Why do Coaches Use so Many Running Drills?

[Poose]

My 16 year old daughter plays on a select team and also for her high school. Her high school coach will have several practices in a row where they NEVER touch a ball, no ball is even brought to practice. All they do is run. Distances, sprints, whatever.

I go to the park and see teams practicing and they run drill after drill without a ball.

Why is this considered good coaching? I coach my son's 6th grade team and we can go through an entire 2 hour practice and EVERY drill involves passing or dribbling or some kind of ball control skill.

As a coach, we are there to teach. Making kids run is not teaching them anything about the game os soccer, IMHO. I saw a select coach standing in the middle of the field with a stopwatch as his team ran laps hollering "FASTER, FASTER". Is this coaching?

Any thoughts?

[fidlerre]

Originally posted by Poose
My 16 year old daughter plays on a select team and also for her high school. Her high school coach will have several practices in a row where they NEVER touch a ball, no ball is even brought to practice. All they do is run. Distances, sprints, whatever.

I go to the park and see teams practicing and they run drill after drill without a ball.

Why is this considered good coaching? I coach my son's 6th grade team and we can go through an entire 2 hour practice and EVERY drill involves passing or dribbling or some kind of ball control skill.

As a coach, we are there to teach. Making kids run is not teaching them anything about the game os soccer, IMHO. I saw a select coach standing in the middle of the field with a stopwatch as his team ran laps hollering "FASTER, FASTER". Is this coaching?

Any thoughts?

agreed.

if you want them to run to get in shape fine, but have them run the field wth a ball at their feet the whole time, dribbling back and forth from foot to foot...

[UncleSam527]

You can get into shape without just running. A simple full field scrimmage will do that.

PS Running is no fun by itself.

[Manifesto]

These coaches are from the "Rocky"-school of coaching....yes, complete with full-on flashbacks of Apollo Creed running wind-sprints on the beach....

Anyways, I can understand a bit of conditioning practice during certain instances of the season, but the best way to get into game shape is making sure that nearly every drill/scrimmage is played at full-pace....

[uniteo]

and in a game, the ball can run for you.

[Richie]

Every practice without the ball? Bad coaching, you don't need any ball skills to play without the ball. Maybe he can't teach skills that involve the ball.

I guess he truly does take the money and run.

Richie

[JohnW]

Originally posted by Poose
...As a coach, we are there to teach. Making kids run is not teaching them anything about the game os soccer, IMHO. I saw a select coach standing in the middle of the field with a stopwatch as his team ran laps hollering "FASTER, FASTER". Is this coaching?


Select coach: It's coaching, just probably not good coaching--then again, I don't really know this coach, what else he does in practices, what results he gets, etc.

High school coach: I honestly can't imagine why a coach would hold multiple practices (or even one practice) without having the kids touch the ball--especially a high school team.

So, I would tend to agree that's poor coaching.

This, of course, is one reason why your better players often value club participation more than playing in high school. They realize that their development is sometimes hindered (or certainly not helped or accelerated) by the coaching there.

Your team: Kudos for having your son's team combine conditioning with touches on the ball. At that age level, I would assert that they need the touches as much or more than the conditioning.

jgw

[saabrian]

Originally posted by Poose
I saw a select coach standing in the middle of the field with a stopwatch as his team ran laps hollering "FASTER, FASTER". Is this coaching? Any thoughts?

Amen. I posted a thread to this effect earlier this week. I believe that within the context of practice, they can do most running with the ball at their feet. It gives them the cardio AND gives them more ball touches which all players can use.

[Native Aztexan]

If I was a coach, I want the kids to learn dribbling, passing, controling the ball and shooting as well as having mini 5v5 or 3v3 games. Running all day without the use of the ball takes away the creativity and technical skills needed for a soccer player. It also takes away the fun and joy of playing the beautiful game.

[soccrgrlk13s8]

Coming from a current youth player, I enjoy drills where you run with the ball. Just like you all have said, one cannot play soccer without the skills.
We are expected to run in the offseason and come into the season in shape. For preseason, I agree with a few fitness tests. It shows the coach how dedicated and hard working a player is if they come into the season in good shape. Fitness can also push a player mentally. That can help late in a game when a player doesn't want to make that run upfield or recover on defense, but pushes his/her self to do it.
It also helps the team aspect, because, at least in the practices I have been a part of, the players are all encouraging each other to keep working hard. It instills the value that a player will not only work hard for themselves but for the team they're on as well.

Now I certainly do not agree with whole practices without touching the ball, that's ludacris. Some fitness though, is very beneficial.

[blech]

Originally posted by soccrgrlk13s8

Now I certainly do not agree with whole practices without touching the ball, that's ludacris. Some fitness though, is very beneficial.

My first priority is always to get plenty of time with the ball. On recreation and club teams where you only practice one, two, or three times a week, I frankly don't think there is enough time, so I would want to spend as much as possible with the ball attached to their feet.

In my experience, the school situation may be slightly different because then you often get 5 days of practice per week. Again, ballwork is most important in my mind, and with good drills will encompass a lot of endurance training, but I can recall about 20 minutes of practice in high school being devoted to running. We'd go in 2 lines around the field, sprint from the back to the front, switch directions and sprint 10 yards, sprint from midfield to the end then jog again, sprint the dreaded diagonal, etc. We'd also occasionally get sent on 1 mile jogs (for time). I hated it, of course, but I was always in the best shape at the end of these seasons and it showed in my game performance.

