Youth Football Training – End of Practice Relay Race

I received this suggestion for youth football training from Steve, one of my subscribers. I’ve included it for you below. Creative and effective but best of all the kids love it!

I coach Pop Warner Mitey Mite (7, 8 & 9 year olds) in Jacksonville, Florida. As with most football coaches we practice pretty hard but, at the end of football practice I set up a relay race on parallel courses. Youth Football Training

The identical courses start with 5 or six zig-zag cones for the first 10 yards, then the players jump over 3 consecutive tackling dummies (laid down) for the next 10 yards, then the players sprint another 10 yards and go around a blocking pad (held by a coach), then they turn for home and sprint the 30 yards and the next player goes.

In order to make it interesting, the football coaches with the blocking pads at the end of the football drill (30 yards down field) move, stay still, or move further from the start/finish line so that the first relay ends in a tie or a very close finish.

The players don’t realize (or don’t say anything) that we are “rigging” the race to be close so everyone always wants a rematch. We will run this relay 3 or 4 times at the end of practice and all of the kids run full out. They want to win the race. We make it fun and it works for us.

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