Blocking Technique Refined by The Muzzle Training Gloves in OL Pass Blocking Drills

Lateral Footwork Drill Improves Agility and Hand Placement for Offensive Linemen

Holding is consistently one of the most-called penalties over the course of the football season. When a defensive lineman has you beat and has the quarterback in his sights, your first instinct is to protect your teammate and grab a handful of jersey. Offensive linemen must do everything in their power to avoid this situation. Offensive line coaches need the right practice equipment to train linemen to remain light on their feet and keep defenders in front of them.

The Muzzle training gloves are just the tool coaches at all levels need to instill the proper technique in their offensive line drills. The magnetic gloves force players to maintain the hands-in, thumbs-up method preached by so many successful offensive line coaches. Keeping thumbs up gives linemen a stronger defense against defenders slapping at their arms.

Lateral Footwork Drill Execution

1. Set up one cone on the sideline, and another down the yard line, usually at the yard number.
2. Line up an offensive lineman equipped with The Muzzle training gloves along the yard line facing downfield, and a defender in a two-point stance along the sideline facing down the yard line.
3. Instruct the offensive lineman to keep his hands together in the hands-in, thumbs-up position in front of his chest.
4. On the whistle, the defender runs forward and backward down the line intermittently and unpredictably.
5. The offensive linemen, equipped with The Muzzle, moves laterally to stay even with the moving defender.
6. Ensure the offensive lineman does not extend his arms or break his hands apart.
7. The drill ends when the defender reaches the second cone.

A simple lateral footwork drill, as shown in the video below, teaches linemen to stay in front of defenders by moving their feet, not reaching and grabbing. Offensive linemen learn to keep their hands close and in the correct hands-in, thumbs up position.

Participants learn to keep their hands close and move their feet quickly to keep up with a defender’s side-to-side movement. This drill can also be done with no pads on very hot or no pad practice days.

Defenders tirelessly attempt to get inside position on the pads and use the leverage to toss offensive linemen around. However, if offensive linemen maintain the proper footwork and hand position, they are impassable and will not draw a flurry of penalty flags.

Youth Blocking Pads Train Hands-In, Thumbs-Up Technique to Control Defensive Linemen

Nothing is more important in the modern game than training safe and effective blocking and tackling technique at the very lowest levels of the game. Peewee and Junior League players need to be trained the correct repetitious motions to instill correct muscle memory and transfer safe playing techniques into the full speed game. Muscle memory doesn’t work at half-speed—The Muzzle training gloves allow youth players to practice with no pads at full speed.

The lateral footwork drill is a simple, straightforward drill emphasizing the lower body in pass blocking. The Muzzle forces the player to keep his hands to himself and track the defender solely using quick footwork. The magnetic training gloves make players remain in the hands-in, thumbs up position no matter the situation, ensuring offensive linemen’s arms aren’t easily slapped away and defenders can’t easily earn the inside position on the pads.

Utilizing this simple offensive line drill with the aid of The Muzzle equips trains your youth linemen the proper muscle memory at full speed with or without pads. It will greatly decrease penalty totals, and your offensive linemen will more often win individual battles—and your team will win more games.

Offensive linemen on your team will dramatically improve their footwork and hand placement using blocking pads for sale from Krausko LLC.