Right Legged Thrust Football Speed Drill
In today’s video blog post, we are featuring a “Right Legged Thrust” speed drill that allows the athlete to build on just the right leg, resulting in a lot more explosiveness and power.
Legs
- The athlete brings the leg to the same level he would if running, using the same arm movement all the way through, but concentrating on just the right leg. This leaves the left leg for dead movement, acting as the balance and support all the way through the speed drill.
- Make sure the athlete is doing the thrust movement, bringing the right leg all the way up. The right leg is the power leg, and the left leg is the balance leg.
- Bringing the right leg up to the same level he would in a normal run allows him to apply a lot more stress and do more work on the one leg.
- You want to ensure the athlete is keeping that left leg just stiff enough to balance and go all the way through. You don’t want the athlete to put too much weight onto the left, because then it will not work the power leg as much as it should.
- You want to really work on getting that knee up and driving it through the plane of the body. The plane of the body is right at the hip level. So if the athlete can get that knee past the hip level, that allows him to drive that foot down and get a lot more power in his stride and work all the way through.
Arms
- Make sure the athlete really works on the backward mobility of the arm. The further the arm comes back, the more the leg comes up. So you really want to work on that flexing mobility. The muscles are just like rubber bands, allowed to stretch and expand, but they always retract to their original form.
- The right arm is the counterbalance weight of the right leg.
- As the athlete pushes all the way through and stresses that leg, that arm works the stress in the same way, giving a lot more motion to the arm, and a lot more mobility to the leg. This gives the athlete the opportunity to work one side of the body and concentrate the thrusting of the right leg.
What do you think of this speed drill? Like it? Love it? Can’t wait to try it with your athletes? Feel free to share your comments below! For more great speed drills, be sure to check out my Football Drills and Practice Plans series, complete with video demonstrations! And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more great speed drill suggestions!
