Footwork is a fundamental component to performance. A misstep on the field could be as costly as a poorly executed approach on the court. Every sport, from soccer to Olympic Weightlifting, puts a specific expectation on foot movement and placement. Although each discipline requires different footwork skills, attacking the footwork limiting factor in training can be approached similarly across the whole spectrum of sports.
The purpose of footwork in training is for an athlete to learn the most advantageous position to dynamically display the required power necessary for the sport-movement or task. The ability of an athlete to execute these tasks seamlessly and effortlessly often determines what level an athlete will reach in their respective sport. Imagine a soccer player who is never able to take eyes off their feet while dribbling, or an Olympic lifter who always has to look down to check their foot position in a split jerk.
A loss of this footwork purpose occurs in training when athletes are tasked with acquiring complex sport-movement skills before mastering basic movement patterns and developing kinesthetic awareness of their foot position. This misguided approach leads to frustrated athletes that just “don’t get” a movement, and coaches ramble off wasted cues to the point of lost patience. A different approach needs to be applied.
Common signs for footwork as a limiting factor include athletes consistently missing Oly lifts because of foot placement, weddings steps in lunges or step ups, wasted steps during change of direction, and even miss stepping a barbell out of the rack from a squat.
Within the purpose, there are three main objectives to accomplish when attacking this limiting factor in training:
1) Awareness
2) Balance
3) Coordination
These are attributes athletes of any sport can benefit from improving, and will put them in a position for rapid improvement in their sport-movement performance. This article will breakdown the approach behind the ABC’s and present movements to implement into training no matter what an athlete is training for. #ToesForward!
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Awareness
Body control through space, CNS efficiency, and kinesthetic awareness are paramount for success in sport and it all starts with footwork. The first step in improving footwork control, efficiency and awareness is to introduce the starting position and the end point for each drill or sport-movement. Introducing the start and finish expectations allows an athlete to solve the problem of movement getting from point A to point B. Neural patterning only requires ONE episode, and occurs when a certain stress is imprinted on the CNS. So, emphasize task precision under stress from the beginning.
In our previous article on quickness we introduced the key to improvement: modifying the reaction.
The footwork drills below move through all planes of motion with the goal of creating and challenging posture and position of the spine, hips and lower leg in an effort to create a default, toes forward reaction position. Regular practice makes them instinctive. Coaching tools to challenge awareness of moving through space are much like learning to dance. Break the movement into a count, associate the movement to a rhythm, and don’t forget to tie in the Arm Swing.
Balance
An ole’ ball coach once told me, “Go as fast as you can, not as fast as you can’t.” Despite the always immediate response, “Yes, sir!”, it took me years to decipher what the hell he was actually trying to say; move with balance. Balance in respect to training is associated with control. We always want to train fast, but not to the point where an athlete completely loses control and awareness.
Have each athlete find a balance and control in the beginning and ending of each position. We encourage you to start with the athletic position, the lunge, and step ups, no matter the sport. Gradually add new movements to challenge the established default positions. These include different axis of rotation of the hips, changing body orientation or moving through different planes of motion. An athlete’s balance must be stressed to progress, and this can be accomplished by increasing speed, covering more distance or introducing unstable surfaces with caution.
Coordination
All tasks specific to sport require are strongly influenced by motor coordination and precision of movement. Precision is the ability to execute a single task with the smallest degree of error or minimal unnecessary movement. Wasted foot steps and excess movement is a limiting factor.
Much of the footwork of sport-movements are taken for granted or overlooked in training. Time needs to be dedicated in training for an athlete to gain awareness, balance and coordination of what their feet are doing and where they are in space. This will increase an athlete’s coachability, and allow more time for a sport coach to dedicate to coaching sport-movements.
Footwork Drills
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/111877500[/vimeo]
Quick Feet w/ Lateral Step
Purpose:
The Athletic Position is everything for a field sport athlete, and this movement challenges the integrity of this position through the frontal plane. The athlete begins quick feet in the athletic position, then steps a single foot out wide of position and quickly recover back to the AP. This drill can begin as a single leg focus and gradually build into a reaction drill once an athlete is competent. Most athletes are completely unaware of what their arms are doing while they are concentrating on their feet, so be sure to get the arms moving!
