Fitness Drill - Colour Cones

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FIRSTLY this can easily be done on football pitches! But as i wanna build up a library of BOTH FOOTBALL and FITNESS drills, i thought i'd try and keep fitness drills to 'inside basketball court like pictures'.

Set up:

Set out a number of coloured cones, and a start position. Make the area no more than 10x10!

The ideal area would be around 5x5 mark.

The aim here is not only to improve reaction times, but to increase explosive power in the acceleration and deceleration phase in players.

Drill:

(Pictured is only ONE set up) however you can easily have 2-3 on the go.

Players line up one at a time in starting place.

Coach calls out a coloured cone, players explode accelerating towards it, upon reaching the cone - tap the cone with their closest foot! 

Once the player touches the cone they BACKPEDAL! through the start gate, and then repeat the process for the next cone.

So as a coach it would go like this:

'YELLOW'

(as player is touching yellow cone)

'RED'

(player is STILL ONLY BACKPEDALLING at this time but once he goes across the starting line he/she already knows which cone to goto next)

- 30 seconds. 

- Players attempt to touch as many cones as possible

- Coach records players score for future reference

Progressions/Variations:

- Use VISUAL cues instead of verbal ie raise a certain coloured cone, forcing players to react visually instead of on verbal commands

- Multiply shouts - 'RED THEN YELLOW'

- Instead of touching the cones, players use quick feet momentum and run round the cones

- Hard to explain but great for manipulating the load and explode and eccentric phase. (Players jump in towards the cone in a one legged lunge! MAINTAINING balance and still on the same leg they've jumped/lunged into hold the one legged lunge for a split second then explode BACKWARDS out of it and backpedal as normal through the start gate. This technique exploiting the eccentric phase will cause DRAMATIC results in players lower legs strength and power BUT must be done carefully and correctly - Use this technique ONLY if that made sense! (i'll have to start doing videos to clearly demonstrate these drills)

Summary

A great drill for either a fitness session, a fitness TEST whether using it for pre-season etc. A fun drill to spice up training even.

- Improvement in reaction times

- Balance

- Co-Ordination

- Power

- Agility

- Speed (both acceleration and deceleration phase)

Thanks for reading... 

Zander

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