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.

Drills are defined as the repetitive, narrowly defined activity that is closely supervised. Most of these activities are normally resisted by the players hence the close supervision to instill them. It perfects specific techniques into the players for long term memory and motor skills.

Repetition is another drill every team should participate in. This helps in making the team learn specific single skills after doing it over and over. Each team can decide what skill works best for them then they repeat it for the benefit of the team. Skills like centers and long snappers are important therefore should be repeated enough times to stick in the mind and muscles. These however require very little supervision from the coach as the players can organize themselves and learn the skills after one or two demonstrations. This helps in creating harmony and synchrony in the team.

The chalk is simply a verbal training like what happens in a classroom. Before letting the players do the actual physical exercise, a talk should precede it for the explanation. No one however can learn a skill by chalk talk alone but it is important. Some muscle memory is necessary to instill the skill permanently into memory together with the mental hologram.

The other stage is put-ins; these are the first time activities a team goes through to make them accurate and consistent in what they do. These helps in performing specific offensive moves and defensive stops where necessary. The training process goes from chalk, walk-through and is completed at the scrimmage where full speed reins. Doing these properly makes a great youth football 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.

Once a skill has been learnt in the slow stages, the team then goes full speed also known as scrimmage. Under the watchful eye of the coach, the teams play their specific skills at game speed with the offensive showcasing and defense preparing to stop the new skill appropriately. This is important for rookies so as to acclimatize their muscles and minds to real game situations. This also helps the defense with timing and reaction planning on the go. The offense team can use this to learn how to reorganize after passes and late-developing blocks. In this stage, very limited coaching takes place since the coach can only see a little of what goes on 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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