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/111877919[/vimeo]
Elevated Jacks
Purpose:
Elevated Jacks take spacial awareness to a new level. This movement challenges the athlete to rotate the hips along the Z-axis, much like a step up, and should be executed with minimal vertical displacement of the spine. Maintain the toes forward positioning, and see if there is an imbalance in coordination/awareness on the right and left sides of an athlete.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/111877437[/vimeo]
Lunge Jump Progressions
Purpose:
This is a great tool to develop courageous athletes, build a powerful first step, and even challenge the split jerk catch consistency. Begin by having the athletes simply perform split jumps through the sagittal plane. Once a strong catch is accomplished, challenge by minimizing the vertical displacement, and requiring a quicker landing. Once competent through the sagittal plane, challenge the athlete with rotation through the transverse plane and still requiring a switching of foot positions. Lunges are found in all aspects of sport, and this footwork drill prepares the athlete for mutliplane demands.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/111876634[/vimeo]
Pelè’s
Purpose:
Pelè’s are a classic quick footwork drill that challenges the athlete through the sagittal plane and the Z-axis of rotation. Dorsiflexion is essential for the field sport athlete for hard cutting and change of direction. This simple drill is a stepping stone for developing the foot and knee position for lateral movement and hard change of direction drills.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/111876375[/vimeo]
Open Step Crossover Catch
Purpose:
This is a beginning footwork drill moving an athlete through all planes of motion and prepare an athlete for change of direction drills. The drill begins with the athlete facing forward and initiation with a lateral open step. Second, the athlete plants the open step, pulls with the lead leg and crosses the trail leg across the body. Lastly, once the trail leg plants, the athlete rotates their hips back to face the starting position and catches the movement in the ready athletic position.
Conclusion
As often stated in articles on the ankles, the foot needs to put the athlete in the most stable and advantageous position to dynamically display the required power necessary for the sport-movement or task. Including the above movements into warm ups or challenging in a fatigued state following training will help prepare an athlete for the countless of sport-movements that rely on perfect execution of footwork.
Footwork does not always require great strength or endurance, so do not impair it with useless work. Each movement above has a purpose, whether it’s challenging the athletic position or moving the hips on different axis of rotation. Forget the mindless footwork drills like the speed latter, and start holding athletes to a higher integrity for their hip, knee and foot positions while moving through space!
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Tagged: Awareness / Balance / coaching / Execution / Feet / Limiting Factor / Multiplane Movement / Strength and Conditioning / Toes Forward / training / What are you training for?
AUTHOR
John
John Welbourn is CEO of Power Athlete and host of Power Athlete Radio. He is a 9 year starter and veteran of the NFL. John was drafted with the 97th pick in 1999 NFL Draft and went on to be a starter for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1999-2003, appearing in 3 NFC Championship games, and for starter for the Kansas City Chiefs from 2004-2007. In 2008, he played with the New England Patriots until an injury ended his season early with him retiring in 2009. Over the course of his career, John has started over 100 games and has 10 play-off appearances. He was a four year lettermen while playing football at the University of California at Berkeley. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Rhetoric in 1998. John has worked with the MLB, NFL, NHL, Olympic athletes and Military. He travels the world lecturing on performance and nutrition and records his podcast, Power Athlete Radio, every week with over 800 episodes spanning 13 years. You can catch up with John as his personal blog, Talk To Me Johnnie, on social media @johnwelbourn or at Power Athlete Radio.
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Perfect timing. I have a 6 week offseason starting soon. Will implement then.
Awesome read. My footwork is S-L-O-W. Thanks for the drills and where to place them in my warmups or post wod. An easy add. One question: how many seconds….15 to 30 seconds for 3-5 times?
@shredalert,
Don’t worry about set time or reps if your movement is shit. Challenge for how long can you stay perfect. Does that mean always stay within comfort zone? No, always push your threshold. :06 perfect first set before misstep, get :07 the next set. Increase speed to stress perfection, but if high speed makes you move like a maniac, the goal of the training is lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq6VT4m9MA4
Outstanding. The COD and LSA work is some of my favorite stuff that you guys put out. Perfect for some of the high school kids I’m beginning to work with. I definitely see a lot of poor foot position. Both in starting and especially in finishing movements and drills.
@mcquilkin wondering about implementing this. How would it look, pre or post workout, on its own, duration of each movement, sets, etc… Right now I’m just running guys through it at about 10-15 seconds a movements for 3-4 tries..?
@train608,
Just focus on one drill a day and spread them out to a couple a week, never the same plane or axis in the same week. If you have COD or Multiplane movement planned for the day, put it in the warm up those days.
What are they training for? Stick in needed time domains, and move as fast and as long as you can stay perfect. If they’re training for football then slower feet and longer than :15 perfect is wrong. Think Fast 5 or Furious 7, not Jurassic Park 2. Too long, draggin out something wonderful until it all turns to shit. Something just long enough to challenge, fail, and yet still expand abilities. Am I right, @Luke?
Challenging pace, preparing them for what they need and avoiding pitter-patter feet.
@mcquilkin the videos are not coming up or are “Private” for Lunge Jump Progressions, Pele’s, and Open Step Crossover Catch.
cancel that, fixed
I have two rugby players marked with a problem in this regard, both walk with the typical walk Duck obviously add stress to the universal athletic position is a problem for them, so as to receive the bar in power cleans, changes of directions etc … in other words, everything that means #toesforward. I started using the movements of these videos in warmups. Any additional recommendation?
[…] in movement efficiency and motor control, while attack limiting factors like spatial awareness, footwork, and separation of shoulders and […]
@mcquilkin for some reason all of the videos say, “sorry because of it’s privacy settings, this video cannot be played here” I’m logged in though, not sure if I’m doing something wrong?
@john
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him. #Toesforward
-Jonathan Swift (squatted toes forward)