hmm theres many different ways to go about this First off you dont really need to lose weight unless you are seriously overweight 5 or 10 pounds is not a big deal. Second is are you in shape/healthy(physicaly), im not talking about weight but athletic ability per se. Are you in tip-top condition, can you run a good distance without getting tired or having to stop. do you have lots of endurance. Can you lift more than your weight etc etc. Excercising is one thing eating is another yeah i had to learn all this for soccer. Its very intense. You run about 13km per game. Gotta do specific training for relfexes, coordination, speed, acceleration. Watch calorie intake duh! 3500 stored calories(those not burned) equals 1 pound. Eat 3 square meals don't starve yourself breakfast and lunch are the most important meals. Watch the carbohydrates too (basicly a complex way to say sugars) Try to drink less soda, get hooked on propel (like me) or milk. Watch the fast food too, it's alright every once in awhile but not often. If you decide to pig out a little bit be sure to burn the extra off. Blah blah. just google it Excersing I do normal excersing and sports specific for soccer Do aerobic and anerobic exercises. Aerobic This improves your cardivascular system and heart effiency. Also help you get in shape aerobic is about 50-75% of your maximum heart rate. To find that take your age and subtract it from 220. During the excercise the muscles supply the body all the lost oxygen during work from your air supply.The muscles require it for the oxidation of fat and carbohydrates. They are done more often and longer. At LEAST 4 times a week. When the exercise becomes too intense, the heart will not be able to provide the muscles with the needed oxygen so they will switch to alternative sources of energy. At this point, further activity will be considered anaerobic. Such activities are swimming, jogging, biking, etc They should be done at least 30 minutes a day poor aerobic fitness can cause decrease muscle strength impaired coordination and relfex difficulty to concentrate Anaerobic Anaerobic activity is more intense (70-100% of your maximum heart rate) than aerobic but shorter in duration. Due to this, it is commonly referred to as quality training. Anaerobic activity is based on performing work while running the body with energy from stored sources such as glycogen. In this process, lactic acid is formed in the muscles thus causing you to feel fatigue or discomfort. Lactic acid buildup is why anaerobic exercises cannot be long in duration and are usually segmented into intervalsAnaerobic endurance refers to your ability to sustain intense activity and recover quicker from it. This type of endurance is generally dependent upon your lactate tolerance and removal. Weightlifters try to keep the time between their sets of repetitions as short as possible. This way they are developing both their musculature and anaerobic endurance. Of course this is stuff like sprinting, weightlifting, etc. Poor anaerobic fitness reduce muscle strength, impairs your top running speed, higher fatigue, etc. If you will be playing any sports...... Sports specific training: Polymetric While striving for World sports domination, during the Cold War, Soviet physiologists designed the plyometric training method. Yuri Verhoshansky is the most noted researcher on plyometrics and eventually played a huge part in the popularization of this training form. Plyometric training produced evident results in sports that required jumping and agility. The USSR and Eastern Bloc have been employing plyometric exercises since the 1960's, it wasn't until 15-20 years later that the Western World would even hear of them. That was partially due to the discrete attitude of the Eastern Bloc towards their training methods. Some athletes were even required not to discuss training with anyone else, almost as if they were working on a classified military project. Principles From a mechanical point of view, there are two types of muscle motion: concentric and eccentric. A. The process of shortening or tightening the muscle is known as concentric contraction. A classic example is jumping - the legs are propelled upward because their muscles spasm and release force on the floor. The concentric contraction of muscles depends solely on neuroreceptors, called muscle spindle that run parallel to the muscle fibers. During physical activity, neuroreceptors get activated when the muscles are stretched with enough force and cause muscles to contract (muscle stretch reflex) by sending a message through a reflex arc in the Central Nervous System. B. Eccentric muscle contraction occurs as the body, or a particular part of it, decelerates. When an athlete's leg contacts the ground during running, his leg's muscles contract eccentrically, shortening and absorbing the force generated by the inertia of his entire body. This type of adaptation is extremely hard on the body, particularly the joints. The natural elasticity and need of returning to their resting position contributes to the eccentric contraction of the muscles. Plyometrics exercises allow your muscles to respond more quickly and fully by stimulating the neuromuscular system. In order to make the most efficient use of the stretch reflex and elasticity, concentric and eccentric contractions must be loaded on a muscle in a rapid consecutive manner. What that means is that more power will be produced when tightening the muscles, right after lengthening them. Training drills Most plyometric drills are made up of series of jumps. When executing them, one should strive for maximum "air time" and minimum ground contact. Plyometric exercises improve agility as well as explosive power by incorporating elements from both weight and speed training. Plyometric training is very dangerous. It should not be practiced on hard surfaces because of the strain it has on joints, especially the knees. Double hop Standing with both feet together, jump up as high as you can. While leaping, try to bring your knees up to the chest. Re-launch yourself as soon as you contact the ground. Agility Stand beside a soccer ball or cone and leap over it from one side to the other. Try to propel yourself as high as you can. Remember not to spread your feet apart and to leap momentarily each time you touch the ground. Forward leap Set up a line of cones, spaced according to your leaping ability. Start from one end, jumping from cone to cone with your feet together. Try landing near each cone while getting as much height as possible. Speed training this will be written talking about soccer but can be applied to other sports Throughout his development, a player's sprinting ability is acquired mostly during early puberty (between 12 to 14 years of age.) If you already are a grown player (over 16 years old) and your timing on 100 meters is 15.0 seconds, it is not going to improve very easily. However, it is possible to significantly enhance one's speed on the field through a number of methods, which do not involve sprinting. There are many factors that influence the speed at which one performs on the field. Some of these include reflexes, tactical anticipation, agility and so on. An effective speed training program must incorporate realistic aspects from the game. Speed is not confined to sprinting alone. Soccer players rarely sprint for over 20 meters. It would be more appropriate to concentrate on rapid change of direction, acceleration and most importantly, speed with the ball. Keep in mind these ideas when designing your speed training program. Fatigue renders speed training useless in terms of gaining additional pace. A well-designed workout should be spilt into intervals so that you can recover and exercise at maximum effort. Coordination Not really to sure on this one just do stuff that requires excellent coordination and practice at it for me its soccer juggling. Keeping the ball up (not touching the ground), without the use of the hands or arms. You can use the feet, shins, knees, thighs, heels, chest, stomach, shoulders, back, and head. But its not that easy at first i could only get like 3 times now after many months i can do about 300. All other stuff and more info just use google! :D