Netball Change of Direction Drill: Lead With Your Hips

Changing direction quickly isn’t just about having fast feet. If your hips are still facing the wrong way, you’re probably not going anywhere particularly quickly.

This simple netball change of direction drill, shared by Netball Revolution, focuses on getting players to lead the turn with their head, rotate their hips and then accelerate into the new space.

It needs very little equipment and would work really nicely as a station within a larger netball skills session.

Set out several short rows of marker cones, with each row running in a different direction.

The player sprints along the first row. As they reach the end, they make a sharp change of direction and accelerate down the next one, continuing through the course until they reach the end.

The cones give the player a clear point at which they need to make the turn, but the important part isn’t how quickly they can shuffle their feet around them. It’s what happens with the rest of the body.

As the player approaches the change of direction, encourage them to turn their head towards the space they want to attack first.

Their hips should then rotate fully into that new direction before they accelerate away.

It sounds obvious, but players can easily try to make the entire change of direction through their feet and shoulders. The result can be a sideways drift rather than a clean, explosive turn.

A strong hip switch gets the body facing the space the player actually wants to attack.

There aren’t many positions that can get away without it.

Attackers use changes of direction to lose defenders, re-offer and drive into space. Defenders need them when reacting to an opponent, recovering position or changing from one line of movement to another.

And because so much netball movement happens in response to somebody else, being able to turn sharply and accelerate away matters at every level of the game.

That’s what makes this such a useful little drill. It isolates one movement skill and gives players the chance to repeat it without worrying about a ball, defender or passing option at the same time.

You don’t need to build an entire session around it.

Set the cones up as one station in a skills circuit and have players move through it for a couple of minutes before rotating. Coaches can watch the turns and pick up players who are keeping their hips facing forwards, drifting around the corner or taking too many steps before accelerating.

Once the movement starts looking sharper, you can take the same coaching point into driving and opposed work.

Simple set-up, plenty of repetitions and one very clear focus: get those hips around and attack the new space.