Speaking of balance and windmilling, my club runs tryouts just like a practice session, so we'd do what we do normally during a typical session. During warm-ups they work with a ball, with the more complex movements like roll-stops or push-pulls more a few kids who couldn't do the movement would let one arm (probably their non-dominant one) hang limply or rigidly by their side. Lo and behold, a simple fix in arm positioning (bent at the elbow, closer to 90°, slighly away from the body) and their balance was fixed and they could do the movement much more fluidly.
New here so please be gentle. I think movement education is important at the young ages. Young players need to learn to develop control over their bodies before they can be asked to perform more complex soccer specific movements. I agree that is a good thing to do at home, but in the off chance that the parents are willing to engage in that type of regular exercise I make sure to add it to warmups. I understand the need to incorporate the ball as much as possible, but at the U6 level movement training is equally as important. I'm sure this will not go over well, but at the most effective trainings I've been involved with at U6 is a Movement training warmup followed by 4v4 to goals for the rest of the session. The players get a good dose of the ball and decision making.
Opinions welcome. I'm wondering though what is your criteria for determining the most effective trainings? If I understand you correctly, these effective practices include no ball touches during warm-up and then jump into a game with 8 players to 1 ball at U6. From my experience, novice young players are the least active ones during games, rarely getting touches on the ball. So if that is the case in these practices, then there are players who will get <20 touches on a ball at U6 in a 45-60 minute practice - is that correct? If so, then how can these be considered effective practices?
You can train some general athletic skills with a ball and train some soccer specific skills without a ball. The USYSA recommended games for the little tikes are recommended because they teach general athletic skills. Oh no. I just double checked on the USYSA site. It is changed. They now have recommended drills instead of games for U6. And its the same drills for U6 as recommended for U8. I give up trying to keep up with what they are thinking.
I played a fair amount of American football (i.e. with the pointy ball) as a kid, where I was often looking to evade tackles in some capacity. I don't think this transfers well to soccer, because you need to allow for extra space in soccer for the ball to be in front of you, without getting tackled away. In football, you can get closer to the defender than you can in soccer.
True, good point, but I used the version of the drill without the ball simply to demonstrate that you can fool someone into going one way and then go the other way. Once they see this work without the ball, they understand the point of employing moves like stepovers to trick the defender.
I transferred a lot of what I learned about passing and pass defense and running to soccer. While the ball is on the foot rather than in the hand, the visual cues, decision making, timing and execution are essentially similar. For the defender, it is exactly the same. I also transferred what I learned about running pass routes to off the ball movement and dribbling. Not just body fakes, but the trick of shortening your stride, but maintaining your step-rate, to reduce your movement rate while maintaining the ability to rapidly accelerate by lengthening the stride without giving the normal visual clues associated with acceleration or deceleration. A high foot-strike rate is very helpful to dribbling through traffic, just as it is helpful in running pass routes.
Dcole - Gotcha. rca2 - Some interesting ideas there, n I never heard about the shorter stride trick ... love it! Reminds me of seeing an older high school player slow down, lulling the defender, and then blazing past with a burst of speed. Wonder if that's how it was done .
That is exactly how it was done. By using the correct technique, a slower receiver can "blaze" by a faster pass defender. Just by shortening stride and then accelerating.
I'm not one to blindly follow everything that's in print.... but there was a lot of research, thought, and professional expertise that went into the USSF and USYS youth curriculums. Even FIFA's 11+ talks about the importance of GMA for injury prevention. I think they are on pretty solid footing with their recommendations and should be taken seriously. What are the possible consequences of failing to address basic athletic movements in youth players? How many youth, high school, and college coaches passed on correcting, or didn't care to address, RG3's broad jump because it wasn't football specific? Are you making sure your players, especially your females, can properly jump and land? To answer to original post - I shoot for 50% general movement activities, 50% activities with a soccer ball. From session to session it usually varies between 40 and 60%. I usually scaffold my activities, run it a few times without a ball so they understand the rules and objectives, maybe throw in a twist with a GMA (for example must bunny hop while playing tag), and then finally add in a ball.
I guess you guys talked me into it. my 6-7 year olds do at least some GMA in practice, mostly that involves something to do with exercise/running, these kids run faster without the ball at their feet and they need to get in shape for the season, we do plenty of activities where everyone has a ball though.
6-7 year olds need to get in shape for the season?? How much do you think you can do with 10 minutes of GMA out of your once a week hour long practice? First off, the players would get in shape for soccer faster by playing soccer - 1v1 or 2v2 games. Second, you don't need to worry about conditioning for players this age. Third, you're not going to impact any player/person with only one or two hours a week of activity. I still stand by my belief that they would get more out of playing tag around the playground equipment for 10 minutes than doing organized activities with me. Note - we actually do play tag a lot of times after practice with whoever sticks around and it's great fun.
I guess you'd have to see my specific kids and situation at these last practices. darn near every assumption you made is off. thanks for trying.
I'm pretty sure some of these kids don't get much exercise outside of soccer practice. and for some, putting a ball at their feet is like tying an anchor to them. I'm sure it will improve as we go along, long story short, my help has been absent for several practices so far and I've had to scrap some things I would have worked on. I hate making kids stand in line.
