Top Tip Tuesday

A great way to help children improve their overall movement and to train their brain is to give them little extra challenges with everyday tasks.

In a football context, we do this a lot with our 121’s.

We hammer the basics like a good first touch, for example.It is hard to replicate a game situation in a 121 so we aim to make a basic thing like a good first touch much harder by adding a constraint.

In this example, Heather has to control a ball out of the air.

Pretty simple for her because she’s a good player.

But we make that harder by saying she has to control it whilst balancing on 1 foot.

This means she practises a basic skill but she is now challenged a lot more which then means she should be able to perform it a lot easier when we remove the constraint.

Or, in her games, it’ll mean she’ll be better prepared to control the ball out of the air when off-balance if a defender is challenging her, for example.

The great thing is you can do things like this with everyday tasks at home to help your child’s fundamental movement skills plus also help them with a little brain training.

Brushing teeth on 1 foot (balance)

Catch a ball with their opposite hand (coordination)

Hop to the front door instead of walking (balance/agility)

Miss the cracks in the pavement when walking to school (agility/coordination)

Play a computer game whilst stood on 1 foot (balance/brain train)

Eat their dinner with the knives & forks in the opposite hands (brain train)

Another good one we do for our group football sessions is to have all the players hold a ball or bib behind their backs whilst playing a match (balance).

You can have a lot of fun with this. Give it try and let us know of any good ideas you come up with