Santa Cruz Soccer Camp's Teen Functional Fitness Camps. Not for 2021 we hope to offer this again in the future
We are excited to offer a general fitness and strength and conditioning camp for campers ages 12 and up! This camp will run 3 days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9:30-11:30am the weeks of June 15th and June 22nd. The cost is $75 for 1 session or $140 if you sign up for both sessions.
Who Should Do This?
We’re adding this camp because we see a need to teach healthy exercise and cross training in young people—when it is a time of tremendous growth and development. This is the basic work for experienced soccer players to continue to develop their bodies for the non-technical skills of soccer. It is also for any young person looking to learn how to build their basic strength, endurance, and body mechanics.
We’ll utilize activities like the FIFA 11+ a program shown to reduce injuries in female athletes ages 13-18 by 50% but also shown to reduce injury in male athletes as well as reducing injuries in other sports.
Why is Strength and Conditioning Important to Do?
We believe in the healthy, active lifestyles which start in childhood. Adolescence is a time of growth, we keep a positive environment for social and emotional growth, and we also want to support the physical growth or our campers as they get older.
Research has shown has shown the rate of injuries in competitive soccer is too high. Both research and unfortunate anecdotal experience provides data that especially in girls youth and high school soccer there is a high rate of knee injuries—many to the level of requiring season ending surgery.
We want to provide the training and strength building as soon as possible to teach preventative exercises and mechanics so our players can have long, healthy, soccer careers.
What Will We Be Doing?
This will be a little bit of everything. The goal isn’t to have huge improvements in 2 weeks but to teach foundational activities from which attendees can grow.
We’ll be doing hopping and jumping, running fast and running uphill, agility ladders and plyometrics, push-ups and medicine ball throws, warm-up drills and stretching, and much more.
Our goal is to work with each individual for how they can improve—it’s not about who can see who can do the most push-ups or who can run the fastest, but how each individual can grow at their own level. It will be hard work but at the level they’re at, this isn’t to push them to their breaking point but to push them in what they can do, and teach them preventative acitivities for a healthy, long, soccer career.
Who's Coaching?
Strength and Conditioning Camp will be coached by Chris Nestlerode. He loves soccer and loves running— he has coached cross country, track and field, and varsity soccer at the high school level. Additionally, he is a USATF Certified Level 1 Coach and an assistant Track and Field Coach at UCSC.
He realizes not everyone needs to love running and fitness, but wants to make fitness fun and to teach young people how to exercise in the best way for them.
Register for Strength and Conditioning Camp
We want to do the Strength and Conditioning Camp, can we enroll in all day soccer camp for the rest of the time?
Yes, space is limited to the first 12 registrations, please sign them up for the strength and conditioning sessions, and write in the comment field on registration that they will be at soccer camp that week. We will send an invoice for the balance to complete the week (the total will be the cost of a week of normal soccer camp plus $30 to cover the equipment and staffing)
Interested in learning more? Start with some of the articles and resources below:
- Current Sports Medince Reports—Injury Prevention in Youth Sports
- Stop Sports Injuries—American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine
- British Journal of Sports Medicine—FIFA 11+: an effective programme to prevent football injuries in various player groups worldwide—a narrative review
- FIFA 11+ warm up manual (PDF link)