Balance My Energy

What: Your players become aware of their energy level and decide how they can improve this for the next training.

Why: This tool helps your players to become aware of their energy level and how to influence this.

Motivational line: “The players actively showed good self-awareness, which helped create a calm and focused start of the training session”.

Materials needed

• A whiteboard with a magnet/sticky note for each player.

• Or: 3 cones and a water bottle for each player.

Preparation

• Prepare any warm-up drill (i).

• In case of using the whiteboard: draw a line, with five levels.

• In case of using the 2 cones and water bottles: use the line of the pitch and place one cone at the beginning, and one cone at the end of the line (approximately 10 meters in between). Make sure the players have their water bottles.

(i) example exercise:

• This can basically be any warm-up drill.

Let’s do it!

1. Before the warm-up, give each player a magnet or sticky note with their name on it, or their own water bottle.

2. Ask the players: how much energy do you have at this moment?

3. The players put their magnet/sticky note/water bottle at a spot at the line that corresponds to their energy level.

4. Ask (a few of the) players to verbalize what they can do to have the same amount of energy or more energy in the next training session. If the group is big, ask a few of the players to do this. Next time (practice) you use this tool, ask this question to other players.

5. Then start the warm-up.