If you find you are in love with Speedball and want to look at playing it more than other game styles then you will want to start building on your fundamental skills. This can be where you get hung up as you then ask questions like “how can I improve?” and “what can help me get better faster?”. Today we will cover the best and most useful ways to improve your game.

How To Get Better At Speedball Tournament Games? The best methods to use to improve your game in Speedball center around snap shooting, off-hand shooting and speed drills while building up your physical strength and cardio for bursts of speed. You should begin practicing with players who have more skills than you and begin asking them questions and start to study games and methods used by the pro teams. These core skills will be worth the effort and provide you measurable increases in your game.

Now that we know what you will need to work on we can explain each of these in more details and explain how they will help improve your skills. No one of these is more important than the others in terms of improving your overall skillset, but if you know you are weak in one of them then I would begin by focusing more on your weaknesses instead of trying to better your strengths as you will make more progress.

Speed And Acceleration Drills

A speedball or tournament player needs to have a high top speed and a very good proficiency at accelerating. You will frequently need to go from stopped and firing to top speed moving from one obstacle to another.

The best way to work on these is to run tabata style sprints which are bouts of full speed using every ounce of speed and power to move within typically 30 seconds. 30 seconds is more than enough time to empty the tank if you are truly running at maximum effort.

Practice Shooting Drills

One of the most important skills to master is shooting, hands down. It is also one of the most expensive things you can practice depending on how you want to implement it. Our suggestion is to purchase reballs which are similar to paintballs but don’t break and can be reused again and again.

Snap Shooting

A strong fundamental skill to professional tournament play. It involves moving out to fire fast with a drop out and quick fire while limiting your overall visibility. Work on building a power stance instead of making a large motion to get popped out.

Off Hand Shooting

When starting out in paintball many people will favor use of only one hand for firing. This is a good start but as you gain experience you will realize the lack of options for you on firing lanes due to this.

What you need to do is to start practicing your ability to fire with either hand, this may sound like a simple process but it will require a lot of patience and time with yourself and your marker. Below are some good tips to help you out when starting this exercise.

Shooting Off The Break

When firing off the break you are trying to keep your marker level in lane to shoot through the blind into the lane hoping to score some eliminations on the initial break. You need to learn to aim high at times to ensure hits on longer distance targets.

Increase Overall Physical Fitness

This may surprise everyone but fitness is needed to be an effective player. A comprehensive overall fitness lends itself to less injuries and better ability to stand up to the rigors of constant play.

A quality starter fitness routine is a 5×5 workout program as it doesn’t require too much time or equipment. Though this may sound like it yields fewer results this style of workout provides high-quality results in most, men and women. If you want to crush it you can get a journal to track your workout and results to achieve even better results.

Increase Cardio Fitness

This should be done by players who are in any role as in a moment within a game you may need to cover a new role then you start as. Your ability to run and maintain speed and breathing may mean the difference in a win or loss.

This is something that is very often overlooked by beginners as it isn’t something you see in practice at the field. This is where you can maximize your time on the field with off the field activities and practice.

Practice Diving And Sliding Drills

Short of shooting drills, diving and sliding are very important to fast paced games, since a majority of your time is spent moving from objective to objective. You want to practice sliding into bunkers of all sizes as some you want to end low and others maybe standing to return fire. These are awesome as they can be done while not at the paintball field and require no money as they don’t use air or paintballs.

Lateral Slide

Learning breakouts to slides where you are ready to light up the lane. These are some nice sliding videos that can help you understand how to properly setup for firing asap.

Hip Slide

A nice video around the process to do a proper hip slide. Leading with how you bring yourself low to the ground to lessen overall impact and how to manage your legs to properly slide to come back up fully in place.

Snake Dives

Getting into the snake on any pro tournament can make or break a match. It is definitely a skill worthy of mastery and is one you can practice almost anywhere until it isn’t even a thought any longer.

Ask To Practice With Better Players

When at the field ask others if you can practice with them. Worst thing they could say would be a no, many times though someone would like a break and maybe you can fill in for them and get a chance to experience the match from within with a team already used to communicating.

What they say is true you will only get better when playing against better competition. If you dominate your local field then you need to move to another level as you won’t improve any longer if you aren’t being challenged appropriately.

Study Game Film

There is a reason why all pro level sports spend hours each week watching the opposing teams games and matches. This time allows you to look and watch for tendencies or specific moves each player makes on the field. It gives you a chance to evaluate the competition before and see where you can best align to remove their advantages.

Watch Live Games

This is where you can see how you would call a game to see if you can figure out the winner before it happens, learning strategies in real time and trying to beat the teams at the decision making.

You want to spend time during a live match listening to the communication and, when possible, watching the player who runs the same role as yourself. Learn angles and how positions size up opportunities while making sure they continue to feed information to their teammates.

Watch Replays Games

Replays are amazing when available as they provide the ability to not only watch but to review. Once a play is complete or a match you can move through in rewind or forward in slow analysis allowing you to study without a timeframe.

Build On Communication Skills

Spend time with your team and alone working on communication skills, you need to be able to effectively relay locations and players fast when out on the field. The key to most successful teams isn’t in having the better equipment and gear but in communicating needs and issues with your team.

Memorize Field Layouts Before Tournaments

You want to commit the field layouts to memory once they are released out, this is one advantage you can lend yourself before you ever hit the field. You should take time to look at the images to find the best lanes for each of your teammates as this will help you know where they can lend cover to your movements and allow motion on the field.

Budget Starter Marker: Empire Mini GS

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, the included information above will help you move your skills to the next level. I would love to hear about your journey when you have time to contact us for more details. I would love to hear if the information has helped to improve your skills in play!