Aerial Battles

Aerial Battles: Receiver, 2, starts 10 to 15m away from thrower. Defender, D2, starts a few metres behind 2 to simulate game like positions. 1 may be a…

Initial setup. Receiver, 2, starts 10 to 15m away from thrower. Defender, D2, starts a few metres behind 2 to simulate game like positions. 1 may be a designated thrower to provide throwing consistency.
This drill is split into three stages: 1: No Jumping Firstly, both participants cannot jump at any point when trying to catch the disc. Inherently the offence will have an advantage so it’s important to emphasise boxing out to the defender. Boxing out means using your body to seal out your player, keeping yourself between them and the disc. Like getting a rebound in basketball.
2: Defender can’t jump In a game the defender is often at a disadvantage. This time the offensive player can jump but the defender is still able to get in the contest and box out. Often there are similar results to the first iteration, the jump helps but not exponentially unless there’s a mismatch. Reading and boxing out should be the most important foundation.
3: Both players can jump Now, this contest is more even, but players should be more dialled into their reading and boxing out skills with the timing of the jump as an extra edge. Key to success is knowing how high you can jump and timing this correctly, and getting to the space as early as possible to get the best positioning.

View and animate this Ultimate drill on Ultiplays · part of the free Ultimate Playbook.