Eight Six Minute Football Warm Ups for Grassroots Coaches
A grassroots warm up has about six minutes in it. Any longer and you have spent a quarter of the session getting ready for the session.
The eight below all run on cones, bibs and a ball each. None of them need a demonstration longer than one sentence, and none of them leave anyone standing in a queue. The rule underneath all of them is the same: if the warm up has a ball in it, kids warm up without being told to.
The four with a ball
1. Traffic lights
You need: a ball each, four cones for a square.
Players dribble inside the square. Green means run, red means stop the ball dead, yellow means turn and go backwards. Call the colours faster as you go.
Diagrammed version: Traffic Light Game.
Why it works: stopping and turning is the actual physical warm up, and they are too busy listening for the next colour to notice they are doing it.
2. Ball tag
You need: a ball each, bibs for two players, a coned grid.
Everyone dribbles. Two players in bibs are the taggers and they also have a ball. Get tagged and you swap the bib.
A variation worth stealing: Player with ball is safe tag.
Why it works: it forces heads up while dribbling, which is the hardest habit to teach and the easiest one to sneak in here.
3. Sharks and minnows
You need: a ball each for the minnows, bibs for two sharks, a channel marked with cones.
Minnows dribble from one end of the channel to the other. Sharks try to knock the balls out. Lose your ball and you become a shark.
Why it works: the game gets harder as it goes, so the last two minutes are the most intense without you changing anything.
4. Numbers press
You need: one ball per group of five or six.
Players pass in a loose circle. Call a number and that player sprints in to win the ball back while the rest keep it away.
Why it works: it is a rondo with a reason to run, which is what makes it work for age groups that find a standing rondo boring.
The four with no setup at all
5. Shadow tag
You need: nothing.
Pairs. One leads, one follows a step behind copying everything: direction, speed, turns, the lot. Swap after a minute.
Why it works: it is the only one on this list with no ball, and it is the best of them for actually raising a heart rate. Use it on cold nights.
6. Two touch gates
You need: a ball per pair, cones in pairs scattered around.
Pairs pass to each other through any gate they can find. One point per gate. They cannot use the same gate twice in a row.
Diagrammed version: Passing drill in pairs with gates.
Why it works: it makes them move to find space instead of standing and passing straight lines, and it scores itself so you do not have to referee it.
7. Bulldog with a ball
You need: a ball each, a coned grid.
Everyone dribbles from one side to the other. Two players start without a ball and try to knock balls out. Lose yours and you join them.
Why it works: same escalation as sharks and minnows but in a wider space, so it suits a bigger group.
8. Keep away, three v one
You need: one ball per four players, four cones.
Three keep the ball, one chases. Thirty seconds, then rotate whoever is in the middle regardless of what happened.
Diagrammed version, with the four against one progression: 3v1 / 4v1 rondo.
Why it works: the fixed thirty seconds is the important part. Rotating on a timer instead of on a mistake means nobody gets stuck in the middle feeling picked on.
How to pick one
Cold night, get them moving before anything else: shadow tag or traffic lights.
Big group, not enough space: two touch gates or bulldog.
They arrived flat and you need the energy up fast: sharks and minnows.
The session that follows is about keeping the ball: numbers press or three v one, so the warm up already looks like the main part.
The one thing worth doing every week is finishing the warm up while they still want more of it. A warm up that runs two minutes too long is the reason the rest of the session feels like work.
Where to find more
Four of the eight above are drawn up properly in our free drill database, linked from each one. The rest of it is worth a scroll too: it is open, there is no signup, and the fun and movement themes are where most of the warm up material sits.