I see value in it, but because of time I'd work on skills first myself.

[pething101]

One thing I have decided to do is to always have conditioning with a ball. Whether it is sprinting with a ball and constant reversing with it or two man one touch wall passes for 30 yards or so.

The only time they really run w/o the ball is punishment ... my kids have a tendancy to raise thier hands in the box on high balls. So when that occurs they run wind sprints w/o the ball.

[dolphinscoach]

A few (very few) drills where the ball is not featured can be useful in helping to develop off-the-ball skills. Simple back-and-forth running where the kids run 1/2-speed, 3/4-speed, and full-speed helped me (back in my more serious playing days) in game situations when I was trying to create space and/or save energy (and helped me late in games realize that, even though I felt like I was going all out, I really had another gear). I have been amazed at the number of guys I have played against who always go full-speed--makes them easier to mark, and they often tire out. Also, it often works wells to introduce drills that focus on diagonal, overlapping and checking runs with a first stage that does not use a ball (so that the players can get used to the runs without the distraction of bad passes, difficult traps, etc.), but a ball should be introduced before too long.

A whole practice without touching the ball, though. Sheesh! My guess is that the high school coach may not have played much soccer, but is trying to adapt what he remembers from football or basketball. It is not uncommon for a school to assign a coach to a sport with which he has little familiarity if the sport is not a priority.

[firstshirt]

I coached high school up until this year. In preseason when we have two adays I have gone almost an entire practice without taking the balls out of the bag. However that was during two adays and in preseason. I would not do it during the season. We did have conditioning days when we devoted much of the practice during the season to conditioning but those practices always ended in full field scrimages. Trying to do plyometrics and other conditioning drills with a ball just don't work as well.

[JohnW]

Originally posted by firstshirt
...Trying to do plyometrics and other conditioning drills with a ball just don't work as well.

Sounds good, but with one variation:

I always have my players do some simple touch passing drills, air dribbling, etc. in between sets of plyo and/or other conditioning work.

It helps the players train themselves to make good touches on the ball when they are tired, helps train them mentally to make good decisions (also when they are tired) and can break up the monotony.

jgw

[Poose]

Originally posted by firstshirt
Trying to do plyometrics and other conditioning drills with a ball just don't work as well.

What are plyometrics? I've never heard of that term.

[BackOtheNet!]

Maybe some of these coaches who believe the whole game is about fitness and running should watch Carlos Valderama.

[nsa]

As my Brasilian teammates love to sayThe amount of running is inversely proportional to the amount of skill.:)

And speaking for myself, my running speed is directly proportional to the size of whatever it is that's chasing me. ;)

Back to the topic.

I try never to do anything without a ball. Pushups with hands on the ball, bringing the chest to the ball. Tai chi-style warm-up movements holding the ball overhead and to the sides with neck and torso rotations. Stretches where you roll the ball around the outside of the spread feet. Pairs-passing sprints. One or two lap "indian runs" holding a ball overhead the entire time.

Know the ball. Love the ball.

[SoccerDale]

Originally posted by Poose
My 16 year old daughter plays on a select team and also for her high school. Her high school coach will have several practices in a row where they NEVER touch a ball, no ball is even brought to practice. All they do is run. Distances, sprints, whatever.

I go to the park and see teams practicing and they run drill after drill without a ball.

Why is this considered good coaching? I coach my son's 6th grade team and we can go through an entire 2 hour practice and EVERY drill involves passing or dribbling or some kind of ball control skill.

As a coach, we are there to teach. Making kids run is not teaching them anything about the game os soccer, IMHO. I saw a select coach standing in the middle of the field with a stopwatch as his team ran laps hollering "FASTER, FASTER". Is this coaching?

Any thoughts?

Exactly, guess what my older son's paid trainer said to his team after a poor performance in a tournament, "Don't bring your ball to practice." They can't pass, dribble, shoot or play soccer but he wants them to improve running?! I like the one quote I read in Bobby Howe and Tony Waiters coaching books, "If you want to get better at billiards you don't run laps around around the table... (or to that effect)" That applies to everything. If you want to get better at soccer, you play soccer, you don't run laps around the pitch. I might use shuttle runs as a punishment for laziness or for correcting attitude problems, or "Indian Sprints" as a time maker for me to reset the pitch for the next drill but I certainly don't waste the precious time I have with them running laps. I have more important things to work on.

[gerr18]

im a sophmore college player, just turned 19...and my coach did a good bit of fitness during the preseason...but now we are in season...we rarely do running unless we have a day off and he may tell us that he wants us to go for a light jog and stretch in order to get rid of soreness the day after a game or something. the only time we do any fitness is when we have like a week between games, those first 2 days are usually hell. but in the end, it makes me mentally stronger...so i guess it does some good.

but i dont think practice time should be spend running...thats something that i do in my own time...during the summer...i have my conditioning that i do and keep myself fit so that coach won't have to do running drill after running drill. i thought that was the point of the off season...to work on fitness. besides...even during the summer...i played pdl and that kept me incredibly fit.