Practice Days and Length
We have a debate going on amongst my coaches and parents about what days to practice and the length of practice. I grew up playing football in Texas, so I am definitely an old school football coach with regards to discipline and respect but embrace many of the new proven training techniques.
Our midget football league allows us to practice 3 days a week for two hours each practice and we have Saturday games. If we do not have a game, we can practice 4 days that week. We cannot practice on Sunday. The last two football seasons we practiced on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. All three practices have the same intensity. I like Friday practices, because our games are Saturdays, and the young players do not forget much between Friday night and Saturday. Many of our parents do not want to practice Friday nights. They believe it is too hard on the kids to practice Friday and play Saturday. I tend to disagree because the youth football players are 10 years old and have tons of energy. But, with any debate there is always some truth to both sides. To address the Friday practice issue this year and try something new, our Friday practices will be lite walk-thru practices in Shorts, Helmets, and Shoulder Pads. If all goes well, I will probably shorten the Friday practice to 90 minutes.
What has been your experience with practice days and length of practices? I would love to hear from you. Please click on Comment / Reply below and let me know what you think.
Have a great season. Play for Fun and Winning is Funner.
Coach,
We go Monday, Tuesday the Thursday. We don’t think there is much of a drop off in having a few days off before the game. We play on Sundays.
We don’t like practicing on Wednesdays, many kids here have church activities that night, we don’t practice on Fridays because of High School football and we don’t like practicing on Saturdays becuase many around here start their Husker college football day fairly early.
We only go 2 hours. Our competition often practices 5 days a week, but it hasnt hurt us much, 78-5 last 8 seasons going this route, with happy parents. After the first game we only practice on Mondays and Thursdays.
Steve,
We practice Mon,Tues,Thurs I work them pretty hard those 3 days and feel they can use the rest more than having a fri practice will accomplish. I also use thursday for mostly special teams and a walk through. We try to have the kids watch game film from our last game on fridays if possible at home with thier parents. I want to try and have a game film night but with only having 3 practices a week we really don’t have time.
Steve
Coach we have a Team rule no pads day before a game and day after a game . We play Sundays so Fri is a go for us . We go tues,thurs,fri and a lite walk through saturday. I know we have had good results with this approach .
We practice 4 times a week… Mon-Thurs… Then we play games on Sat… All equipment is used for practice from day two of the season til the end.