With every practice comes the dilemma for coaches. Should we focus on conditioning? Should we focus on passing? Should we focus on shooting? With every choice a coach makes, the worry that it will cost their team the game tends to pile up. If you didn’t work on shooting at practice and your star striker misses a shot in the game, you definitely feel responsible. If your midfield looks tired after only a few minutes and it costs your team the game, you feel that it is your fault. How can you fix this dilemma? The KwikGoal speed ladder.
The ladder allows any drill to be immediately supplemented with a bit of endurance and speed training. Do you have a favorite shooting drill that you tend to use in every practice? Have your kids do a certain stepping movement through the ladder before they take the shot and it immediately works two of the main aspects of the game. Do your kids need to work on passing? Throw the ladder down and make your favored passing drill something that will improve passing ability and give your kids a quicker step on the ball.
The ladder is very easy to see on the ground, with bright yellow “rungs” and red straps holding everything together. It folds up in seconds, and can be broken out just as fast. The ladder comes with a convenient carrying bag and can be broken out before home or away games to get your kid’s blood pumping before the big moment.
The ladder does have one negative, and since it doesn’t way too much, it doesn’t sit as far down on the ground as I would like. This can result in kids’ feet getting caught in some of the rungs and slowing down the drill that you are currently running. However, since it doesn’t way too much, if your kids’ feet do get caught it won’t trip them but will simply be dragged along behind them. With this knowledge, I would sit the ladder on the lowest cut grass on your field so that it is easy to keep from tripping.
The variations of steps that you can use on this ladder can create multiple drills with varying difficulty and different amounts of energy needed. It can also get the same results as a full lap of running could get, but it can keep your kids close and prevent your focus from having to be spread across the field.
With a $58.49 price-tag, the speed ladder is a purchase that can quickly add to your soccer training equipment without costing you a fortune. In fact, I would suggest that multiple speed ladders would be a very savvy coaching move. It would allow you to have multiple kids going through their paces at the same time, and would keep from having too many kids on the same ladder at once.
