Keeping your field hockey skills sharp during the off-season is essential for maintaining performance. You can keep your skills sharp by working on them alone or with a friend or teammates.
Here are some drills to help you stay on top of your game.
1. Wall/Rebounder Passing
The Drill
Stand facing a solid wall or rebounder and pass the ball against it using various techniques such as push passes, hits, and slaps.
Practice receiving the ball on your stick after each pass. Vary the distance and speed to simulate different in-game situations.
The Goal: This drill is to help you pass and receive the ball. Being able to pass the ball smoothly and sharply to a teammate is important as you don’t want the opposing team to intercept or steal the ball. Having the ability to not allow the ball to bounce off your stick and control it is another important skill to have. This drill is great for that as it allows you to improve on your receiving skills.
For Advanced players: Move the rebounder or yourself further away from each other. Practice on long distance passing and receiving.
If you are looking for a rebounder, I recommend this one. There are two sides to it and each side helps with a skill such as passing and knocking down the ball. It is also great with pairing to the field hockey star app.
Passing and Receiving with a Partner
The Drill
Stand facing a partner, or if with more than two people make a shape that will allow you to practice. Pass the ball using various techniques such as push passes, hits and slaps.
Practice receiving the ball on your stick after each pass. Vary the distance and speed to simulate different in-game situations.
Partner up and practice passing and receiving drills. Work on accurate passing, controlling the ball and quick, precise transfers.
Vary the distance and angles to simulate different game scenarios. Changing it up and working with people instead of a wall or rebounder gives you the chance to simulate in game situations.
The Goal: Another drill to help you improve your passing and rebounding. Again these skills are highly important to your game so it is important to practice these. Make sure you and your teammates are distancing yourselves from different distance to work on passing. Practice on long distance passing and receiving, as well as quick, short passes.
For Advanced Players: Try this drill with more than two people. If you have a group of three, you can start with passing and receiving the ball with each other. After a little bit of time, two of you can go on the offensive side and have the other person be a defender.
This allows for the two offensive players to work on their passing and receiving, while the defender can work on intercepting the ball, stopping the ball, jab and poking.
Stickwork Challenges
The Drill
Create challenges for yourself to dribble around with cones. You can make any shape or setup you want based on your skill level. Make them different enough that you don’t just get used to the same pattern each time.
The Goal: This drill is designed to develop your stick skills. You want to get more proficient and faster with stickhandling. Keep at it until you can make moves with the ball without having to think about it too much.
For Advanced Players: Time yourself and make goals to see how fast you can get through a specific setup. This way you can track your progress over time to see how you’re improving and set new goals for yourself.
Agility Ladder Drills
The Drill
Use an agility ladder to work on footwork and agility. Perform ladder drills with quick feet, lateral movements, and forward/backward runs. These drills improve coordination and quick reactions.
The Goal: The agility ladder is a great drill to help improve your speed and agility. Being fast and able to get around the field is another important part of the game.
For Advanced Players: Each time you do this drill time yourself. Try to improve on how fast you can do these drills.
To make it more challenging set an alarm a few seconds faster than your fasts clocked time. Being able to push yourself, even by a few seconds, can help improve your speed.
If you are looking for an agility ladder, I recommend this one. It also comes with a jump rope, cones and hurdles. All can be beneficial to your training.
3D Skills Practice
Work on advanced stick skills such as 3D skills, which involve lifting and controlling the ball in the air. Practice lifts, aerials, and juggling to enhance your ability to handle the ball in different situations.
Shooting Practice
The Drill
Set up a goal or target and practice shooting from various distances. Focus on your technique, aiming for accuracy and power. Incorporate volleys, sweeps, and flicks into your shooting routine.
The Goal: To improve your offensive skills and shooting. Burying the ball in the back of the goal is fun. To be able to do that you need to practice shooting.
For Advanced Players: Challenge yourself in different ways while practicing your shooting. Have someone else play defense and try to jab or steal the ball from you before you shoot.
You can start behind the top of the circle and dribble in. The defender should run towards you and try to jab or steal the ball from you.
