FineSoccer Kids 9

Welcome to he FineSoccer Kids Newsletter. Today's subject will deal with proper heading.

Many young players are afraid to head the ball and the main reason they are afraid is that they don't know how to head properly. Then when they finally learn to head properly, they don't know when or where to head and thus they decide that since heading hurts and doesn't work anyway, why do it?

Let's start with the basics. The part of the head to be used to head the ball is actually the forehead (if you head with the absolute top of the head, it will HURT!). However, before the ball actually makes contact with the forehead, you have some other things to deal with first. The absolute first thing is to get your body in the right position to head the ball. This requires moving your feet to get behind the ball and preferable far enough behind the ball so that you can come forward to head the ball. Once you get in the proper position, you want to prepare to head the ball. The first thing to do is to tighten the neck muscles (which will help to prevent injury) and tuck your chin down toward your chest.

Since most of the power on a header comes from the abs, you want to lean back slightly so that when making contact, you can come forward with force from the abs. Let's actually start with one foot slightly in front of the other. Rather than standing flatfooted, have the weight on the balls of the feet with most of the weight on the back foot. As the ball approaches, you want to come forward to meet the ball (simply by transferring the weight to the front foot as you make contact with the ball. By coming forward hard like this, if the momentum is created with the abs, you will have force behind the ball as you make contact. With the forehead making contact with the ball (and hopefully with the eyes wide open) you will find that rather than the ball hitting you, you will be able successfully head the ball.

When you first start off learning to head (or maybe I should say when you first learn to head properly) it's important to choose a good ball to work with. Be careful not to use a hard, inexpensive plastic soccer ball. There is nothing wrong with using a rubber playground ball. They are extremely inexpensive (www.justballs.com has them for under $3.00) and are a great way to work on proper technique without worrying about getting hurt. Even before going with the playground balls, real young players can even start off heading a beach ball that is the same size of a soccer ball. By starting with a softer ball, you can work on technique without risking injury.

The next thing to consider is what part of the ball to make contact on. There are two very different answers, which I am always surprised when coaches don't address. If you are looking to head to score a goal, you will usually want to get over the ball and head the ball down toward the goal line (this is the more difficult ball for a keeper to save). If you are in the defensive third of the field, you will usually want to head the ball up and over the oncoming players so you want to make contact with the lower half of the ball in order to get elevation on the ball.

Now that you know the proper technique for heading, and the proper time to head up or down, the next thing to do is to go out and practice.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, you can send them to kidscomments@finesoccer.com or you can post them to the FineSoccer Forum and get input from a number of different people at http://finesoccer.net I am going to increase the frequency of this newsletter to a weekly and as soon I get 2000 subscribers I will do this. Currently there are 1100 subscribers so please recommend this newsletter to anyone who might be interested. All they have to do is go to http://finesoccer.com/subscrib.htm

Have a great day

Lawrence