Floorball has always been a quick game requiring individual skills combined in a team play. Today the pace of the floorball game and the speed in performance and the reduced time for decision making is the big difference compared to earlier.
Everything goes a little bit faster and quicker out in the rink and so does the thinking and decision making as well for the players.
This will also change or put different types of demands on you as a floorball coach, you need to work with frequency and speed in execution of the drills, or build the drills in that way that these components are included, the time to do and act on things decreases all the time and will continue to decrease.
Although in todays society we face a situation where the activity level among children is dropping dramatically, which naturally affects the physical capacity.
A recent study in Finland shows that even active children in sports teams just pass the bar for recommended activity level.
The goal for a 12-year-old and older is to train 18 hours a week (be physically activated, in other words not just organized training).
The surveying group (active athletic children) only average 13.4 hours a week, this means that a 16-year-old athlete will miss about 2,000 hours against the goal, important to remember when we start talking about the 10,000 hours later. The lack of training and good physics also begins to appear to the team coaches.
The poor or lack of basic physics of the children gives completely different types of challenges to the coaches in the team. The coach will find it difficult to, for example start teaching certain physical skill, if it is difficult to get down in a squat position.
Or to practice more advanced steps of skills, if both physics and coordination are several years after the actual age. Looking for underlying causes for the inactivity is not particularly difficult?
... or is it that children today have completely different types of talent and skills with them and that the coaches have not understood it yet?
Today the young players will have a well-trained and quick brains “thanks to” all console and mobile games, they have practiced to read the surrounding in a game in fraction of a second and base their decision and next move on that. This is an advantage, even if it’s not many times seen that way.
The backside is of course the lack of physics, due to all hours spent in front of a screen, instead of being spontaneously physically active (running, climbing, playing outdoor games, floorball etc.).
Therefore in many drills at least in the beginning of the book there is a big focus also on the physics, sometimes purely focusing on the running skills, coordination and body control.
In floorball you do not only perform a repetitive "locked movement", but floorball is about a combination of interlinked movements and skills. We can take an example, just before a scoring situation: Fast running forward (reaction speed, running speed), pass reception (eye-hand coordination), fake with lateral movement (decision making, eye-hand-body coordination, balance and weight transfer), shot in motion (decision making, speed, explosive force, balance and weight transfer).
Floorball is about interconnected movement patterns where the various mental and physical skills are linked together and used simultaneously.
That is why this way of thinking also needs to be included in the planning and design of floorball drills and off-season practices, together with situations that reduce the time for performing a skill.
One way to reduce the time to perform a skill is of course to use 1 vs 1 situations or competition, another way is to reduce the practice space, to perform the drills in a smaller surface with faster speed. Small areas increase the speed in mind and execution.
Reduced space will also mean less players queuing and waiting, and therefore you will increase the number of repetitions a player makes during a practice, 10 000 hours is required to become a “master” on what you do or 10 000 repetitions to automatize a movement.
This thinking is the base for all the floorball drills in this book, many active players, working on a limited space and with limited time in order to face todays requirements in floorball, quick action and quick decisions.
About the drills
All the drills are drawn, so you can use it on different parts or in different sizes of the training area (full rink or as a small station).
The two first main chapters focus more on the basic skills and the later ones will have more advanced skill, game, passing and shooting drills, but still mixed with some basic drills, using the basic skills in game situations or more advanced game sequences.
I have chosen not to define an age when you could or should use the drills, since it’s more connected to the maturity of you players, sometimes a 7-year old can perform a drill on 12-year level or it could be the opposite. The 12-year old need to start with more basic drills.
Sometimes there isn’t a shot included in the end of the drill, to focus more on other skills (passing, movement etc.), but it’s easy for you just to add on the shot moment if you want.
Some drills will reoccur in different chapters or with a slightly different purpose.
Like I already mentioned the key is to perform the drills with time limit preferably on a small surface, to improve the execution speed, but also the mind speed (decisions)
Below you have some examples of how you can split up the training area into stations where you run different drills.
Example of how to split up the practicing area from 1 to 8 stations.
On the next page you can see an example on how to place the drills to make the maximum usage of the training area and to activate as many players as possible to get the possibility to do many repetitions and practicing instead of queuing and waiting. The example includes some drills from the beginning of the book and some from the later part.
In the previous example, the seven stations are to be seen as “individual stations” and the players rotate between these on your decision.
What you also can do with the drills in this book is to connect some stations, in this example I have changed the purpose of an offensive drill (40) to be a defensive break out drill and connect it to the next station and drill (51). The drill 40 could also be located in the middle area as a quick turnover practice also to not lose one station.
Next some explanations on how you should see and understand the different symbols used in the drill drawings, although each drill has also a short explanation.
These floorball drills are created to make the best use of the practicing area during a practice, the drills are split up to small parts on the surface, so you can have many active players at the same time.
Use these drills without ball first and then after few repetitions bring along the ball. The symbols don’t always show you to bring the ball along in these drills, but do it!
