1. Drills Can Enhance Agility and Balance
All sports have various athletic drills for conditioning, warming up and improving skills. Football cone drills help strengthen your legs and improve your agility. Cone drills also sharpen your mind because you must think as you're doing them in order to perform them correctly. The sport of football requires changing directions on the football field with split-second speed. A good sense of balance is necessary, and football cone drills help improve that balance.
2. Slide-Step Drill
Set two cones about 5 yards apart. Step about 2 yards back and place two more cones 5 yards apart. Repeat the setup until you have five rows of pairs spread 10 yards back. Start on one side of the first cone set. Stand in a crouched position with your back straight and use a slide-step and move from side to side between the pairs of cones, moving in a zigzag fashion to the outside of the cones. Move as fast as you can.
3. Cross-Over Step
Place two cones about 20 yards apart. Keep your back straight and stand in a ready position. Use the cross-over step (one foot over the other in a side motion, alternating your feet from front to back). Move towards one cone quickly. When you reach that cone, go back to the first cone in the same manner. This builds stamina in your legs and helps prepare you for a long football game ahead.
4. Quick Cuts
One football cone drill that's great during football practice is the quick cut drill. This drill improves skills in players such as receivers, running backs and also defensive backs. Set cones out in a straight line about 8 to 10 yards apart, stretching about 50 yards total. Starting at the first cone, players sprint, weaving in and out of each cone. This helps football players make quick or sharp turns in a full sprint. This exercise may also be used in a different fashion for defensive backs. Defensive backs must run backwards while keeping an eye on the receiver. They must make sharp and quick turns in a backward motion, so they can run quick cuts backwards instead of forward.
5. Head-to-Head Contact
Run this football cone drill wearing helmets. Put cones 5 yards apart and 10 yards long. Defensive players go to one end, and running backs and receivers go to the other end. The first defensive player steps inside the 10-yard cone area. The running back or receiver starts on the zero yard line, trying to run through the defensive player. (The cones make boundaries so the offensive player cannot by-pass.) This is called a one-on-one drill.
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