6 week action plan to improve a footballer's heading skills.

Week 2

In the second week the striker will practice his heading by firstly heading the ball into an open goal which will be thrown at him. If headed properly he should be attacking the ball with his head which involves power and thrust mostly in his neck as he is moving his head forward to attack the ball.  By continuing this it should help him visualise where the goal is. If the strikers heading improves you could put a goalkeeper into the goal to put a bit more pressure on him to see if he can hit the ball on target.

Week 3

In the third week of this action plan I think the striker should practice his attacking headers. By doing this he should get someone preferably with a long through to go on to the touch line and he will be standing in line with the 6 yard box from the touchline. He will then throw the ball into the penalty box which then the striker will attack and head for goal. To head this ball he should use some of the techniques that he had done doing the drills depending were the ball will be. For example if the ball is thrown high he should bend his legs so that he will have more power to jump when the ball comes to him and then attack it in mid-air. If he is getting the hang of it the thrower could stand in line with the 18 yard box and repeat this method so that the striker can improve his heading accuracy by being further away from the goal. And to make it more difficult the thrower could throw the ball in from different positions and different angles.

Week 4

On the fourth week the player needs to practice his accuracy more when challenging for the ball in the air. To do this someone will be marking the striker to put him under a bit more pressure and to try and improve his accuracy on goal under pressure someone will through the ball into the penalty box and he will have to jump higher than his marker to win the ball and attack the ball and head into the open goal. This action should be repeated until his headers are becoming more on target.

Week 5

The fifth week is where his heading improvement will start to show. As he is practicing set pieces on a corner. He should use all of the skills and techniques he has learned in the last four weeks and put it all together. He should constantly be on the move when in position for a corner so his marker won’t be able to keep up with him as the marker has to watch the ball and the striker at the same time which is very difficult which gives the striker an advantage.  When the corner has been taken the striker should then anticipate where the ball will arrive and depending on how high or low the ball is coming in at he should position himself so that he will be able to make good contact with the ball.

Week 6

In week six the striker should repeat this process from week 1 onwards again to see if he has progressed in his heading abilities. If he hasn’t improved the striker should keep on repeating this action plan until his heading has dramatically improved. Or if he feels confident enough he could put this practice into a friendly game to see if there has been and progress in the last six weeks.