Or Not??

i have thuoght about this my self having boys and at the age of 7-10 they can roll out of bed and run a sprint no problem.i use a 5 min dynamic strech and there ready to go.

Yep...like Morris said.....we warmed up with position related agility's though.....like back pedal, carioca, slide/shuffle, short burst out of a 3 pt. stance, stuff in a 4 pt. stance, a few different bag and cone drills....just anything they'll use during a game to improve their coodination/athleticism

JC
You know how we feel about it.
If it's not football, we really don't do much of it unless it's "fun" time and we are looking to eval kids or get some "hidden conditioning" in. No carrioke, backpedals, cone drills, agilities etc etc
Most of our kids at age 10 can still bend their ankles around their ears and with not having yet gone though puberty don't have a ton of muscle development.
It's all about priorities and what will your players and team get the best return out of the investment of time.
We stopped doing all that stuff a long time ago and it seemed to really help us in player and team development.

I agree Dave.....teaching proper footwork for different positions and how to move efficiently on the football field,(football agility's) was a big priority "for me".......learning plays after a couple practices = never crossed my mind, as being a big priority, lol......point is......most of us are glad to share "the details" of our "inadequate" practice routines......"free of charge"....and... for analysis and criticism by the masses.....if they don't like it......they don't have to use it

Well here is our practice routine(nothing special) First thing we do is get our Qb(s) and skill players and have them pitch and catch! Have 2 lines and both Qb's throwing & we have our O-line doing a drill working on there first step and hand placement. We do this for about 10 mins and then get into our stretching.

We don't do any running after practice and no warm up laps.

When we took all the non-essential things like carrioce, agilities, cals and conditioning out of our practices it freed up a ton of time to teach real football skills, fundamentals and schemes. Improved the tempo and attitude of the kids, much higher retention rates and huge improvement in skill level of players and the team. Worked wonders for our kids anyways. Like anything it's all about priorities/critical success factors, where do you spend your resources to get the highest return to meet your stated mission? Those that get that figured out in whatever endeavour they tackle in the most efficient method, have success, those that don't , don't

Yes, however the dynamic warm up is really no big deal/secret.
You just get blood flowing to the muscles going from lower to higher intensity over a 5-10 minute time frame. Our pre-practice consists of Qbs throwing 5-7 yard seams to players on a 1/4-1/3 speed jog. Then we are face to face in 2 lines in our stances doing a very slow 10 yard high knees movement, then 10 yards of low intensity butt kickers, all with good form/arm movement. Then we go to angle form and fit tackling, again on a jog and without helmets. We get it all done in less than 10 minutes and the kids are starting to breathe a bot heavy by the end/quick pace.
Some of that stuff is detailed here, about 325 free articles:


IMO, most guys just do what they did 30 years ago when they played youth football. Like many things, like allowing unlimited water vs none then, has changed.

Thats a great point about "having a stated mission" as a youth coach.....every youth football program should have a "reason for being in existence"......that probably determines, your priorities in how, what and why you practice the way you do, in the first place? Depending then, on your priorities......you may focus more on "scheme related" skills or more "generic" football skills......

Now, I coach 9-10 year olds and have 16 on the team. Don't I need to do more conditioning stuff considering they play more? I was lax on this last year, followed Dave's direction, and it was the only thing I was a little regretful about. I saw that in 2-3 games we were the ones running out of steam.

I'd still say you don't need "any" traditional group calisthenics or conditioning(like laps or wind sprints) with these young guys......as a rule of thumb....if you can make your practices "much" tougher, than a real game.....time wise.....moving/running around wise....hitting wise....the extra conditioning isn't important......something else to consider(especially if its a hot weather game and you have low numbers on a team).....if you play by most HS rules, you get 6 timeouts per game, plus halftime....the other team gets 6 timeouts per game, so, thats a "possible" 12 short breaks, plus 1 long one, per game?....use them wisely, like for water breaks or a little breather period?....Kids generally recover quickly, then they're good to go for awhile longer

Yes Dave.....once I realised,( fairly early on), in my youth coaching stint, in the mid 80's......that calisthenic's, laps and wind sprints, were pretty much what they already did during PE class every day.....we warmed up and conditioned with more football related agilities and drills(we actually probably agree on this, but focus on different drills or games?) Our practice's started in early to mid Aug. (very hot here), we practiced from about 5-5:30pm till about 7:30ish.....mon thru thurs.....we played on thurs. evenings, so when the season started, only practiced mon-wed.......so yep......practice was generally a longer time period, than most of our games.....we spaced out our water breaks/time outs(similar to a real game).....did a lot of "live" hitting, at every practice.....pretty much tried to simulate the intensity of a real game, all thru practice, as much as possible......."usually" had lower numbers of players.....had the same practice routine and basic offensive/defensive/special teams systems over the years......my last youth season was back in 97/98......how successful was it?.......lol.....don't know for sure.....we won more than we lost......the kids seemed to enjoy it and we had decent retention rates in our youth program......most of the kids, continued to play football "at some level" on the school teams......have to ask their "school coach's" if they "had any basic skill's when they got there"?......I always hoped so, since "that" was our program's "mission".....They keep trying to get me back into youth coaching.....so they must like something we did?