Introduction
Dear readers,
Thank you very much for choosing a book of the training assistance series of handball-uebungen.de.
Handball training for kiddies and young children is different from handball training for older players and considerably different from handball training for competitive players. During their first contact with “handball”, kids should be familiarized with the ball in a playful way. They should be taught that being active, doing sports, playing together, and even playing against each other is fun.
This book contains a short introduction to handball for kiddies and young children and its special characteristics as well as example exercises which help to make your training units interesting and more diverse. Following this, there are five complete training units of different difficulty levels that focus on the basic handball techniques (dribbling, passing, catching, shooting, and defending in a game with opponents). The kids are playfully introduced to the subsequent handball-specific basics. At the same time, particular attention is payed to general physical experience and the development of coordination skills.
The exercises are illustrated and described in an easy, comprehensible manner. They can be immediately integrated in every training unit. By using the given training variants, you can easily adjust the difficulty level of the training units to the respective target group. The variants should also encourage you to modify and further develop the exercises to make each training unit a new and more diverse experience for the children.
Sample figure:
Acknowledgments
Writing this book would not have been possible without the help of Alie Lackner who contributed to the training units by sharing her experience in the field of children’s gymnastics, by coming up with game ideas, and by giving plenty of advice regarding age-appropriate exercising. Thank you so much for this. I also wish to thank my co-editor, Elke Lackner, who made a major contribution regarding the concept and structure of the training units and exercises.
1st English edition released on 29 Mar 2017
German original edition released on 20 Jun 2014
Published by DV Concept
Editors, Design and Layout: Jörg Madinger, Elke Lackner
Proofreading and English translation: Nina-Maria Nahlenz
ISBN: 978-3-95641-090-1
The book and its contents are protected by copyright. No reprinting, photomechanical reproduction, storing or processing in electronic systems without the publisher’s written permission.
1. Basics of minihandball training and handball training for young kids
The primary objective of minihandball is to give children the fun of sports and to provide an opportunity to learn, try out and apply different (all-kind-of-sports) movements. The sports lessons should be organized in an entertaining and exciting manner though, giving each child the opportunity to get involved. Children have a strong urge to do physical activities and to play and they want to satisfy this urge during the sports lessons.
Hence, the following rules should be observed when planning and supervising a training unit.
Different movement options:
The children aged 5 to 9 years are in the best age for learning motor skills, i.e., they learn movements and movement patterns quickly and easily. Hence, it is important to provide them with plenty of opportunities to gain movement experiences. However, the children should not only try out handball-specific movements but all-kind-of-sports movements as well. Simple activity courses create good opportunities to combine movement sequences.
Example exercise:
B1: Continued movement
Setting:
- Put a bench on the floor and place two cones on top; put gym mats on the floor behind the bench.
- The players line up, with the last player holding a handball.
- Two players stand in the playing field (here and ).
Course:
- The players stand in the line with their legs spread, facing .
- The backmost player () hands over the ball through his legs to , who hands over the ball through his legs to , and so on until the ball has arrived (A).
- turns around, runs towards the bench while holding the ball (B), steps onto the bench and balances his way across it, climbing over the cones (C). Once he has arrived at the end, passes the ball to (D).
- Following the pass, jumps down from the bench and does a somersault (forward roll, sideways roll) on the mats (E).
- runs towards the line of players, turns around (F), and starts the course over by handing over the ball through his legs to .
- lines up behind (G).
- And so on.
Coordination basics
Coordination basics are an important prerequisite to learning and performing specific movements accurately, also at a higher age. Hence, handball training for children focuses particularly on the development of coordination skills, such as rhythmic skills, orientation, balance, reaction, differentiation (adjust movements to different situations), and movement combination.
Example exercises:
B2: Balance: Balancing across benches
Setting:
- Put benches on the floor (upside down, if applicable). Alternatively, you can put ropes on the floor.
Course:
- Two children (one child on each end of the bench) start balancing across the bench at the same time.
- Once they have arrived the middle part of the bench, they try to go past each other without stepping down.
- The players should help each other, though.
B3: Differentiation: Dribbling with different balls
Course:
- Each player gets a ball (basketball, tennis ball, handball, foam ball).
- The players crisscross through the court and dribble their ball.
- On the coach’s command, the players exchange their ball with one of the players who is dribbling another type of ball. Afterwards, the players start over by dribbling their new ball.
