The way football teams practice is changing.

At the NFL, college and high school levels, long gone are the days of lengthy scrimmaging and heavy contact drills. Most youth programs have followed suit.

Through its National Practice Guidelines for Youth Tackle Football, USA Football is further redefining what constitutes a proper youth football practice by setting a daily full-contact limit of 30 minutes and identifying what full contact is.

Specifically, full contact includes any drill conducted in gamelike, competitive conditions in which there is no predetermined winner - defined as "Thud" or "Live" in USA Football's Levels of Contact.

"Though there is no takedown to the ground in Thud, initial contact, particularly with linemen, is just as physical with Thud as it is with Live Action," USA Football Senior Director of Football Development Nick Inzerello said.

USA Football's youth practice guidelines offer leagues a clear, medically endorsed process to implement heat acclimatization procedures and clear definitions of contact and time limits on player-to-player contact to construct a proper practice plan. The guidelines were designed with input from USA Football's Medical Advisory Committee and Football Advisory Committee and are endorsed by the American College of Sports Medicine, the National Athletic Trainers' Association and the American Medical Society of Sports Medicine. They provide youth football organizations with recommendations to establish consistent methods designed to limit the chance for injury during structured practice sessions.

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