Recommended Youth Football Training Drills

By Nelda Powers


Every coach working on youth football training needs to have in mind that they are kids first. They need to be handled in a way that they will learn fast and not feel pushed too much. Football training drills however should not be the major part of training in any session. Other tactics and team building should be done for a good team to be brought up.

Drill is defined as a closely supervised activity that is repetitive and narrowly defined. This builds into the players habits that otherwise they would resist. Drils are used to perfect techniques into kids that they don't want to learnt unless under close supervision. As much as the drills are necessary, coaches should not waste time doing only those but should allow the team to participate in other skill 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.

Young players need to go through put-ins. These are the first time activities that make a team able to consistently and correctly carry out specific offenses or do certain defense stops. The process should escalate from chalk, walk-through then run it on full speed with the right timing to perfect the skill and make a great team.

After put-in, the team is taken through a process called walk-through. This stage takes the longest time to inculcate. The team walks through the specific skill while carrying out the defensive or offensive maneuver. Here, the opposing team stays motionless to allow the other team show what they have learned of the new skill. A good example is the fit-and-freeze technique.

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.

It is advisable to take only 20 minutes to do drills in youth football training. This will allow more time for team coordination and synchronizing plays. In general, a two hour practice session per day is just enough to make a good team.




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