Once you get passed the defender either shoot right away or take a dribble or two then shoot.
You can use any goal that you normally play on, set up your own goal at home or I recommend one of these goals.
One-on-One Defensive Drills
The Drill
Work on defensive skills by engaging in one-on-one drills with a partner. Practice jabbing, tackles and interceptions. Have one person start on offense and have one person on defense.
The player on offense will start by dribbling the ball towards you, the defender. Once they have advanced towards you, try to jab or poke the ball away. You can do this drill as many times as you want, but after three successful steals switch to offense and let the other player become the defender.
To improve on intercepting the ball. have two players on offense and one on defense. The two on offense will have a set amount of dribbles they can take and then they have to pass it. Of course they can pass it before the set amount is up. As the defender you have to intercept the ball on their pass.
Again, after three successful intercepts switch and become one of the offensive players. Make sure everyone gets a chance at being both offense and defense.
The Goal: This drill is to improve your defensive capabilities. Working on your jabbing, intercepting and tackles can immensely help your defensive game.
For Advanced Players: Work on these drills with a clock. Set a clock to a time and before the time is up you need to stop the offense.
Another way to challenge yourself with this drill is on the offensive side. Earlier I mentioned having the offense have x amount of dribbles before passing. This time shorten the amount of dribbles you can make before passing the ball.
Conditioning Sprints with Ball
The Drill
Combine fitness and skill work by performing sprints with the ball. Dribble the ball at high speed for short distances, then rest and repeat. This drill simulates game-like conditions and improves ball control under pressure.
The Goal: To help your dribbling game as well as your speed. It can be tough dribbling and running at the same time, so practicing them together can help you do both.
For Advanced Players: Put up obstacles in your way so that you have to dribble around them. You can use cones or people to be an obstacle.
Another way to improve is timing yourself. See how long it takes you to get from one side of the field to another. Do this several times. Once you have your fastest time you can set up a clock and set it up so that your fastest speed is the longest time you are allowed to go.
It is important to focus on your dribbling skills as well.
Game Simulations
The Drill
Set up small-sided games or scrimmage situations with teammates. Focus on applying your skills in a realistic game setting. This helps maintain your tactical awareness and decision-making abilities.
The Goal: This is designed to help improve everyone’s game. Everyone can learn and improve their skills since it will be set up for a game like scenario. To help everyone learn, have one or two people watch the game happen and stop if something is not going well.
For example, if one player keeps making the same mistake, the person watching can stop the game and ask or tell if the player knows what they are doing wrong. From there they can show the player how to do it correctly.
Video Analysis
Record yourself during drills and games, and review the footage. Analyze your technique, positioning, and decision-making to identify areas for improvement.
The Goal of this is for you to improve on whatever skill you are recording. You can watch yourself and see what area you need to improve on and what areas you are doing well in. If you see you are doing well in dribbling but not in shooting, then you will know to focus a little more on shooting to improve that skill.
If you and another teammate are comfortable you can look at each others recordings. This can allow you to get someone else’s feedback on where you can improve, but it also allows you to see how someone else is practicing and playing. Seeing how someone else plays might help you with your own skill set.
Fitness and Skill Integration
Combine fitness exercises with skill drills to mimic the demands of the game. For example, perform agility drills and immediately transition into passing or shooting exercises.
This could mean going from the agility ladder drill and then right away going to the wall/rebounder passing drill.
Fitness
Staying fit is important as it allows you to stay in shape. There are tons of ways to keep up your fitness during the offseason. Playing another sport, going for a run and strength training to name a few.
Whatever fitness activity you decide to do is fine, as long as you are staying active. And remember to start at your level of fitness; if you are brand new to something do not dive right in as you could injure yourself.
For example if you are starting yoga for the first time you don’t need to do the hardest pose. Start off with poses that you are capable and work your way up.
Consistency is key, so incorporate these drills into your off-season training routine regularly. Adjust the intensity based on your fitness level and gradually increase the difficulty as you progress.
Remember practice makes perfect, or at least helps us improve our skills. The more you practice the better you will get.
Additionally, seek feedback from coaches or experienced players to fine-tune your skills.