The shuffle is a fundamental motor skill in many sports. The shuffle involves moving from side to side while facing straight forward. This is a motor skill that is done for short distances as it is not as fast as moving forwards.
To perform a shuffle the athlete should have their feet hip-width apart. Their shoulders should be back with their chest out. The athlete should be facing forward. From this position the athlete should unlock their knees and push their hips back until they are in a quarter squat. Their weight should be on the balls of their feet with their hands up at waist level. The athlete pushing their hips back is extremely important because it lowers their center of gravity. Weight on the balls of the feet is also important because it helps the athlete to be balanced.
To shuffle, the athlete will move to their right or left. If the athlete is shuffling to the right, this movement will be executed by the athlete pushing towards the right with their left leg followed by stepping with the right. This is a push and step movement (see the video below). If the athlete is moving to the left, they will push off the right leg and step with the left.
Shuffle drills are normally done for 10-20 yards at a time. It needs to be pointed out that athletes do not execute the shuffle over 10-20 yards in a game situation, it’s for a few steps only. Then why is it trained over 10-20 yards? It’s trained over these distances to condition the muscles and joints to perform the movement and to overtrain the skill. This is where the coach comes in, 10-20 yards of quality reps helps the athlete to be able to perform the skill flawlessly without thinking in a game. On the other hand, ten to twenty yards of junk meant just to tire the athlete does not help with transfer to games.
This is not a skill that should be done for 50-100 yard drills. In other words, if 10 yards is good then doing it for 100 won’t speed up mastery of the skill – it just makes the athlete tired and reinforces bad movement habits.
Once the athlete has mastered the skill, this becomes a great warm up exercise before agility training. Eventually this skill will need to be made more complex by combining movements (shuffle + turn, shuffle + turn + sprint, etc.), adding the ball, and introducing the skill in game situations.
Revised June 29, 2024
