Must-have practice drills

[jeffn86]

Thought I would try to get a thread going. What are some things that each of you feel like you have to cover almost every day in practice. Be specific, don't just say "tackling". I personally love the blocking series with our linemen. We reach and drive, pull and kick out, pass pro kick step and slide while popping the DE in the chest 3 times. They love all the contact and it's all the blocks that we use most.
What are y'alls favorites?

 

[mtjack]

Football Karate - Form tackling drill

Players pair up- we do three directions. Straight on, Left, and Right -- 3-5 reps each player each way. This is a slow, deliberate drill. Maybe 25% with NO take downs.

Focus on form. Head-up, fast feet, fire the arms, grab jersey on the back side, and then pull and pick-up.

Slow speed allows coach to correct improper form** this is important, not a time for the coach to take 5. Muscle memory is what we are training for.

Kids hate this drill cause it ain't hittin. However, with 8 players on a 6-man team we can't afford injurys in practice anymore than we can afford to missed tackles due to poor form. I have found that this drill, for all their whinning, does get the muscle memory and it shows up at game speed.

 

[jeffn86]

Wow. That is a lonely bench with 8 players. I bet you have some great conditioning drills. One of our favs is the obstacle course. We fire out 10 yds to a stand up dummy and tackle it. Then scoop the fumble and return it to start. Then backpedal 10, bear crawl 10, crab walk 10, carrioca 10, broad jump 10 and flip the tractor tire 10 yds to the finish. 30-45 seconds of hell depending on the athlete and they love it!

 

[CT6MFL]

Nothing beats a good picture. This is a 2 Min cone drill I used for the old guys for conditioning. They hated it, so I felt it was doing what it needed. haha

amp it up to whatever you feel is safe.

I think 2m25s was the fastest any of the over 25 crowd ran this one. I'm sure the youngster could pretty much run it twice in that time.

I have it in adobe and publisher if anybody wants it.

 

[mtjack]

Wow. That is a lonely bench with 8 players. I bet you have some great conditioning drills. One of our favs is the obstacle course. We fire out 10 yds to a stand up dummy and tackle it. Then scoop the fumble and return it to start. Then backpedal 10, bear crawl 10, crab walk 10, carrioca 10, broad jump 10 and flip the tractor tire 10 yds to the finish. 30-45 seconds of hell depending on the athlete and they love it!

I like this one, with your permission, we will give it a try. Yes, with 8 players we do plenty of cardio.

Our traditional obstical course starts through the ropes, flip the two fertilizer truck tires, sprint 10yds, do 10yds of cross-over steps over the curb along our track, and then sprint 25yds back to the start--if they hurry they can catch their breath while waiting in line. We will work up to 5 reps of this course before 2-a-days are through.

 

[topher80]

These kids are lucky... the only drill I remember the coaches having was "Run Them Until At Least 5 Puke".

 

[BE]

Good point topher80.... Every football coach I played under from grades six thru twelve (3) had one thing in common--run sprints, drills, piggybacks and one mile runs "until the coaches got tired", which was never. They had us convinced to be a good football team we had to run mini-marathons and climb Mount Surabachi. My last coach at Lake Worth even had us line up on the goal line after every football game, mount a teammate upon our backs and tote them to the opposite goal line, then switch and return while screaming like confederate butternuts. And if we didn't reach the required decible level the next monday began with suicides or pushing wheelbarrows full of rocks. When we lost, which was pretty often. coach believed it was due to a lack of conditioning and increased the drills an extra ten or so minutes.
The end result was lean, mean, wheelbarrow pushers with sore knees. But we could beat the best in piggyback racing.

Another tradition was pregame hitting drills intended to psych us into a slobber-knocking frenzy. Apparently they worked...we entered the games drenched in sweat peering through fogged over and often broken shatter proof eyewear, busted chins and two separated collar bones. ): And we wore it all like "red badges of courage". [:

 

[bad99a]

One thing we did that i felt was effective at getting the kids to trasition from practice to game day is on thursdays we played the game. It was all we did on thursday but we could cover everything in a fast paced game-like atmosphere in about 40 min. I scripted everything and we followed the flow of the game. It would look something like this
1. 1st team k.o. return
2. 1st team O sweep rt
3. Dive
4. Sweep lt.
5. Pass (td)
6. Xtra pnt.
7. K.o.
8. 1st team d, opponent fav play 1
9. Fav. Play 2
10. Fav. Pass (int)

And so on. Fast pace, little coaching.