The warm-up could be the most boring part of the
training session.
2 laps of run, back-pedalling on the short sides,
sprint the last 20 meters. Then, all on one line and do some dynamic
stretching; job done.
Every time the same routine. If people spends a lot
of time thinking about new drills to avoid the tedium, why shouldn't
we do the same for the warm-up?
Here I will show you a nice warm up drill that I use
when I am coaching multisport.
This drill is called “The light-traffic”.
All your players are on the line (again?). When they
are ready, you shout red, orange or green.
Green → they sprint forward
Orange → they slowly run forward
Red → they stop
You keep on shouting the colours and you can even
change the exercise, e.g. back-pedalling or frog jumps, focusing on the
muscles that the players are going to use the most during the training.
To make the drill more competitive and fun, you can
introduce a forfeit every time a player doesn't follow your command,
for instance you shout red! Then,
red again and someone
runs forward instead of staying still.
The effectiveness of
this drill depends on the “creativity” of the coach and on his
ability to make the training “interesting”.
