How to Kick a Soccer Ball with Power

Perfecting your shot as a soccer player is one of the most crucial skills to develop. Though this takes time, practice, and patience, knowing the basics behind being able to kick a soccer ball with power is important to anyone's game.

Combined with talent, confidence, and understanding, these tips will provide the tools necessary to score the best goals of your career.

What are you waiting for? Once you've got all this down, go outside and practice with your new found knowledge. You could be the next best shooter in soccer history.

First, distance yourself from the ball.

In order to gain enough power and accuracy behind your kick, distancing yourself the correct amount from the ball is the crucial first step to kick a soccer ball with power. Being too close is a mistake that is often made when attempting to put enough power behind a ball.

Before taking your final stride toward to ball, putting a few feet between you and the ball is important. When practicing, make sure your stride stops before the ball at the same distance each time.

Relax your body, aside from your ankle.

Athletes, especially soccer players, hold a lot of tension in their body while playing. As the next step in how to kick a soccer ball with power, allowing your body, especially your neck, head, and legs, to relax is important to putting the perfect amount of power behind your shot.

With all of the tension going to your ankle, this will allow you to focus all of your control with accuracy.

Keep your eye on the ball.

A simple step, but one that makes a world of a difference. Making sure your eyes are connected to the ball at all times will make sure that your focus will always remain on your end goal.

Before taking your shot, calculate your desired shooting spot and where the goalie is. But while you finish the last stride, your attention should remain on the ball, this way you will be able to guide it in the correct direction.

Your last stride is your most important.

Going along with both of the above tips, making sure your last stride is the most calculated, as well as the largest, is the next step to kick a soccer ball with power. This way, your biggest stride will aid you in bringing your body into the correct position to swing your hind leg through to the ball.

Bring back your leg as far as possible.

Within the previous step, you should bring your shooting leg back as far as possible. Once your leg is in the correct position (though not a simple skill to perfect), it will allow your stride to gain momentum and power.

A good tip to perfecting this step is to record yourself practicing. This will allow you to improve drastically. Plus, simply practicing will improve your flexibility.

Use your arms in your motion.

Not something that soccer players are used to hearing, but using your arms in a swinging motion while you make contact with the ball will do wonders for your movement.

As one of the best tips to kick a soccer ball with power, this should come naturally, but used positively to improve your power, as well as your balance.

Make sure your body is angled correctly.

Position your body at an angle that is facing exactly where you want the ball to go. As a mistake that is often made, and not often enough corrected, making sure your body is angled correctly has a lot to do with the direction that the ball will ultimately land.

Practicing this is something that will come with time, but being aware of this is a simple yet crucial step toward an accurately powerful shot.

Your knee comes first.

The next step to kick a soccer ball with power is to allow your knee to come first once your kick has begun.

This is a trick that will allow the momentum to build into the last second of the kick, as you allow your foot to be the last step to complete the kick, extending all the way through to the ball.

Use the correct part of your foot to strike the ball.

To create the most amount of force and power behind your kick, use the sole of your foot for accurate shooting. You will be able to nail your desired shot with this type of kick because it will ensure your kick will be straight and power-driven.

Follow through completely with the kick.

Most important as each of the rest of the tips, if not more so, our final step to kick a soccer ball with power is to follow all the way through. Though this rule is repeated constantly and overheard by every soccer player, truly following through with your striking kicks will create a huge difference in your power and accuracy.

Never stop your drive once you have made contact with the ball. Imagine that you are kicking through the ball, and your end goal is to complete the kick, rather than to strike the ball. And finally, land on your shooting foot.

Next, you can learn how to curve a soccer ball, or even master the bicycle kick.