List of Punishment Exercises

Most of us dads were at one time involved with team sports and likely had to go through some brutal exercises either as a punishment or as a means to bond the team together. I put the following question out to Twitter and Instagram followers:

What’s the most brutal way a sports coach or drill sergeant used sprints, pushups, hills, laps or whatever to punish you?

Here is a list of the answers I received. If you are in a position to mold a team of young athletes some day, you might find this repository useful. Add your ideas in the comments, and I’ll update the list.

Master List

• Hold an object 90 degrees in front of you, don’t let it drop
• If you are late or not turning schoolwork in or causing problems in school you take a towel on the floor and got back and forth all practice long in bear crawl, sliding the towel with your hands.
• Wrestling: 5-mile buddy carry, pair with someone in your weight class, doesn’t matter how you carry them or how often you switch who is carrying, but if you get caught not carrying then you start over.
• Cadence runs, where team runs in two lines and in sync, and carry a boat on their shoulders.
• 50 x 40 yard sprints. No loafing. Holding a push-up position in between each one.
• Everyone grab 45lb plates, run to the track, run 2 miles holding the plates.
• Absurd numbers of “Green Bays” – which are just up downs. 
• Rolling – it is terrible. Dizzy. Itching. No end in sight. Do not underestimate the roll.
• Had a coach that would make the person they’re punishing sit and watch while everyone else ran until people started puking.  The hate directed at that person was pretty intense.
• Whenever two players fought (serious argument that may or may not have come to blows), both players had to stand on sideline hugging each other without speaking for 30 min during next practice or game. Any fuss (or talking) time would reset.
• If we got out of line, leg lifts until you couldn’t feel your legs anymore.  Lay flat on your back and with your legs together, hold feet off the floor about 4 inches until the whistle blows.  Someone’s feet touches the floor, you get 20 more min.
• Basketball coach would make us run suicides or killers. If everyone finished in under a certain time, we’d be done. If anyone was over the time limit, we’d all have to run killers again.
• My freshman football coach made us take a “hot lap” every day after warmups, then anytime he felt people weren’t hustling. A hot lap was a run, in metal cleats and full pads, on the sidewalk, around the entire exterior of the campus property.
• 2 km leopard crawl on gravel.
• Running 2 miles holding a soccer ball above your head in the summer.  Coach blows the whistle, goal-line to goal-line at full throttle. Blows it again, there and back. 100, 200, 100, 200. Always wide open. Chest big for the rest period, no doubling over.
• I remember having to sit against the wall. Basically act like you are sitting in a chair with your back pressed against gym wall. Hamstrings parallel to floor. Try this for 5 minutes – then run suicides.
• Swimming – 5 sets of 100 butterfly at 1:30 at end of practice.
• We did 15 minutes of jumping jacks. Full “clap over your head” jumping jacks…in sand. 
• Fartlek runs or short sprints up any steep incline. Basically running and training with terrain will make your life miserable.
• Not me but once watched a teammate have to do barrel roll suicides every 5 yards on a 100 yard football field.

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