2-A-day Activity

One of the things we started to do prior to each fall season would be to take athletes from school (all sports that wanted to go) to a BFS/FCA camp experience.

There are no FCA camps near the Pacific NW and the kids would have to travel to CO or CA to attend and spend lots of money to go, so I organized a camp of our own. We would drive with the help of some parents to Southern Oregon on a FRI and come back on Sunday afternoon.

We would combine Be An 11 activities with FCA devotions wrapped around white water rafting on a wild and scenic river. We have a great youth minister in town who conducted the devotions and another BFS clinician and I did the motivation stuff.

One of the activities we would carryover when we came back for two-a-days. You can use this with your team.

Break the team down into sub teams of 11 athletes on each team and use team competitions at the end of practice for conditioning. When you make it a competition, the intensity rises, and there’s a lot more fun.

At the end of practice, the winning team would be presented with a Prize – sometimes the cheerleaders would show up with popcicles for the winners, a mom would show up with cold lemonade, ice cold watermelon, or ice cream bars or whatever – be creative. Doesn’t have to be much to get them excited.

One more thing. At the end of camp we would conduct the Slip-N-Slide World Championships. Go down to Home Depot and buy a roll of plastic, find a gentle slope to put it on, water it down, soap up and let the judging begin. Want to see 16 year olds become 6 again (and even some 36 year old parents and coaches)? Roll out the plastic.

To start off the competition we would have some crazy competition. Like one year we had doughnuts on a rope. Team members would have to sprint and slid to one end of the run, eat a doughnut off the line with their hands behind their backs, relay back to start and repeat till all doughnuts are gone and winner declared. Everyone has a great time. Note: do not soap up till the doughnuts are eaten. There are other competitions you could dream up. Use your imagination.

When we got back to practice…….got to the point that on the last 2Aday practice, we would get the plastic out, make several runs across the field and would have 3-5 slip-N-slides going at the same time.

Make those conditioning activities at the end of practice fun sometimes and create some lifetime memories.