How To Kick Harder In Soccer

Before finding out how to kick harder in soccer, find out some facts about kicks in soccer.

• Ball speed can decrease with more than 90% when you focus on accuracy instead of maximal speed.
• In a scientific setting, the fastest instep kick recorded with professional soccer players is 126 km/h (Ekblom 1994)
• The maximal kicking speed for a youngster at 12 years is just about 80 km/h
• The maximal kicking speed for a youngster at age 13 is about 90 km/h
• At age 14 the kicking speed is about 100 km/h
• At age 15 kicking speed is just above 100 km/h
• Between 11 and 20 years olds ball speed increases more than 100%
• The fastest instep kick recorded with amateurs soccer players in a scientific setting is 106.94 km/h ( Cometti et al.1988)
• When you are kicking with the toes, one can almost reach 90 km/h (Tsaousidis & Zatsiorsky 1996)
• Kicking while fatigued decreases accuracy more than kicking speed
• Kicking with a curve, one can reach a speed of 91.5 ph/ph (Asai et al. 2002)
• With Punt kicking, you can almost achieve 93 km/ph (Kermond & Konz 1978)
• While kicking the ball, your foot touches the ball for about 10 milliseconds (Nunome, at al.2006b).
• Elite players shoot about 15% harder with their dominant leg, compared to their non-dominant leg
• There is no difference in body mechanics between Brazilian and Japanese top youth soccer players

Why Should You Care About Your Kicking Speed

Kicking is one of the newer ways to identify talent in soccer. One of the new tests to evaluate players is a standing kick test. In this test, players have to kick the ball as far as they can without a run-up. The distance is measured from where the player kicks to where the ball first touches the ground. A recent study noted the importance of kicking in youth soccer players by writing:

In conclusion, ball kicking speed could be one of the possible identification tools to evaluate players’ success in youth soccer.

Kicking and especially kicking speed is a skill that involves technical and athletic abilities. The kicking technique to shoot harder involves a host of muscles and joints. To kick harder in soccer, your whole body has to move like a symphony. Furthermore, most of the time the ball is moving, meaning the timing on when to hit the ball becomes crucial.

Why You Have To Start Young

Studies have shown that your kicking technique is formed in your youth. Between the ages 15-19, your kicking pattern is complete. Soccer academies know this and will not pick you unless you have a proper kicking pattern.

The proper kicking technique consists of the kicking leg moving backward, while the knee is bending. When the non-kicking leg touches the ground next to the ball, it contracts and freezes. The hip muscles bring the leg forward and straighten the leg almost completely when kicking. The toes stay in plantar while the kicking foot has contact with the ball for 10 milliseconds

The kicking side hip is extending (thigh backward rotation), and the knee is flexing (shank backward rotation) during the last step of approach. After the support foot touchdown at the side of the ball, the forward movement occurs with pelvic axial rotation (to the left if the kicking leg is right), hip flexion (thigh forward rotation) while the knee continues to flex. Following the knee flexion both segments rotate forward; the thigh decelerates while the shank accelerates until after ball contact.

How To Improve Your Kick

Although ideal kicking positions are different for everybody. There are some basic tips that everybody can incorporate to improve your kicking speed.

Lock Your Feet & Ankle

Co-contractions are the contractions of multiple muscles around the joint to lock the joint. Co-contractions should be used to kick a ball hard. Looking at the frames below, you can notice that the ankle joint stays at about the same angle all through the kicking action. This ensures both less loss of energy and good use of elastic properties.

The above studies suggest that execution of a kick which aims to maximize ball velocity largely depends on the high velocity of the foot prior to impact and a small foot deformation at impact.

Increasing rigidity allowed a greater portion of mass from the shank to be used during the collision. As the ankle remained in plantarflexion at impact end, stored elastic energy was not converted to ball velocity and was considered lost. Increasing rigidity is beneficial for increasing impact efficiency, and therefore ball velocity.

Get Your Supporting Leg Near The Ball

The research found that the position of the non-kicking foot is crucial for a hard kick. The nearer the non-kicking foot is to the ball the harder you can kick the ball.

it is necessary to position the support leg as close to the ball as possible and, second, maximize the force used in the initial phases of the kick to achieve a high speed of the kicking foot.

Get Fast Feet

The faster your foot goes towards the ball, the harder the ball will go. When you start kicking a ball, the hip starts to move forward, although this happens quite slow, it sets up to increase the speed for the lower extremities. Below you can see the different speeds at which they move. You can see that the hip and knee move quite slow but the ankle and toes increase in velocity at the ball gets hit. By moving the hip and knee in a controlled manner and fixating the feet and foot, you are sure to start kicking harder.

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