If improperly managed, your kickers and punters training can lead to unnecessary stress placed on them which can take distance and velocity off their kicks. Additionally, if you do not periodize the number of days kicking, and distances kicked – much like we laid out for you in the prior article – your kickers and punters legs will not be able to handle the spike in workload they see in camp, leading to greater risk for injury. Fewer kicks in camp = less confident athlete, coach, and team. In this article, I will lay out how to properly train your K/P in the weight room and on the field. Additionally, I will lay out a progression template that builds up the work capacity of their kicking leg. Finally, I will explain the rationale behind the way I train the LS (hint – it’s like a sprinter).

Is this really necessary?

Unless you are a strength coach like Nick DiMarco who can kick 50-60 yard field goals, punt 50+, and kickoff to the goal line – yes this article is necessary. Chances are you don’t have the appreciation for how difficult the K/P job is on the field (if you are wondering if he can really do that the answer is yes, I saw him do all that when we worked together in 2017). Kicking the ball as a specialist in football is not as simple as “squat go up, punt go up”. I have seen one of the weakest, with respect to clean and squat, athletes win the Groza Award. He didn’t even bilaterally lift his lower body – it was all unilateral loading with some leg extension and leg curl sprinkled in.

Much like throwing a football for a QB, chances are 95% of those reading this article did not give any consideration to how much conditioning a K/P kicking leg needs prior to camp. Chew on this, depending on your athlete you might have a kid fall into one of these six categories:

• FG only
• Punt only
• FG + Punt
• FG + Kickoff
• Punt + Kickoff
• All 3

You want to talk about individualization, consider the amount of workload placed on the hip of the kicker who has to handle the duties of all 3 versus someone who only has FG. When the team gets to camp, the kicker who only does FG has fewer live reps when there isn’t a FG period that day at practice. The kicker who does all 3 has to perform live full-speed reps every day at practice in camp and might have more than 1 per day. This is why you need to know your kids, what kicking duties they will have, and work backward to build up their kicking leg capacity.

Kicking action and conditioning for it.

Without going too deep down the biomechanical rabbit hole of kicking let’s take a quick look at what is required of K/P. They are required to have massive ranges of motion on their kicking leg, and massive stability on their plant leg. Additionally, their kicking leg goes through violent hip flexion, extension, adduction, and adduction moments. This will challenge the muscles, tendons, and ligaments of the hip in all 3 planes of motion. Does it make sense to place these athletes with the rest of the team when it comes time to conditioning or speed work? You know the answer – no. Tempo runs are great to build up the workload on the legs for your skill and big skill players – they have to sprint on the field. If you are a strength coach worth a damn you have your linemen doing some grapple work rather than tempo runs. You do this because you understand the nature of the OL/DL position.

You need to follow the same principle with respect to your K/P. Let them kick on air – do tempo kicking for them when the team is doing tempo runs. Let them get creative with it. Let them take some no-step kicks, 1 step, 3 steps, etc… let them work during the time the team is tempo running/grappling. Allowing them time to condition their leg with low-level kicking at a “tempo” pace follows the exact same principle as extensive before intensive with your speed work or jump training – this is just specific to your special population.

How it can look on the field kicking

First, you need to know your guys, how many kicking duties do they have? Once you know this it is time to work backward from where you know they will need to be once camp starts. You can follow the same high–low model that the rest of the team follows.

Monday, Wednesday, & Friday – high day, long kicks

• Kick-off
• Punt
• Long FG

Tuesday & Thursday – low day, shorter kicks

• Plus 50 punts
• PAT or less than 30 FG
• 1 step kicks into net

Now the key will be adding volume over time leading into camp. Starting at week 1 and working through an 8-week progression you can be prepared for camp by doing:

Week 1 – 2 days kicking. Monday and Wednesday. Pick from the list on low days

Week 2 – 2 days kicking. Monday and Wednesday. Monday pick from the Low CNS, Wednesday pick from high CNS.

Week 3 – 2 days kicking. Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday pick from low CNS, Wednesday pick from high CNS.

Week 4 – 3 days kicking. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Monday and Friday high CNS, Wednesday low CNS.

Week 5 – 3 days kicking. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. Monday and Thursday high CNS, Thursday low CNS.

Week 6 – 4 days kicking. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Tuesday and Friday high CNS, Monday and Thursday low CNS.

Week 7 – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. Tuesday and Friday high CNS, Monday and Wednesday low CNS.

Week 8 – Monday through Friday. Monday, Wednesday, Friday high CNS. Tuesday and Thursday low CNS.

As an example, let’s take someone who does all 3 kicking responsibilities in week 8.

• Monday – Punts
• Tuesday – 1 step kick into net PAT
• Wednesday – Kick off
• Thursday – plus 50 punt
• Friday – deep FG

In this way, he is able to get a high CNS day for all of the kicks he will have to perform while keeping the low CNS days devoted to the two tasks – punt and PAT – that he most likely will be asked to do more of than kickoffs.

In the weight room.

We emphasize unilateral training, which plays well into the hands of the K/P here. However, when we do use a bilateral load there is some variance for this group – and it’s not a one size fits all. Some of the K/P like to do the same bilateral load that everyone else is doing (trap bar deadlift), so they will do that. Some don’t like deadlifts – they would prefer a bar on their back, those guys will squat. Some don’t want a bar on their back or on the ground, they will use the pit shark.

