Soccer Injury Prevention

The most important thing in soccer, as with all sports, is a proper warm-up. If your child's soccer coach is not taking the players through an in-depth warm-up and cool down process, then you are nearly doubling your risk of injury during intensive play.

Here are some soccer injury prevention tips

** Stretching: Lower body should be the focus. Do not forget hips and neck.

** Avoid long ball striking at first. Even after stetching, you should work your way up to striking long balls with short distance passing. The same can be said for shooting on net as passing

** Power sprints. Don't just do a few laps around the field jogging to start. Players should also do some power sprints of 25-40 yards.

** Side-to-side edge taps. Put 1 foot in the middle of a balancing board apparatus. For 1 minute, slowly Tap each edge of the apparatus down to the ground (left edge, right edge.) Be sure to stay balanced and not to get too herky-jerky with your motion. Rinse, repeat with your other foot.

Read about rehabilitation of soccer injuries