Best Drills For Youth Football Training

By Nelda Powers


The process of training kids football may require a little more care than that of the adult players. Youth football training calls for the coaches to use special skills so as to make them as good as desired. As much as drills are important, they should not be over emphasized while neglecting other parts of the training program. This may leave the team unprepared to face an opponent in a match.

The definition of a drill is the activity that is closely supervised, narrowly defined and is repetitive. This process makes the players learn skills that they otherwise would resist due to the rigor and routine. With drills, skills are perfected and remembered even after years of no use. However, no matter how important this is, the coach should leave only a small fraction of the training for drills so as to concentrate on other team building exercises.

The other drill is repetition, the act of iterating a single skill of football. It is good to allow the players to try what skills are best for them so as to repeat. For example centers and long snappers should be seriously repeated for best performance, they however need little supervision by the coach. These repetitions make a team synchronized in their game without showing the audience what they are actually doing.

Chalk is the other stage. This is basically a classroom like talk to the players. This is important before exposing the players to the actual physical exercise even though verbal drill has little effect on memory. Players learn better when they hear first what they are about to do physically hence the chalk.

Without put-ins, a team will not be fit to play a real match. These are the initial activities a team needs to master t make them consistent and correct in performing certain offenses and defensively stop the other team. Training in football starts with chalk then goes to walk-through then ends in a full speed run. This gives the team the correct timing and reaction skills for a match.

The walk-through stage is the longest in time. It is done very slowly so every player remembers how a skill plays out. For a given defensive maneuver or an offense tactic to be mastered, the team needs to play it out slowly, even walking while playing with the opposing team being motionless. This allows the practicing team to show what skill they have learnt and allows the coach to correct them step by step.

After this walk-through stage, the team will go to a full speed level also known as the scrimmage. Closely watched by the coach, the team shows a skill in full game speed skillfully. The defense also prepares for and stops the offense with accurate timing and analysis. When training rookies, this stage gives them the feeling of a real game preparing them for a real match. Psychological and physical acclimatization also takes place effectively. Reactions to offense and learning to reorganize after passes are also learnt. The coach provides very little supervision here due to the speed.

20 minutes is just enough for the drill section for a youth football training. This will leave enough time in the two hour period for the players to learn other skills and coordinate a play. A good coach will let the flow with periodic input here and there.




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