Rett Larson's No Zombies

Agility with a time constraint to keep things fun

Spin and run around the hoop until it falls

When a giant ball is falling from the sky, you only have two options: react or get crushed.

In this game-speed reaction drill, one athlete lies face down while their partner stands a few feet away holding a physio ball overhead. Without warning, the ball drops.

The job? Pop up, accelerate, and get under it before it bounces twice. Fail, and you eat foam. Succeed, and you sharpen your first-step speed, reaction time, and acceleration — all in one fun burst of chaos.

Perfect for the end of warm-up when everyone’s hot, primed, and ready to move.

It’s called Stick and Move for a reason.

You’re tossing a ball diagonally to your partner…
You’re shifting sides on every rep…
And you’re keeping a stick perfectly upright the whole time.

This is one of my go-to warm-up games when I want:
✔️ Thermogenic movement
✔️ Brain-body coordination
✔️ Easy setup with minimal equipment
✔️ A lead-in to more advanced stick or ball drills later in the session

Want to dial it up?
• Add distance to challenge upper body coordination
• Take out the bounce
• Change tempo
• Or shift it into a full relay-race competition 🔥

You’ll find Stick and Move (and dozens more like it) in the No Zombies Warm-Up Library — linked in my bio.

Shoot the Hoop 🎯
One of our favorite quick-hitters from the Hula Hoop file in the No Zombies Warm-Up Library.
Partner A tosses a volleyball, Partner B tosses a hula hoop. The goal? Time it perfectly so the ball flies through the hoop mid-air—and both partners catch their new objects.
💡 1 point for each successful switch.
It’s a 60-second warm-up that brings out creativity, communication, and hand-eye coordination.
Want to ramp it up? Add cones and assign mini-penalties for misses to boost sweat and focus.
A fun, flexible way to stimulate athletes before the “real” work begins.

Check the No Zombies Warm-Up Library in my bio for more hula hoop challenges like this one.

Chaos is the point. 🎯

In Chaos Cleanup, the ball takes unpredictable bounces, changes angles, and forces everyone to react in real time. Veterans vs. young guns. Eight minutes on the clock. Most points wins.

Why it works:
✅ Differential learning — players adapt to a constantly changing environment.
✅ Volleyball-specific skills under unpredictable constraints.
✅ A competitive format that gets everyone laughing, moving, and focused.

Smiles, sweat, and smarter athletes. That’s a win. 🏐💥

Quickness. Agility. And just enough dizziness to make it fun.
Spin your hula hoop on its axis and race around it as many times as you can before it stops moving.
It’s a quick burst of speed, coordination, and competitiveness—just make sure you pick a direction and stick with it, or you’ll be dizzy for the rest of warm-up.

Add it to the first two minutes of your warm-up to jump-start your athletes’ nervous systems and get them sweating and smiling.

This is just one of dozens of hula hoop-based warm-ups inside the Warm-Up Library.

Static mobility? Not here.
This is deep squat hoop dribbling — a fun neurological and mobility challenge we use in warm-ups to prepare athletes for the low positions they’ll see on the court.
They have to spin the hula hoop on the floor and keep it moving using only their hands while staying in a deep squat (and sometimes duck-walking after it).
It’s weird. It’s hard. It’s surprisingly competitive.
And yes… it works.

Explore more ideas like this in the warm-up library (link in bio).

Move the Hoop 🌀
Mobility, coordination, body control… and chaos.
We split the team into old vs. young and turned this into a race: hands locked, hoops looped, and one red hoop that must make it back to its original owner.
To win? You’ll need deep squats, overhead reaches, and a willingness to twist, duck, and contort your way around the circle.
This might look like a game—but it’s sneaky mobility work that gets athletes warm, engaged, and sweaty in 60 seconds flat.
Give it a shot… if you have enough hula hoops 😏

20 hours of travel. 7 seconds of recovery.
Partnered band stretches to shake off the jet lag and get the body back online.
Not fancy. Just effective.

Rolling Hoop Over-Unders
Part mobility, part hand-eye coordination, part chaos.
Each player rolls a hoop and then has to chase it down, threading a volleyball over and under it as many times as possible before the hoop hits the floor.

You can make it harder by having athletes run backward, dodge obstacles, or compete head-to-head. Either way, this quick warm-up primes the nervous system, loosens up the body, and brings smiles before the real work begins.

Hula hoops: not just for kids anymore.

Explore more warm-up challenges like this in the Warm-Up Library (link in bio).

This warm-up is called Twist and Tap—a partner-based broomstick challenge that starts slow and finishes fast.

Athletes hold sticks behind their necks, hinge forward, and twist side-to-side, tapping the ends of their sticks together with their partner. We increase the speed every few seconds, and pretty soon it turns into a lightning-fast rhythm game that gets the core firing and the smiles flowing.

💡 Why it works:
— Sneaky core activation
— Thoracic mobility with intent
— Coordination and rhythm
— A fun lead-in to game-speed movements

This is just one of dozens of ideas in the Long Stick section of the No Zombies Warm-Up Library — linked in my bio.