
Youth soccer players are just that, youth and they sometimes do not understand the importance and seriousness of some things that needs to be done. That is why parents and couches are there, to teach them how to be professional in what they love and enjoy doing. And one more thing, cooling down should not be forgotten, as stretching after the game is as important as on the beginning of the game.