Wednesday, May 14, 2008

My continued dislike of the endzone drill and box drill

I'm coming back to this topic (see Seattle on trial) after letting it slide for a while (mainly because there are too many teams running the endzone drill at the Open Tour), but I want to reemphasize how both the endzone drill (or Seattle as we call it in Toronto) and the box drill should not be your goto warm up drills before a game or a tournament. They're not bad drills for beginners at practices, but they're not great warmup drills.

Pictured Above: Torontula at 2006 Easterns warms up with a huck drill with a soft mark. Tolya watches his throw.

My reasons:
  • Too little touches including throws and catches. Approximately 30 seconds between throws on a team of 14
  • Artificial cuts with no pressure
  • No marking during throws
  • Even the best end zone plays don't work that way as much as we all wished it would
  • Too much standing around
What do you do instead? I'm not sure since each team is different, but stop doing the box and the endzone drill. Look at some leading teams and take note of their warmups.

For example this is a few drills that some of the Open teams do:
  • Clapham's pair throwing with challenging throws including airballs and fastballs
  • Johny Bravo's mini scrimmages
  • Michigan's mark, cut, and throw drills
  • EMO's dump and huck drill
  • UBC's breakforce 45 drill
There's lots of other options out there. Think about what your team does on the field and warmup that way. If you're offense relies on breaks or opponents break you then practice breaks and marking them. If you have lots of huckers, then practice hucking. If you play a handler centric small game offense then play some small field mini-games.

Innovate...pass it on

PJ

6 comments:

ellsworthless said...

I would tend to agree with this. Also, I think everyone is so used to the endzone drill, that it doesn't prime anyone mentally for the game coming up.

Unknown said...

Would anyone mind giving a brief description of what those drills look like?

Unknown said...

Just to clarify, I'm referring to the list below:

* Clapham's pair throwing with challenging throws including airballs and fastballs
* Johny Bravo's mini scrimmages
* Michigan's mark, cut, and throw drills
* EMO's dump and huck drill
* UBC's breakforce 45 drill

H2AZ said...

I do like to use a box drill (not by itself but as part of a larger warmup) in situations where there is a prevailing wind. I find it helps players adjust their throwing mechanics for the wind conditions better than just static throwing does.

TonyT said...

I'm interested too. Any explanations ofpjckzzh these?
---------------------------
* Clapham's pair throwing with challenging throws including airballs and fastballs
* Johny Bravo's mini scrimmages
* Michigan's mark, cut, and throw drills
* EMO's dump and huck drill
* UBC's breakforce 45 drill

Peter Andrew Jamieson said...

I leave the description of the drills to the teams that in some way have a patent on them.

More importantly, watch what good teams do to warmup. Think about what they are doing, and emulate the best bits.

PJ