Improving my ground kick

Irellevant

To get to the point I really want to be able to deploy the ground kick in my free taking arsenal but my ground kick is mediocre I can barely pot the ball over from the 21 , 50% of the time from the ground . I don't know if it's my form or whatever else but it's not leg strength cause I can kick the ball over the bar from the 45 from the hands . Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

Jobs OXO

Irellevant wrote: »

To get to the point I really want to be able to deploy the ground kick in my free taking arsenal but my ground kick is mediocre I can barely pot the ball over from the 21 , 50% of the time from the ground . I don't know if it's my form or whatever else but it's not leg strength cause I can kick the ball over the bar from the 45 from the hands . Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

Do you hit it with a fade or a draw ?

Irellevant

Jobs OXO wrote: »

Do you hit it with a fade or a draw ?

Don't have much a method that's why I'm here and is this a joke or does the golf definition translate to GAA

kupus

Practice and plenty of it. Make sure your foot follows thru the ball and not too much under it, getting your foot under it gives it the height but not the distance. The power of distance comes with a strike thru the ball. It will gain height over the distance then.
that was the advice i got and could hit 45s most of the time unless on the wings cos i didnt practice enough, kept falling short, so i traded distance with accuracy and most of the ff knew where it was going.

Oldtree

You could video a number of your kicks at the pitch, from the same angle as the below video, and then do a side by side comparison on a pc to see if there are any adjustments you could then make to improve your kick, and then practice practice practice the kick at home, to get the technique right, concentrating on every movement of your body.

Easy to.practice the kick at home in the garden with a small goal net and your phone videoing to show you how you are doing. Do 10 kicks, review, repeat.

Don't be afraid to go back to basics, it's very hard to overcome bad habits picked up along the way.

From here

http://learning.gaa.ie/Football_%20KickingFromtheGround

DoctaDee

I'm assuming your issue is not getting height in the kick ? - kicking the ball off the tee is slightly misleading as the elevation to the kick is given by the tee. If you're kicking it off the grass make sure your standing leg isn't straight (that you still have a noticeable flex in the knee), and your foot should be level and around a foot from the ball on contact - head down, but shoulders back. Find the routine most comfortable for you, take your steps back and most importantly 1 or 2 to the side.

Get yourself an app like hudl technique to record your routine & progress - you can slo-mo it, frame by frame to give you a complete understanding of what your mechanics are

Irellevant

DoctaDee wrote: »

I'm assuming your issue is not getting height in the kick ? - kicking the ball off the tee is slightly misleading as the elevation to the kick is given by the tee. If you're kicking it off the grass make sure your standing leg isn't straight (that you still have a noticeable flex in the knee), and your foot should be level and around a foot from the ball on contact - head down, but shoulders back. Find the routine most comfortable for you, take your steps back and most importantly 1 or 2 to the side.

Get yourself an app like hudl technique to record your routine & progress - you can slo-mo it, frame by frame to give you a complete understanding of what your mechanics are

Thanks for the advice but I do have difficulty getting height in the ball on the grass

DoctaDee

Irellevant wrote: »

Thanks for the advice but I do have difficulty getting height in the ball on the grass

Sorry didn't phrase that properly, but that's what I meant yeah, if you can't get height in your kick.

mariano rivera

1. Set a ball say about 2 or 3 feet out from the goal line with a net. (You could use a net from kids goal at home too. The net is used so you don’t have to walk down the field after every kick) 

2. Face towards the Goal

3. Stand about One or maybe two steps back from the ball

4. Step up to the ball (one maybe two steps) and kick the ball towards the net. (Stephen Cluxton would take very few steps because his kicking action is so good)

Concentrate of kicking the ball into the ROOF of the Net

Concentrate on planting your “standing foot” beside the ball as you strike with your “kicking foot”

Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat Repeat

 

If you have a few balls line them all up first, so you don’t have to continually re-set the ball

(Some coaches would say that you should be practicing with both feet Say 5 with the left and 5 with the right)

In some ways, it’s similar to golf practice; you are just working on your swing. You can work on your accuracy once you have your swing down

The beauty with the net is the time saved.


Hope this helps.

PARlance

To continue the golf theme, don't "try" to get the ball in the air. Many beginners in golf try to "scoop" the ball into the air... they try to hit "up on" the ball because that may seem intuitive. That's fine when the ball is teed up high but it leads to bad form and it's not possible without a tee.

The pros hit down on all their shots whether it's teed up or not... with the rare exception hitting slightly up with a driver.

When hitting a ball of the ground in golf, you have hit down on the ball, the loft of the club gets the ball airborne. It's similar with kicking off the ground, you're not coming down as steep on the ball but you're still coming down on it. You're foot/boot is the club.

You will see many people trying to get the ball airborne by trying to kick up on it, trying to burst the ball and it generally results in a horrible toe poke shot that barely gets 5 feet off the ground.

It's not about strength, good technique wins everytime. Swinging through the ball like it isn't even there.

Practice on a nice bare or tightly cut patch of ground.