2 Day Per Week Practice

[RoyalFlush18]

Anyone other than Cisar running 2 Days a Week Practice after school starts.

I have been toying with this idea (I have 8's, no Kicking Game/Special Teams in our league, next year). I'm split on my thoughts. Our numbers the last few years at the younger age groups have been down for various reason and I'm wondering if this might help improve them as a selling point. We go 3 days per week where other orgs go 5 that we compete against for players.

In Favor

Come October I'm pretty run down with the race to get home, grab a bite to eat, make sure homework is completed, get in the car and get to the field followed by the rush to get my son home, fed, showered and prepped for school in the AM. I assume other families feel similar at times. Families with multiple children in various sports/orgs face double/triple the work.

We generally went T,W,Th last season. I would like to break it up a bit and keep Wen open since for a percentage of the families this is traditionally a church night (Awana) and I can't look someone in the face and tell them Football is more important. Also the boys didn't seem very fresh come Thursday. Going twice a week might improve the quality of the practices or at the very least M,T,Th might accomplish the same.

Moving to a T,Th,Fr practice schedule would accomplish the same thing w/ only 2 school nights. We tried a couple of Friday Night Practices last year and I'm not really in favor of these as well since often we have early Saturday AM games with a 35 minute travel time....plus some older brothers playing HS ball and generally a lot of parents seem to like to keep their Fridays open myself included, getting home @ 9:00 and getting ready for a 8:00 AM game doesn't work.

Since we have no kicking game at this age I feel we should be able to do it no problem.

Against

I'm a coach and if you say I get 6 hours a week, I want my 6 hours.

The cost for Football is perceived to be high (if you do it by the hour it is lower than the other sports though, still way cheaper than paying a babysitter). Giving away 2 hours a week of practice or 16 to 24 hours of a course of a season is a lot of time that families have "paid for".

Any thoughts?

[mahonz]

Our league allows 8 hours per week at the 6th –7th and 8th grade levels. I have never done that and stayed at 6 hours. Seems plenty too me.

It really depends on you. If you can accomplish what needs to be accomplished in less time....do it. Its the one thing that is a grind when it comes to football....all that practice time for 8 games. Different with Baseball or Basketball. 

[CoachGugs]

We do 3 days a week.  I have thought about doing the 2 days a week like Dave and will considerate more after the clinic in Baltimore but our 3rd day is mostly a walkthrough.

[ZACH]

We have 3 - 2 padded, 1 walk through... Walk through might be eliminated not sure this year.

Last 4 weeks we had 1 prac a week and the boys were realky jazzed on game day

[Coach Ed]

Last year I coached 8-9yr olds. We practiced 4 days a week (1 3/4hr each practice) the first 4 weeks prior to the season. Once the season started, we only practiced twice a week. Mondays/Thursdays, games were on Saturday's. We ended up 7-1 and winning the championship. We also had no special teams. Just Offense/Defense. Kept it simple with (T-formation and 62/53 Defense.

 

[Tripwire]

At the 9-10-11 year we do 8 hours a week before school and 6 hours when school starts.  4 hours of pads and 2 hours of no pads (mon-wed-fri) after school starts.

[CoachGugs]

At the 9-10-11 year we do 8 hours a week before school and 6 hours when school starts.  4 hours of pads and 2 hours of no pads (mon-wed-fri) after school starts.

I would love to do our walkthrough on Fridays but the parents wouldn't want anything to do with it.

I think if we do walkthrough in an hour on Friday that might work...

[davecisar]

If you use your practice time efficiently, you can get 6 hours of stuff done in 4 hours easily
Priorities and Pace are the keys- makes me sick to my stomach all the time I see wasted at most youth practices
Maybe I just value time more than most

[CoachRCPT]

IMO, depends on if you have a select team and the number of players.  We had 40 kids last year, it was tough to get all of them reps in 8 hours.  If you have a 25 man roster, select team, that returns from year to year, twice a week 6 hours would be great. 

Having to play everyone that comes out and a roster of 40 makes it difficult.  If you are really working the MPPs and getting them equal reps I say you need the third day.  If you are using them a practice tools for the good players, I guess twice a week will work.

This year I want to try one day in full pads, one in shoulder pads, and one in helmets  once the season begins to see if we can keep the team healthier.  I know alot of the Moms are all for it.

[davecisar]

I could see how a 40 man roster would make it tough- but I wouldnt ever do that- split them into 2 teams of 20

In last 16 seasons Ive only coached select 1 year- for many of those years I stayed with the same age group- my kids aged up and on= 2 days a week can be done if your priorities are focused and pace is fast- When we do team defensive and offensive reps on air or even fits to coaches/dads with bags or cones/trash cans- first group does 1 rep= freeze- correct, realign- 11 new guys come in from sidelines- replace. We can do a rep every 15 seconds- 12 seconds later in the season- so everyone gets plenty of reps

On indy drills- small groups-1 rep every 6 seconds is about where we are at by midseason- - about 5 kids per group- so everyone gets at least 2 reps per minute

No set aside conditioning
No Cals- warm up combined with angle fit form tackles is 8 minutes
All water breaks are demos/lessons
It can be done in 2 practices per week- but the coaches are definitely hustling and sweat soaked by end of practice
Our coaches arent allowed to get into long deep drawn out discussions- speeches full of babble coach speak- we break it down to teachable coaching points, value time and be brief
Joe Cianflone won an AYF National Championship at the 8th grade level- blew everyone out- they werent select team- and practiced 4 hours a week after first game. It can be done= He was the AYF Coach of the year- VERY fast paced practices- from the 2 I saw anyways

[Belebuch]

Coach Dave, is this all broken down in your practice dvd?

[davecisar]

The daily practice plans are broken down in the book- many of the techs to squeeze time is too- some on the DVD as well- book is best place to start

[Belebuch]

Ill look it up in the book, still  ive always been more of a visual person on things such as this. Even if its just to get amother perspective.

Its just like i have your book so i know about your WT6. And after reading the book i know how i would go about the install but i still like to see how another coach would do it just so i may get a better insight of doing it. Especially from a more experienced HC.

[Pantherlinecoach]

My teams have done just fine with 4 hours a week.  (3 really, considering I usually only keep them for an hour and a half) Only if I am trying to install something new, and the kids are having a little trouble with it, will I keep them the entire 2 hour block that I schedule.  We are only allowed 2 days a week of practice after school starts.

[coachbreck]

We practice Mon Tue Thurs once school starts but we play a lot of games on tuesdays so we only get two practices once the season is in full swing, it's plenty.