You’ve probably seen football players running through tires. You also may have seen football players running over blocks and around other obstacles. These are all football agility drills that help a player improve his balance and agility.
But there are many other drills that football players can do in practice as well. These drills are effective whether they are being used for youth football agility drills or professional football agility drills.
Part of being agile is being able to start and stop quickly. Since football is played in spurts of only a few seconds at a time, being able to explode into motion is very important.
Players can be helped with starting and stopping simply by running short sprints in practice everyday. Not only will this help them with their agility but it will also help them with their physical conditioning.
A more specific running drill that also helps with conditioning and agility are shuttle runs. Shuttle runs require a player to run a certain distance, turn and run back, and then run another longer distance. The distance keeps getting longer and each time the player must run back to the place where he began.
For example, the player has to run 10 yards, go back, run 20 yards, and then go back, then 30 yards, etc. Not only does this help improve a player’s stamina and endurance but it also helps the player learn to take-off and explode into action.
Another one of the great football agility drill involves working one-on-one with a player. So it can’t be done with the team as a whole during practice. For this drill all you need is a step and a weighted ball. You may want to use a football instead of a weighted ball, that’s good too.
First, have the player step-up onto the step and balance himself on just one leg. Then have him slowly return back to the ground. He should do 2 sets of 20 step-ups for each leg. His movements should be slow and deliberate and his body should be under control at all times.
Once the player has mastered stepping-up, begin throwing him a weighted ball while he