Active Warm-Ups without a Ball

No.1 - Court Laps

The Set Up: Working with any number of players, players pair up and number themselves 1 and 2. 1’s and 2’s then create 2 separate lines either side of the goal post at one end of the court. Both lines work on their side of the court.

The Practice: Both lines run along the backline, running away from each other, up the side of the court and along the far back line where the pairs meet. Pairs then work together moving down the centre of the court using different footwork patterns each time. This could be high skips, high knees, crossover step, jumps, running forward and back. Each time the pairs meet, 1 player shows the footwork pattern and their partner is to follow.

This practice slowly warms up the player, helps fitness and gets players focused on thinking of the activities for themselves.

Teaching Points

• Teacher led (Teacher giving the instructions for footwork) or player led (player making own decision)
• Allow the players to decide on different footwork patterns so they get used to making decisions and other players reacting to those decisions
• Make sure players are thinking of the footwork on their sideline run
• Ensure players perform the footwork at 100%
• Players can perform footwork for the whole court, 2/3 of court of 1/3 of court
• Try and get players to think of some fun footwork patterns as well as ‘the norm’

Common Errors:-

• Player ‘faffs’ at start of the warm up so the level of performance of footwork is affected