Kicking Drills

So you have the basics of kicking, are able to kick field goals, and now you are trying to fine tune the art. So what types of kicking drills can you do to improve your accuracy, distance, height?

As a young kicker, starting in 8th grade, I always wanted to just go out and kick and never work on the kicking drills. I thought kicking 30+ field goals was good enough and I would magically improve the more I kicked.

While kicking field goals is crucial in practice, you can actually do more bad than good kicking too many footballs. Think of it kind of like a pitcher in baseball. Pitcher’s have pitch counts and do not pitch every day in practice. This is so they do not wear out their arm, begin to form bad habits and prevent injury. The same rules apply to kicking.

You should kick no more than 30 full-step field goals on an intense day, while focusing on each individual kick.

Your 30 field goals went pretty quick, now what do you do?

When I got to college I really started to understand that more field goals is not the solution, but rather to focus on smaller aspects of the kick.  I would warm up, kick my allotted field goals for the day and move on to less strenuous kicking drills.

My most productive days at practice were filled with kicking drills.

I noticed that I could actually pinpoint my problem areas on kicking and used specific kicking drills to improve.

My entire philosophy that kicking more field goals was they way to go had been thrown out the window when I figured out I could get more quality repetitions on drills.

With that said, if you are going to work your ‘charting session’ in the same day as you run your kicking drills, just make sure you focus on your charting session while your leg is as fresh as it’s going to be!

The worst thing we can do is run an hour of kicking drills, only to chart our accountability kicks (or yourself or for your coach) when our legs are dog tired.  Remember, you’ll never kick in a game with legs that feel like rubber, so don’t do it in practice.

Which kicking drills should I do?

There are countless kicking drills you can do to work on just about any aspect of kicking. If you are not hitting the ball cleanly and do not have the correct end-over-end rotation, then work on some contact kicking drills.

If your steps are inconsistent, simply work on taking your steps back and over.

Placing out the Scott’s Triangle (referenced throughout our video library) can be a very useful tool for many kicking drills as well.

There are really too many drills to mention and describe in a short blog post, so visit our “Drills” section under field goals or kickoffs for more detailed information.

Remember the pitcher analogy. Keep your sessions light to prevent injury and do not try to be a hero and kick more than everyone else. Trust me, you will come out ahead by focusing on each individual kick and not over kicking.

TIP: If kicking drills bore you, try doing two or three reps of a kicking drill between each kick. For example, I like to do two follow through drills between each kick. This gives me the feel of the correct follow through right before I actually kick a ball.