Perhaps you are a parent with child playing football this season for the first time or perhaps this isn’t your first trip around that block. Either way, I think it is important to familiarize yourself with what various types of equipment are out there and what the individual pieces are actually for.
Youth football equipment can be separated into three areas: Head protection (helmet, mouth guard, chinstrap, face mask, etc.), Body protection (shoulder pads, neck rolls, rib pads, elbow pads, gloves, etc.), and Leg protection (pants, thigh pads, hip pads, cup, cleats, knee pads, butt pad, etc.).
Football is a sport in which we expect big hits, and therefor expect injuries to eventually occur. You might be surprised the amount of injuries relative to other non-contact sports, simply because in football every child has proper equipment to protect themselves from a collision, however in baseball, for example, two outfielders running into one another trying to catch the same ball have no equipment to protect them.
Over the years, innovations have been made to Youth football equipment to increase the protection and safety they offer.
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Youth Football Wide Receiver Tips
Catching a football is not that difficult; however, catching a football correctly takes hours and hours of practice. You’ll see many youth football receivers position themselves in front of the ball and catch with their body ending up in a heap on the field with the football tucked away. There isn’t much chance of them running with the ball after the catch when they are lying on the field. Here are some wide receiver tips for catching the football the right way and to prepare you for gaining extra yards. Youth Football Tips – Improving Stalk Block Method
Stalk block is one of the toughest and effective defense methods in the game of football. Proper coaching and drills will help youngsters to master the art of stalk block. Coaching Youth Football – Keep Learning and Increasing Your Football IQ
One can never have too much knowledge. You’ll be amazed at how much information there is regarding youth football. Why Your Youth Football Defense is Not Working
Are you wondering why your youth football defense is getting run over this season? Here are some of the most common reasons why and how to solve it:As parents, we want to take advantage of this without being taken advantage of with the high prices. For example, you can go to Walmart and buy a mouthpiece for around $0.99, or you can go to your dentist and have him custom make one for $200-$400. I can’t say what is best for each person reading this article because i don’t know your financial situation, but i can pretty much guess that most people fall somewhere in between.
For around $10 you can find a very comfortable “gel” mouthpiece, in various colors, with or without a strap that will serve your child well for the entire year (assuming it doesn’t get lost before the end of the season, and this is where the $0.99 Walmart one will come into play). If your Child has braces, you can find a similar model for around $15-20. This price is low enough that you can toss it in the trash at the end of the season, but not such low quality that you might regret saving a few bucks when a knee comes in contact with your child’s chin.
I could go through every piece of equipment in my list above and offer the same analysis, but suffice it to say that for just about every option, there is a “too cheap” model and a “too expensive” model. As parents we just want to find that sweet spot where we get the most protection for our money spent.