Running forward and Jumps to the side
Knee dips and Full turns
Run forward – Meatball walking – run forward and Jumping wide-narrow forward (Scissor jumping)
Run forward – Side step – run forward and Run forward – one foot jumps – run forward
Pull a breaking friend with two sticks and Push a breaking friend
Run forward – Stop – Run forward and Run forward – Kick a ball
Slalom in two ways
Run forward – 360 turn – Run forward and Run forward – acceleration – Run forward (speed changes)
Run forward – acceleration and Quick turns
Run forward – Backwards – forward and Run forward – Backwards – run forward
Relay – round cones
Relay – round cones
Relay (turns) – start on signal from coach and Relay (stops) – start on signal from coach
Relay (fw-bw) – start on signal from coach and Relay (360 turns) – start on signal from coach
Relay (acceleration) – start on signal from coach and short
Relay (acceleration) – start on signal from coach
Various relay tracks round cones
Skill track round the cones and Giant slalom – 360 turn – slalom
Slalom – sidesteps – backwards and Round the circles with full turns between the circles
Round the circle – slalom - Round the circle and Running in a large eight
Round the circle and Quick turns – running backwards
Stops – sidesteps and Slalom – acceleration
Eight round the cones – vary the running back with knee dips, full turnarounds, backward etc. and Eight round the cones with full turns on each cone – vary the running back with knee dips, full turnarounds, backward etc.
Stops on each cone, face the cones and Knee dips – long jumps on each foot back
Forward – backwards – forward – backwards and Meatball on way up – jumps with one foot back (squat walking)
Running round a circle – 360 turn and Forward and backwards
Sidesteps – forward – sidesteps – backwards and Round the circles – slalom
Full turns round the cones and Jump over a stick sideways, facing a friend
Running round the cones
Forward – sidestep – forward – backward – sidestep – backwards and Quick turns
Stops at each cone and Turns – backwards – knee dips – Scissor jumps
Relay
Relay round the cones points and Forward – stop/touch the cone – run back
Pass from coach – acceleration – shot – slalom back and Pass from P2 – acceleration – meatball walking (squat)
Acceleration – pick ball from board – shot – stops and Competition with pass from coach – acceleration – shot – backwards running back
1 vs 1 Acceleration – shot – knee dips and P1 with ball, P2 chasing, stops and backwards back
P1 with ball, P2 chasing, scissor jumps and turns back and Chase the ball – border pass – both picks up a new ball – shot
Pass from coach – acceleration – pass to border – pick up a new ball – 2 on 0 and Pass from coach – acceleration – pass to border – pass – 2 on 0
Run forward, vary with 360 turn, knee dips, fw-bw - take a ball, slalom - shot - round the circle. Forward – side steps - take a ball - slalom - shot – ball handling in the corner (eights)
Sidesteps – slalom – take a ball – 360 turn – fake – shot – scissor jumps back and Stops – take a ball – fakes – shot – forward – backward – turns forward
P1 round the circle, P2 pass. P1 slalom – shot - jump over sticks – meatball and P1 slalom - pick up a ball, - 360 turn – shot – acceleration – slalom – backwards to starting position
Sidesteps – Slalom – pick a boll – slalom – shot – jumps with one foot (extra station with passing in the middle of the drill) and Round 3 chosen cones – shot / rebound – forward with ball – stop – backwards with ball – fakes
Running with ball – pass back – 360 turn and Forward – backwards, (repeated) – slalom backwards
Forward – backward round the cones – backwards back and P1 receives a pass – shot –forward, backwards and forward back
P1 takes a shot – P2 follow for rebound – 360 turns on way back and P1 backwards, receives a pass – slalom – shot fake – shot – rebound
Round with ball – shot – backwards – sidesteps and P1 jump over s stick, eight round the cones – pass from P2 – shot – slalom back
P1 receives a pass – shot – slalom backwards and Forward – backward round the cones – pick up a ball – shot
Slalom with ball – shot – slalom backwards and Shot – slalom back
Slalom with ball – full turn / turn away – shot – fakes on way back and Round with ball – shot – stops at cones
Stops at cones – pick a ball – fake – shot
Take the ball long away from your body – shot –backwards back and Short dribbling - Take the ball long away from your body – shot – fakes on the way back
Ball on one side, body on other – shot - fakes and Ball on one side, body on other – ball handling on side - Ball on one side, body on other
Long fake to one side and Long fake to one side – shot – jumps on one foot
Long fake to one side – shot – 360 turns with ball back and Long fake to one side – shot – fakes, back
Fake to one side – shot – fakes, back and Slalom with ball, pass to coach/player, shot, slalom back
1 short, 2 long, 3 on one side, 4 close and far away, 5 diagonally, 6 close to body, 7 faraway, 8 eights
1 close to body, far away. 2 on one side, diagonally
P1 pass. P2 fake – slalom – shot / rebound – pass fake – body fake and Ball handling round the cones
3 players with ball in the box, free movement inside the box.
1 player try to shoot out the balls and 4 players with ball in the box, free movement inside the box
Tight turns with ball – shot and Eight round the cones with ball – running – shot - rebound
Shot –turns back with ball and Full turns round the cones with ball – shot - full turns back with/without ball
Slalom – shot – new ball – stops - fakes
P1 pass, turn, P2 pass, knee dips and P1 to side, pass
P1 pass, turns, P2 pass, 360 turns and P1 to side, 360 turn – pass