He is not making assumptions. At that age you focus on teaching fundamental techniques. All athletic training can be viewed in terms of teaching movements. The GMA exercises are about teaching how to do fundamental movements without the ball. Consider it speed and agility training, not endurance training. Tag is an excellent exercise because it involves random varied movements, decision making, and visual cues. We use tag variations with the ball to teach related soccer specific movements.
I guess I should call what I do speed and agility training, that would be a better description. I do hope for more stamina. Stamina was a problem last spring and I'm still concerned about it.
of course, the games where stamina was a problem were also the games certain kids were out of town (or playing tball) I hope fall is better.
Venting a little here, but also looking for some input. I love my U11 son's coach. He's a great person and a good coach. He's a grown man in his 40s, is in his college Hall of Fame as a player and has a C license and many years of coaching experience. I picked my son and his friend up from practice last night and asked what they worked on. They said they played a tag game, a shooting drill and a scrimmage with wingers on the outside of the field playing crosses in. I was curious about the tag game so I asked them to describe it. They said it was "blob tag" played without a soccer ball. Two kids lock arms and try to run around and tag the other kids. Again, no soccer ball involved in the drill, at all. My son said "It's fun! We play it in PE all the time!" Best I culd tell, they played the game for maybe 20 minutes out of the 90 minute practice. I asked if the coach explained why they were playing this game and what it meant to soccer, and they said no. I probed into what they thought about how it might relate to soccer and they couldn't come up with anything. Nor could I, really, though I didn't tell them that. Their best guess was that it was just for fun. Of course, I was careful not to let the tone of my questions imply that I disapproved of the drill, but I thought to myself that this was a waste of practice time. First of all, as my son noted, the kids already play games like this in PE class. Second, if you are doing the drill to try and teach something to the kids (which I hope is the case), why not tell them what the point of the drill is? So, what is the point of that drill? I could maybe understand it if the kids who were not "it" had soccer balls and had to dribble away from the "blob." But even that seems like it would be more appropriate for 5 year olds than for 10-11 year olds. It's not like the rest of the practice time was spent on super-technical and mentally exhausting drills, such that the kids simply needed a break in the form of a fun drill. The rest of the practice was spent taking shots on goal and scrimmaging, both of which are already really fun for the kids. I've made my thoughts on GMA pretty clear in this thread and others (i.e., I think it's a waste of time), but I'm trying to have an open mind about this. Can someone explain why you would do a drill like this?
I think 20 minutes is probably too long for this activity but I do not see a problem with the activity itself. I would have the kids using a ball some how (in fact I have used tag games similar to this before) but the main thing is that the kids are moving. They are changing speeds, direction and of course enjoying themselves which starts things off on a high note and hopefully leads to a continued high as the practice moves on. They are warming up and going through many of the dynamic movements they will encounter while performing their soccer specific activities. like I said, 20 minutes is too much of this activity I think but it provides many benefits.
It is difficult to judge something like that out of context. Sometimes you pick activities for pyschological reasons. For example you might show up and find all the kids are down and need something to motivate them. So you skip the usual warmup and play a fun game. Team-building games also may seem unrelated to soccer, but very useful especially early in the season.
Exactly, developing camaraderie is an important part of team building. Also at times you want to break up the monotony with something they don't have to think too deeply about. I play tag games, but haven't done linked arms. Tag games are good for learning agility and changes of direction, but in a more soccer specific way I use it as another activity to teach defending. How to close down fast, then break down come under control, and "trap" an attacker. We start with one tagger then move onto two working together. Then we add a ball and the players that were getting chased now have to play keep away. It's the same principles for the chasers/defenders.
Nice progression from no ball to introducing a ball. So simple in hindsight but I had not thought of doing it at the same session. Makes it very easy to transfer the learning to a game, especially if you follow up with a normal progression to an unrestricted scrimmage.
Phase 1 is tag. First 1 chaser, then progress to 2 chasers. Make it competitive by timing how long it takes for all red players to tag or chase out of bounds a player on Blue. Phase 2 is keep away. First with 2 defenders, then 3 defenders. With the coach playing the ball in. This can be timed as well (see how long it takes the pairs or trios to each win possession twice). Or add a twist by saying if the Blue team gets 7 passes then Red gets a 30-second time penaly. Can also make it into an endzone game where Blue can score by playing a teammate into Red's grid. Yes, progress to a normal scrimmage after. I usually set the width to be about 3-5 yards from the touchlines, so the players can get a good feel for playing the full width and how to make it difficult to defend when you are wide. The other thing is that my boys are starting to learn how they can effectively defend with less players IF everyone is working together. We don't have enough for a full scrimmage, so I had them playing 7v5 and the 5 were dominating play on both sides.
Now I'll restate the general premise of my post, without the confusion of responding to something no one said! If I were going to start with a GMA to progress into a game of keep away, I would start with the kids playing keep away by throwing and catching the ball, including a rule that you cannot throw the ball directly over the head of the defender (since you can't really do that very effectively in a small area with your feet, unless you are insanely skilled). Come to think of it, I may even try this with my U6 team, where I am just starting to introduce the concept of passing the ball. (As an aside, although I'm not a fan of using practice time for GMAs that really should be learned outside of soccer practice (like how to balance on one foot), I generally like the idea of progressing quickly from an activity without a ball to an analog activity with a ball in order to help the kids understand the point of the exercise.)
Horst Wein has that ("hand ball keep away") in one of his books as a progression for possessing the ball, IIRC. 4v1 or so.