Kicking.com: Kicking Drills - Volume 2

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Kicking Drills - Volume 2
Billy Cundiff
Article posted on 3/25/2005

In the second part of the series, here are some more kicking drills that I find useful for improving my accuracy and consistency. Hopefully you'll find them useful as well.

7 yard No Step: For anyone who has seen me warm up, this drill has become part of my warmup every time I kick. The drill is your classic no step drill with a twist. I think that if you try to kick a field goal with no momentum, you are training in a way that is not anything like you really kick. I modified the no step so that it focuses only on contact, and doesn't force you to kick unnaturally.

Purpose: This drill improves kicking approach, accuracy and leg lock

Steps for this drill:

Have a partner stand seven yards away.
Take your holder and set the ball up exactly like you would for field goals.
Place your plant foot were you can comfortably make contact with the ball and still maintain balance. For me, I set my plant foot just a little farther back then I would normally on my field goals (probably six inches). After that, the drill is simple.
Try to lock on the ball and pass the ball to your partner. When you lock on the ball you should get a nice end over end ball flight, and the ball should hit your partner right around their shoulders.

There is a control factor involved, so this drill will also work on your accuracy. It's amazing that a small little drill like this can help out in so many ways.

Hope you find these drills useful and beneficial.

Angle Drill: For most of the offseason I try to teach myself to kick the ball straight. It sounds really simple and may even sound stupid, but that is the ultimate goal of field goal kicking: kick it straight and put it through the posts. Now granted, there will be times when you don't hit the ball straight and it goes through, but if you keep kicking like that, you will miss more than you make. One of my favorite ways to reinforce this concept is kicking field goals from the sideline, and creating a narrow post to kick at. For a wider post, kick any where from the 10 yard to the 20 yard line. The closer you are to the goal line, the smaller the target becomes. I think a good way to incorporate this into your kicking workout is to perform this drill early, that way when you go to kick your regular field goals the post will appear to be that much wider.

Purpose: This drill improves accuracy and consistency in placekicks

Here is a simple break down of the drill:

5 balls from each sideline
Start from the 20 yard line and with each make more five yards closer to the goal line. Ultimately, you will be kicking from the goal line and making all ten of your kicks.
when you can hit all ten of you kicks, then you know that you have mastered how to kick the ball straight.