Health & Medical sports & Exercise

Enhancing Middle SchoolSports Offensive

Prevent fumbles with strong techniques

One of the fundamental aspects of running with a football is ball security. Football teams have lost many games because a couple of players were lax in there ball carrying and fumbled the football. Basic ball security can be broken down into four steps. The first point is the claw, meaning that your fingers are wrapped over the tip of the football. The second point is your forearm wrapped around the ball and shielding it from the defense. The third point is securing the other point of the football with your bicep making sure that it is right up against it. The final point is keeping the football high and tight against the ribcage. Practice holding the football and having defensive players try and knock out the football by any means possible. By reducing the risk of a fumble you will increase the offensive strength in effectively driving across the field and scoring touchdowns.

Building your muscles and endurance through Weightlifting

Lifting weights is a fundamental requirement to improve your football skills. The benefits of lifting weights are found in added strength, but more importantly it will increase your maximum power. Maximum power differs in importance to strength due to the fact that it is exertion during play and not just muscle mass. It is the quickness and exertion that will enable a football player to accomplish their plays with skill on the field. We highly recommend working with a personal trainer when weightlifting to insure that you are doing it properly, and to help you design a program that will fit your position.

Hand off drill

Drills practicing fundamentals like an effective hand offs can make the difference between a mediocre team and an excellent one. This drill requires more than one player; it starts off with two lines, line A and line B, the front of each line facing each other a couple of yards apart. A player leaves line A with the football and runs at line B. At the same time a player leaves line B, and when they meet in the middle Player A hands off the ball to Player B. At the point of the hand off another player leaves line A and runs towards player B, who hands off the ball to the new player. The motion should be constantly moving from one line to another in this drill, almost like a juggling pattern. Practice this drill every day to ensure that your running backs are effective on their hand offs.

Basics to football hand offs

Learning the basics in a handoff is essential to a strong offense. We will explain this in a common scenario between a quarterback and a running back. A running back at the start of a hand off should give the quarterback a target by opening up his arms that are in front of his chest enough to allow about one and a half footballs in. When the running back receives the football he clamps down both arms hard on the football to protect it. Now that the running back has the ball when he leaves the quarterback he should remain low to the ground in order to react quickly on the field.


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