Preparing for Practice
Your Practice Plan
Practice is where you teach, make mistakes, gain fitness, practice game strategy and tactics and prepare for the next contest. A successful practice plan creates an environment that helps you accomplish your goals. With your goals in mind, design your practices specifically to fulfill those goals. Be sure to determine the time needed for each phase of practice. However, be willing to make time adjustments, depending on specific circumstances.
You need to develop a season plan just as you develop your individual practice sessions. Take time to review weekly, tournament and league-play goals and objectives for your team. Write out these goals before the start of the season. Each practice session is one block of a performance block. The better each block fits with the others, the stronger and higher the blocks will grow.
Equipment Setup
Before each day's practice begins, determine the sequence of drills and where you will set up equipment. When possible, set up your practice field and equipment before the start of practice. Setting up and moving equipment can waste valuable practice time. Set up equipment early and assign different groups to bring out balls, cones, nets, goals and other equipment. You can also designate exercise captains to help organize players for drills, creating leaders within the team.
Coaching Grids
Grids are a great way to organize players and make maximal use of your practice field. They let you organize the field into distinct areas the size of which can be adapted to fit the skill level and number of the players involved. You can create grids by using cones, flags or other markers.
The game of football is about time and space. The best players can control the ball in little time and within a small space. Less skilled players need more time and greater space in which to perform. Coaching grids let you adjust the field of play according to the technical abilities of your athletes.
You can use the following coaching grid to develop your own plays and game strategy. Click the 'Next Page' link below to continue to the coaching grid.
