There Is No One Right Way to Kick
Notes from 4th Down Focus, Episode 103, with Brian Egan of Performance Kicking Academy.
Walk onto any field where specialists are being coached and you'll hear absolutes. Plant here. Lock the ankle. Approach at this angle. Some of it is good information. All of it is delivered as though it were universal.
It isn't, and the coaches who work at the highest level know it isn't.
Brian Egan founded Performance Kicking Academy and works as a swing coach for kickers now in the NFL - Brandon Aubrey, Cameron Dicker and Will Reichard among them. Episode 103 is worth your time because of where he spends most of it: not on the one correct technique, but on differentiation. How instruction has to change with the athlete in front of you, and with the level he's actually at.
Why "correct" is the wrong question
Put five NFL kickers on film side by side and you will not see one motion. You'll see five, with real differences in approach, plant, hip rotation and follow-through. They are all in the league. Which one is right?
The question doesn't survive contact with the evidence. Bodies are different - limb length, hip mobility, strength, the way a particular athlete naturally sequences a rotation. A plant position that unlocks one kicker will fight another one's anatomy every rep.
Which is why cookie-cutter instruction fails in a specific, diagnosable way: the athlete gets a little better for a few weeks while he's consciously managing the new position, then regresses under pressure, because the motion was never his. Under stress, everybody reverts to what their body actually wants to do.
What personalization actually means
It does not mean the coach has no method. That's the version people reach for, and it's wrong.
It means the method is a framework for finding this athlete's repeatable motion, rather than a template to press him into. The principles hold - the ball has to be struck consistently, the operation has to survive pressure, the sequence has to be efficient. What changes is the shape those principles take in a particular body.
That's the same reason our own work is built on measurement. Kickometry isn't a prescribed posture; it's a way of finding out what a given athlete's motion is actually producing, so the adjustment fits the kicker instead of the diagram.
The part that matters for parents
This is the most practical takeaway in the episode, and it's a buying decision.
If you watch a coach run a session and every athlete is being taught the identical position regardless of age, size or level, you're watching a curriculum being delivered, not coaching. A curriculum can be useful - it's better than nothing, and it's usually cheaper. But it is not the same product as a coach diagnosing your kid.
The tell is easy. Ask the coach what he changed for your athlete specifically, and why. A coach who is differentiating will have an answer in about two seconds. A coach who is delivering a template will talk about the system.
Level changes the instruction too
The other axis Egan spends time on is level - a first-year high school kicker and a college specialist chasing an NFL camp do not need the same session, even when they share the same flaw.
The younger athlete usually needs volume, structure and a motion he can own. The advanced athlete is often working in margins so fine that the change is invisible without data. Same principles, radically different sessions. Coaching one the way you'd coach the other wastes the first athlete's money and the second one's remaining time.
What to do with this
- Stop chasing someone else's mechanics. The motion on the clip you keep rewatching belongs to a different body.
- Ask why, not just what. Any adjustment worth making has a reason specific to you. If the coach can't give it, the adjustment is a guess.
- Judge changes under pressure, not in warm-ups. A technique that only holds when you're thinking about it hasn't been learned yet.
- Match the session to where you actually are. Advanced work on an athlete who needs reps is a waste of a good coach.
Related reading
How to Choose a Kicking Coach turns this into six questions to ask before you hire anyone.
Listen to the episode
Episode 103 covers Egan's path to founding Performance Kicking, differentiation and personalization in instruction, biomechanics and mental fortitude, recruiting trends, and what the jump from high school to college to the NFL actually demands.
Find your motion
Every 4DU session starts by measuring what your motion is actually doing - not by handing you a position and hoping it fits.