A Vital Skill Young Athletes are Never Taught

Lateral Speed

         I have attended many youth practices and so-called training sessions, and I’m always amazed how little if any time is spent on any type of movement training. Agility, balance, and coordination skills are foreign to most youth coaches, yet they are the key to a child’s future development as an athlete.  The overzealous nature of youth coaches to prepare their “pre-determined best athletes” to perform specific schemes in games in order to win, while ignoring every team members development of fundamental skills has seriously handicapped a majority of all young athletes today.

         The most underrated movement in sports is lateral technique. Athletes do not run and move predominantly in a straight line. Linear running speed is not nearly as important as lateral speed, in any sport, except on a track.  Soccer, football, lacrosse, baseball, and basketball players, are constantly moving laterally on an athletic field in order to get into position, avoid or defend an opponent, or make a play.  Yet, a majority, if not all young athletes are never trained in this movement.

         Over the course of every specific sport season, we will provide both coaches and parents with useful drills and self-measuring competitions for young athletes to use to develop their lateral speed.

         The following is one drill that applies to football, soccer, and lacrosse, yet could be used as a general lateral movement exercise in any sport.

DRILL/COMPETITION EQUIPMENT: Eight cones and a stopwatch.

DRILL/COMPETITION SET-UP: Arrange the eight cones over a 50-yard long by 20-yard wide area.  Place the first cone at one end of the 50-yard area as the starting line, place the next cone in a straight line 5-yards downfield, followed by the third cone placed 45 degrees and five yards to the right of the second cone. Continue placing the next 4 cones in the same sequence, with the eighth and final cone placed 10 yards downfield in a straight line from the seventh cone. (See Diagram)

DRILL EXECUTION: Each athlete must run to the first cone, plant their left foot, (by extending the foot and striking the ground, rather than dropping the left hip), followed immediately by laterally running (left foot lifting rapidly over the right) towards the third cone placed 45 degrees to the right of the second cone with hips and shoulders facing square up field. This same sequence of movements are repeated until reaching the seventh cone, where the athlete then plants with the right foot into a 10 yard spring to the finish (eighth cone). (See Diagram).

         Repeat drill by placing cones to the left of the original first cone and setting up in the same direction up field.

SELF-MEASURING COMPETITION: Time each athlete moving through the course a total of five times, recording the athletes best time as a standard by which he or she must attempt to beat the next time the competition is conducted.  Reward 2 points for every quarter second under the athlete’s personal best time. 

Remember that the course must be run correctly with the proper lateral movement of the feet and the athlete’s hips and shoulders positioned squarely up field.

For this and many more athletic movement drills and competitions for young athletes look for our the new book “Athletic Fitness for Kids”, by Scott Lancaster and Radu Teodorescu, published by Human Kinetics, and available through at bookstores and this web site, November 1st.