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Drill 1
Name:
Leg Lineup
Purpose:
To properly line up your punting leg with your drop arm and
football
Equipment:
A punter and an age appropriate football, coach or teammate if
available
Procedure:
-
Stand upright, relaxed.
Move your drop arm into a drop position.
I teach an underhand drop so this position will be with your
drop hand (right hand for right footed, left hand for left footed)
palm facing up.
-
Now, here’s the key –
move your drop arm down towards your punting leg.
Did your hand hit your thigh?
If not it should have. This
is probably one of THE most important steps to do, to start your drop
off correctly. I
encourage you to do this at the start of every practice session.
Your drop arm should line up with your punting leg so the ball
is dropped directly over your punting foot.
This will also teach you to swing your leg straight up into the
ball rather than trying to swing your leg to a ball that is dropped
from a different spot.
-
Add the football.
Place the football in your palm (which is facing up).
Angle the ball with the front point of the ball pointed
slightly towards your opposite leg.
-
Look at your drop position
– are your arm and the ball lined up directly over your punting leg?
To test, have a partner take away the ball.
Move your arm straight down towards your punting leg. Your hand should hit your thigh. If is doesn’t, adjust your hand/arm position and
replace the ball for a drop. Once
you have the correct position of the drop, look at and memorize where
that location is in reference to the rest of your body.
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Coaching
Points:
-
This sounds simple, but in
most cases the drop point of the arm will be lined-up with the center
of the punter’s body. They MUST get the drop over the punting leg.
Otherwise they will try to “swing” the leg towards the
center of their body to meet the ball.
Move the arm/ball – not the leg!
-
It helps if a fellow punter,
teammate or coach is available to watch and line-up the drop in this
drill. Sometime the
punter can’t tell if their arm/ball is lined up with their leg.
-
Until they can line-up the
drop every time, make them run through this drill at least twice
before starting warm-ups and full-speed punting.
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