There are numerous drills to improve the speed of your team and ensure that every player performs at their full potential. These drills are an important part of training and can be used as team-building exercises too, fostering a spirit of healthy competition and creating cohesiveness within a team. Building a team spirit starts with something as simple as the Football Kits or rugby kits that are worn. You can find many examples at places like www.kitking.co.uk. Once you have your players looking like a team, the next step is to get them thinking and playing like a team.
Coaches may incorporate speed-boosting drills into a warm-up or base whole training sessions on helping players improve their speed and response time.
Starting with Sprint Theory
When looking at ways to make your team move faster, you’ll need to think about how a runner approaches a 100m sprint. Acceleration is essential, as is agility, and there are five key elements that can be introduced to give players speed a boost.
Accelerate
Acceleration is crucial, and players can learn how to move faster by moving their feet quickly and gradually increasing the length of their stride. A player who is able to accelerate at a rapid pace will have the edge.
Maximise Speed
In a contact sport such as rugby, speed is essential as it’s what keeps players from being tackled and losing the ball. Drill options may include teaching players how to mimic sprinting or how to speed up acceleration and maintain it. In football speed is also important in order to travel with the ball away from the defenders.
Reaction Techniques
The ability to react to a situation quickly can improve a player’s performance, and quick reaction skills can be honed with training. Often team players have a way of indicating their intentions to other players, and they have to pick up cues and act quickly. The better a player’s reaction time, the easier it will be for them to communicate with each other mid-game.
Directional Ability
The ability to suddenly change direction is essential, and sports drills that teaches this can be invaluable. Players should be able to stop and turn around in seconds, and by practising this they can throw their opponents off and play a better game. The element of surprise is one that can be used to great effect on the sports field, and this is a skill that can be learnt too.
Endurance
An essential in all sports, endurance can be built up during training, and this can improve speed too, as the stronger the player, the faster they can perform and the quicker their reaction time.
