Monday, December 13, 2010

Leg Burners

Alternative names: --
Objective: To get a muscle workout; to practice getting and staying really low
Typical length of drill: 7-10 mins
Materials needed: A full track or just four cones to mark the inside track line, and one additional cone in a different color to use as a marker
Skill level required: None
Description: Set up your marker -cone on one of the corners, next to the track boundary.  On the whistle all the skaters start by skating one lap around, and when they pass the cone, they begin to sprint.  When they pass the cone the next time, they get into a proper squat position, with their arms out straight and all eight wheels on the floor, and then they coast/skate this way until they pass the cone again, at which point they sprint again.  Repeat this cycle of alternating a lap of sprinting with a lap of low squat coasting/skating for about at least 5-7 minutes or for a certain number of laps (i.e. start with 25 and see how your skaters do and feel).  The coach should make sure that the skaters' squat stances are proper and that their knees are not turning in (everything should be aligned so as to prevent knee -damage: toes, knees, hips, shoulders).
Additional notes: This drill was originally posted by Marc Schneider on the roller derby coaches Yahoo group here.  I really like this drill, it's a really great workout and a good way to practice staying low even after getting tired and sore.  It's also a really easy drill to do and I think it can thus very appropriate for freshmeat.

1 comment:

  1. When my past league and my current league do leg burners, we do it like this. Have skaters start skating for a couple laps, then whistle they SPRINT for 30 secs, then whistle 2 they get low into squat as written for 30 seconds. Whistle releases them to skate it off, then sprint 30 more secs and then low for 40 secs. We repeat until we are in low squat for 60 or 70seconds and then sprint it off.

    It's probably similiar, but in squat for 60 seconds is screaming leags for rookies and it works!

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