Speed kills. A common expression, and especially true in youth football when teams are less disciplined. But, you need the ability to maintain that speed during the crucial moments of the 4th quarter. Here are 3 agility and 3 conditioning workouts you can implement into your practice plan as a coach, or use to train individually as a player.
Reminder: Always warm up before doing the workout.
Agility Workout #1
Ladder Drills:
1 in each box x2
2 in each box x2
3 in each box x2
Lateral x2
Ickey Shuffle x2
Box Drills: set up cones in a square about 5 yards wide and 5 yards long
Forward/shuffle/backpedal/shuffle Always facing forward. x2/2 (2 times each direction)
Sprint all the way around. Dip the hips at each cone and make it sharp. x2/2
Figure 8. do a figure 8/hourglass shape running around the cones. x2/2
Bearcrawl/shuffle/bearcrawl/shuffle x2/2
This is a quick little agility thing you can do at the beginning/end of practice. And if you are doing it individually, you can do it in a little space and it should take 20-30 mins depending on the person.
Agility Workout #2
L drill. x3/3
5-10-5 x3/3
60 yard shuttle. 5 yards touch and back, 10 yards touch and back, then 15 yards down and back. x4
Bag drills
1 in each x2
2 in each x2
lateral x2
forward back sprint/backpedal x2
shuffle weaving through bags. x2
Bunny hops x2
lateral bunny hop x2
If you don’t have bags you can use hurdles as well.
Agility Workout #3
This one is more plyometrics focused to help gain some explosive muscles.
Line drills:
hop over line facing forward 2×20 seconds. Try and only cross your feet over the line. Keep the body in the middle over the line and move QUICKLY
hop over the line laterally. 2×30 seconds
Step over line, step back. 2×30 seconds. both feet go over and then return them back to the original place. Keep repeating.
Jumping:
Split Squat jumps. 3×10/10. jump up but don’t switch legs, stay with the same foot forward when you land.
Scissor Jumps. 3×10/10. Start in that lunge position, but when you jump, switch the leg that’s forward.
Squat Jumps. 3×10. Start in a squat and explode up.
Bonus: Box jumps 4×8
Conditioning Workout #1
This one is simple. Sprint 20 yards, striders 20 yards. at the end of 100 yards, rest 1 minute before repeating. Repeat 8-10 times, and you will feel it.
Conditioning Workout #2
Run 20 yards and back then do 10 squats. Repeat this circuit 3 times and then rest for a minute.
Run 20 yards and back and do 15 pushups. Repeat 3 times and rest
Run 20 yards and back, do 10/10 scissors. Repeat 3 times and rest.
Run 20 yards and back, Do 10 tuck jumps. Repeat 3 times then rest
Lastly, run 20 yard and back, do 12 burpees. Repeat 3 times and the you’re done.
This one is a killer. As you can see you can do any distance and any exercise tagged after it, but doing this will get that heartrate skyrocketing.
Conditioning Workout #3
10 yard sprints x10
20 yard sprints x5
30 yard sprints x2
You get the walk back as rest. Sprint as hard as you can each rep. If it is a team setting, make there me more for the people not trying or giving it their all.
Hopefully you decide to use some of these workouts, and it will make you better, especially if you are a beginner.
If you need more help with coaching a youth football team, click here for a great playbook.