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Post by bobgoodman on Apr 1, 2009 12:12:55 GMT -6
Looks like the polling feature has been disabled, which may be just as well because I couldn't see poll results. This is for those of you who coach in clubs/organizations/programs that field teams in different age or age-and-weight brackets.
In practice sessions, do they first get together multiple age/size groups in combined stretches & warmups, and/or non-contact, non-ball drills of various sorts, before breaking into teams? If so, about what percentage of total practice time is taken up in these combined exercises, and do you think that amount is too little, the right amount, or too much?
My own opinion is that too much time in general is spent on warmups by youth football associations I've been in, although it was much worse in one than in the other.
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Post by coachdoug on Apr 1, 2009 13:07:53 GMT -6
In our program every team practices completely separately from the others. We do nothing in groups with other teams. Even when we've had multiple teams in the same age/weight bracket we keep them completely separate. The downside to having multiple teams warm up together is that it would probably waste time, and I don't think there would be any benefit, so I'm in favor of keeping each team's practice separate.
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Post by bobgoodman on Apr 1, 2009 14:27:48 GMT -6
The downside to having multiple teams warm up together is that it would probably waste time, and I don't think there would be any benefit, The chief benefit is that it saves personnel time. Some of the coaches can arrive late. Wasn't a problem with me -- unfortunately I had time on my hands -- but it helped some coaches who had tighter time constraints. A minor benefit is esprit de corps. The players, especially the younger ones, can see themselves as part of a larger organiz'n, and can imagine themselves as some day among the older and more experienced ones. (That might even help a little with parents, but it's double edged -- they might get the idea that their children will be thrown in with others of very different size.) However, practically all the benefit of that can be gotten from an occasional assembly rather than every practice session. |
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Post by coachdoug on Apr 1, 2009 15:17:23 GMT -6
I'm still not really seeing any benefit. You really only need one coach, not the entire staff, to run warm ups. Besides warm ups should only be about 5 minutes - 10 minutes at the absolute most - so your other coaches still need to be there pretty close to on time anyway. As far as esprit de corps, all of our teams practice on one of two fields, so they can see the other teams every day at practice. They don't need to warm up with the other kids to be aware that they exist and that they are part of a larger organization.
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Post by bobgoodman on Apr 1, 2009 15:40:07 GMT -6
I'm still not really seeing any benefit. You really only need one coach, not the entire staff, to run warm ups. But that's my point about saving time for the coaches. And that's my complaint: they spend too long warming up. When they spend a long time warming up, that is time the other coaches don't have to be there, and that's a long time. So it's a bad thing in your opinion and mine, but with a mitigating factor. Sometimes I think they deliberately stretched out warmups to give some coaches extra time to get there in one club, but in the other I think they just liked the look of large numbers of players running thru obstacles, up & down the stands, etc. |
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Post by eickst on Apr 1, 2009 15:45:01 GMT -6
It wouldn't help me because I am the only coach in my chapter who does dynamic warmups. I'd be pissed if I had to let my kids burn more than 5 minutes "warming up".
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Post by nrmccarthy12 on Apr 5, 2009 21:44:52 GMT -6
We all warm-up separately. I still see some teams in our organization spend ~20 minutes doing warm-ups (stretching and agilities...not bag drills or anything). I start off with jumping jacks just to get the blood flowing then go right into agilities, so I can move into Bags in about 5-10 minutes ...I use to do all sorts of stretches (b/c that's what I did as a kid...butterflys, left over right, 6", gut-checks, push-ups, etc...) then realized it was 20 minutes in until we got passed warming up. That is too much time when you only have 2 hrs, 3x a week. Plus kids are flexible and 'green-sticks'...so they don't need as much. Perhaps a few more minutes at 7th/8th grade when they mature and the bones get a little stiffer.
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Post by ramsfootball on Apr 6, 2009 7:33:22 GMT -6
We all warm-up separately. I still see some teams in our organization spend ~20 minutes doing warm-ups (stretching and agilities...not bag drills or anything). I start off with jumping jacks just to get the blood flowing then go right into agilities, so I can move into Bags in about 5-10 minutes ...I use to do all sorts of stretches (b/c that's what I did as a kid...butterflys, left over right, 6", gut-checks, push-ups, etc...) then realized it was 20 minutes in until we got passed warming up. That is too much time when you only have 2 hrs, 3x a week. Plus kids are flexible and 'green-sticks'...so they don't need as much. Perhaps a few more minutes at 7th/8th grade when they mature and the bones get a little stiffer. I'm with you on the wasting time stretching muscles that need no stretching or can get loose by simple running with 5-10 age range. My buddy did all the classic stretches with his 8-9's wasted about 15-20 good minutes of practice. It was sad to watch 10-12 kids out of 20 do 10 horrible push ups as well. I figure he was only promoting improper technique. It never dawned on him that this age group never or very seldom have sore muscles. Yet, if you able to get young kids to properly execute stretches and sit-up/push-ups etc. early it's should be a positive as they'll need to learn the moves in the future anyway. |
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Post by davecisar on Apr 6, 2009 8:37:14 GMT -6
I warm all 3 of my teams up together, and it is a dynamic warmup including angle form "fit" tackling. It takes 8 minutes. The reason we practice together: We are one team, eventually Younger kids play up to the level of the older kids When we get to indys we can group some of the real stud bigger younger kids up an age bracket to make them better ( when it makes sense) Conversely we can take a real small weaker older kid and move him down to get some confidence before moving him back up. Helps challenge and improve your best players IMHO. Otherwise often they plateau when they arent challenged. Come game day it's a huge advantage. It helps that I HC all 3 teams  |
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Post by justryn2 on Apr 13, 2009 5:27:39 GMT -6
We usually have over 300 kids in our program from age 7 to 14. We try to keep team size to between 18 and 25 players. This means we have multiple teams at each level (5 levels based on a combination of age and weight). All players at each level practice together at the beginning of the season, before individual teams are selected. But, once we break up into individual teams, each team practices separately from the others.
With my team we do dynamic warmups and never spend more than about 5 to 7 minutes warming up.
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