With respect to ground-based power, we utilize various loaded and unloaded jump training, as well as Olympic lifting variations. If there is an Olympic lift programed, some of the K/P want to do the movement that everyone else is doing – so we let them do it. Some like to do the Olympic lift with a DB instead (DB snatch), so that’s what they do. Some like to substitute the Olympic lift with a loaded jump so, you guessed it, that’s what they do. For the jump training, some of them will do the movement as programed. There are situations when we will change the movement for them to a hop variation if they don’t like the movement the rest of the team is doing (depth jump).

The point I want you to understand with this group is the same I would recommend with your whole team. Don’t shove a square peg into a round hole. Keep your principles first not the movement, and make sure you keep the main thing the main thing for this group – kicking the ball far.

On the field, not kicking

When it comes to speed work and conditioning, yes, this group is yet again treated slightly differently. With respect to linear sprint work, our K/P will train the same distances as the OL/DL. Acceleration work will be 5-10yard in distance and max velocity work will only have fly 10s with a 10-yard build. We want to give them some exposure to high speeds and hard accelerations to help them be robust to the few sprinting demands that will be placed on them, however, we will keep the distances shorter to respect the lack of sprinting that will occur for them.

With respect to any conditioning, they will do some linear tempo running with the team. This will again be done to expose them to the demand of having to chase a returner down, and for going through the tackling drills during special teams periods in camp. However, they will do 25-40% of the running reps that everyone else will do. The other tempo work would be kicking on air to condition their leg, or bike work. When on the Airdyne bike the work:rest time that the team running tempos will be applied to the K/P on the bike. However, now they will get the cardiovascular effect without the impact of running. The Airdyne bike will become a staple once in camp and in the season to help keep the K/P with healthy aerobic systems to help them stay robust humans; as well as recover from the days, weeks, and months that make up a season.

And as it relates to agility work this population will be exposed to the same drills that the team is, however, the volume of reps they take will be fewer as they don’t need to build the same chronic workload of COD. K/P need to be able to handle chaos and respond to a stimulus, so placing them in the chaser, mirror, and score drills in your agility menu is important; however, keep the volume appropriate for this population (much like you do for your OL/DL).

Last but not least. Long Snappers.

With respect to them and their snapping, the best way for them to work as a battery with their holder and kicker would be to get on the same schedule as the FG kicker. Taking the example above of a kicker who does all 3, let’s see how a LS can mirror his prep

• Monday – Punt snaps to punter doing normal punts
• Tuesday – PAT snap into a net
• Wednesday – combo day punt and FG into a net while kicker does kickoffs
• Thursday – punt snaps for punter doing plus 50 punting
• Friday – FG snaps to kicker doing deep FG

This is an example once the K/P get to their 5 days per week work. With respect to LS remember they will have long (punt) and short (FG) snaps. The extended position on their arms and lower back remains the same, however, the distance varies. Following the same principles from the K/P consider FG snaps to be low CNS and punt snaps to be high CNS.

As far as their on-field speed development these guys are trained like the big skill group. They need to be able to sprint, and they need to sprint longer distances (depending on how good the kicker is). With the way the rules are now, it’s almost illegal to put anyone within 5 yards of the LS or even hit him on his way downfield to cover a put. Therefore, he essentially does a max effort sprint on a punt. LS speed development will be acceleration work (sprints up to 20 yards) and max velocity work with fly 10s with 20-30 yard builds. This group will even perform fly-float-fly or flying 15s (as noted before, this group will train like a big skill – LB, TE/FB). Agility work will be the same as the big skill as LS need to be able to handle chaos and respond to a stimulus.

The big difference for me and my LS’s is the lack of on-field energy system development. Think about what LS do – they sprint maximally for 1 play, then they go sit on the bench or stand on the sidelines. They do not go on long drives, the worst-case scenario is they have to cover another punt because of a penalty while covering the kick. Guess what, LS’s has time to recover during the time the refs have to announce the penalty, pick up their flag, coaches decide if they will accept or decline the penalty. When it is all said and done, they have around 2 min recovery after a 40-50 yard sprint. Is that maximal recovery? No, but it’s damn close. Therefore there is no reason to have them run multiple conditioning reps to get them in shape. They need to sprint fast down and properly use the OODA loop while staying in front of the other team’s best athlete. Train them for this by allowing full recovery with sprint training, and put them on the Airdyne like the K/P to get the aerobic energy system development without the impact of running.

As far as the weight room goes, the same rules apply to them as everyone else. Individualize their training based on their

• Movement evaluation
• Training age
• Current injury limitations/modifications

Putting it all together

Remember your K/P are asked to do something that no one else on the field is asked to do – you need to find ways to prepare them for this. Find out what kicking responsibilities they will be asked to do, work backward from what they will be asked to do the most in camp to prepare their hip musculature. In doing so, the collaboration will be natural with the specials teams coach, athletic trainer, and yourself. You will be doing a better job than 95%+ of strength and conditioning coaches who just consider kickers and punters “soft” because they don’t want to clean and squat. Remember, it is not as simple as squat go up, kick go up with your K/P. Take a step back, look at their demands, and train them appropriately.