Combining Fitness and Passing

[siddus]

Hello all! Our season just got underway (3 points from our first match on saturday - yay!) My fellow team coach and I are wanting to continue working on getting the fitness of our squad up, as we can see they are still not at peak level, but our players would like to do more passing drills. Does anyone know any good drills that can incorporate a pass and move theme? We already have a variation of the 'close-quarters keep ball' which works their socks off but I'd like to be able to incorporate something that has more emphasis on the passing while still making them work to the bone.

Thanks in advance for any help you give!

[Val]

A simple gates passing drill would work.

Have lots of gates (two cones maybe a yard apart) spread out around half the field. Start out having your kids just pass the ball in pairs through a gate, focusing on receiving the ball with a touch to move the ball to the right and the left, and still passing the ball back to their partner through the gate. Next practice, warm them up doing this same drill, but then graduate to having the player receiving the ball move to another gate to pass the ball through his/her partner. If you focus on an explosive move out from the receiving player with his/her first touch, this is a drill that is very strenuous.

[siddus]

I probably should have mentioned this before, but this is a men's team, not a youth side.

Also, I'm not totalling sure what you mean. Perhaps you could upload a quick MSPaint sketch?

[Val]

I'd think this would still work. Worked for us at a clinic I went to over the summer, and we were all sucking wind.

[Chris Lutte]

siddus, we are just about to send out our next monthly newsletter and this is dedicated to fitness, so if you sign up now you should receive it when we send it out later.

http://www.grassrootscoaching.com/ne...newsletter.php