Football warmup for kids?

[Allen Yeh]

I volunteered to be an asst. coach for flag football that my 8-year old is playing. I've never coached much of anything before this so it's all pretty new to me. The teams coach has coached little league so at least he knows a bit more than I do.

I was wondering what would be an appropiate warmup for kids in the age groups of 5-8? I realize these kids are still getting the coordination thing down so anything like a walking lunge with a twist might not be the best idea.

With the entire flag league they had been doing stuff like jumping jacks, pushups, hurdlers stretch, hamstring stretches and then a quick lap around the field.

I was thinking of:

1. lunge - alternating legs with the workup to walking lunges
2. hand walks - start with legs straight-walk hands out into a good plank position then walk back in (if that's easy then moving the feet to catch upo wiuth the hands)
3. sideways lunge - first stationary to work up to moving.
4. jumping jacks
5. pushups - real ones not these 1/8 types
6. 1 lap around the field

I know my 8 year old could handle all that but I'm not soi sure about the younger kids?

Input would be appreciated. thanks!

[Steve Shafley]

Keep it fun and movement based.

Forwards high knee skipping
Sideways shuffling
Backwards skipping

Get elbows and knees moving.

The have them do stuff like bear crawls, crab crawls, "clocks" (have them get into a push up position and walk around in an arc)

All kinds of hops, forwards, backwards, sideways.

[Mike ODonnell]

might get some good ideas from here
http://www.coreperformance.com/wowArchive.php?p=1&s=2

[Coach Rutherford]

Since I spent 10 years as a kid coach I will tell you that they could not pull a muscle if you paid them.

I always believed it was my job to teach them American Football. The conditioning-fitness improvement was for another time.

I spent every minute with a watch to time the periods. We spent time repping blocking, tackling (in your case flag yanking), running with a football, catching a football and passing. Repeat.

IMO-our job is to send them to their respective middle school/high schools with outstanding fundamentals.

[Derek Simonds]

I am with Coach Rut. I have coached tball and little league for the last 4 years. The best warmups we did were skill specifc warmups. Make sure that whatever you do keep it fun. Kids have a very short attention span so keep it varied and fun.

Not having ever coached football a couple of ideas come to mind.

Start with some jumping jacks

Have the kids line up facing each other and have them run across grab a flag and sprint back to their side.

Have them run cone drills square, shuffle, side to side.

Have them chase each other inside a square trying to get the flag. they can't just run in a circle they have to run from cone to cone.

Almost any basic skill can be used to warm them up.

Above all else make sure you are having fun as the kids can tell and will emulate your attitude towards practice and the game.

[Allen Yeh]

Thanks for the ideas guys I guess I'll probably just keep it as simple and as fun as p[ossible while trying to work the fundamentals.

[Derek Simonds]

Allen how is practice going?

[Allen Yeh]

Allen how is practice going?

Since I posted all this stuff, we've had 1 practice and 1 game(which they lost by 4) I wasn't able to make it to the game because of the Army board in PA. Just trying to keep it less structured and more fun. They seemed to take to it pretty well at practice on Thursday.

I would however like to nail down their push-up form since I would prefer they learn the correct way now than get corrected at some later point in time (or maybe not at all)!

Thanks for the ideas guys.