Many coaches struggle to come up with fresh ideas for conditioning for youth football. Here is one football drill that has worked well for Matt in Canada.
From Matt…
We are always looking for ways to combine fun football conditioning drills and skill work. I coach youth teams so keeping the fun factor high is important. We call this drill punt drill and the players love the drill but we have to be careful because it is a physical drill and as the players become fatigue they lose their technique.
We split the team into 4 groups, two teams on each end of a 40 yard field and the other two groups on alternate sidelines ready to rotate in. The rotation is counterclockwise. We mark the field in 10 yard increments with cones and a coach throw a simulated punt to the receiving team. The receiving team tries to advance the ball to the goal line. If they do they don’t have to do any push ups and the covering team has to do 20. If the receiving team moves the ball 30 yards or 3 cones they do only 5 push ups and the covering team who gave up 30 yards does 15 push ups (5 push ups per 10 yrds).
As soon as the ball carrier is tackled, the receiving team moves counter clockwise to the sideline to complete their push ups, the covering team moves counter clockwise to the sidelines to complete their push ups and at the same time the two teams on the sidelines move to receive and cover the punt.
The football coach can speed up or slow down the pace depending on how his team is responding to the drill. As players become fatigued they will often go to the wrong sidelines which results in an additional 5 push ups. Its a great conditioning drill and fun for the kids.
Caution, as players become fatigued their technique with blocking and tackling suffers. The coach must end the drill when the play becomes sloppy.
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