How to improve your kicking technique in the off-season

During the off-season is the best time to work on your fundamentals before next season. The following article will go through the main steps in working on your kicking technique.

If you would like further help with your kicking and other skills for that matter, why not come and try our Skills Sessions this term or holiday programs?

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How to improve your kicking technique

Kicking needs to be worked on throughout all levels of Junior Footy. After watching some local senior footy on the weekend I was again surprised to see so many adults kicking with bad technique. The main problems I saw were;

Two hand ball drop
High Ball Drop
Tossing the ball up slightly to kick
Kicking across the line of the ball
Ball not spinning properly

These issues can all be fixed throughout the junior development stage, and as coaches one of your goals should be to leave players with better skills than what they can into to the year with.

Main focus

The biggest thing we need to work on with our players is the ball drop. The ball drop accounts for most players ability to be a good kick or not.

The ball drop is made up of:

Grip
Alignment
Ball drop height
Ball drop position

Grip

Holding the ball correctly is important as it assists in getting the rest of the kick right. Players want to make sure they hold the ball with their hands on the outside of the ball. Then you want to tell your players to point the end of the ball to the ground (a lot of players will point it to where they want to kick it).

Alignment

Ensure you align the ball predominantly on their preferred kick side, trying to avoid swaying from left to right.

Ball drop height & position

The ball drop should be below the players hips, with their fingers pointing to the ground. The opposite arm then goes out to the side to assist in balancing. Getting your players to really understand the ball drop with significantly help their kicking.

How to add technique work into a session

During the warm-up phase of the session you can add some simple kicking (2 players one ball) to ensure plenty of volume. You can then go around to every player and asses their kick. Get players to try and hit a particular goal of kicking and marking 10 in a row, or count how many kicks they have had.

Additionally, before the session starts, players must do 100 kicks to themselves on each footy before training starts.

Throughout the training session, you can separate the group into smaller groups, and have one of those be a technique group. Remember, this is not limited to really young players, as a lot of players even up to the age of colts need to work on kicking technique.