This month's featured exercise is the Cross Body Cone Touch. An extremely challenging drill that helps develop balance, coordination and unilateral strength, it's also a great way to help guard against knee injuries by increasing both strength and stability.

To begin, stand with an agility cone, or water bottle placed approximately one foot in front of you and one foot off to your left side (as pictured). Next, pick your right foot up off the ground and reach your right arm up over your right shoulder. In one simultaneous motion, begin squatting as you reach across your body to touch the cone with your right hand. Pause there for a second before pushing into the ground with your leg to stand back up. Try and complete 6-10 reps without touching your right foot to the ground, then move the cone and repeat with the other leg.

Performance Points:

• Begin your squat by poking your hips back first, followed by bending your knee. You want to avoid a situation where the knee is driving forward past the toes as you execute the drill.
  
• Keep your torso as upright as possible to avoid rounding your back.
• As you drive back up, really emphasize pushing through the heel and keeping it on the ground to help increase glute and hamstring involvement.
• Finally, and most importantly, have a coach or parent watch you to make sure that the knee stays in line with where your toes are pointed. Allowing your knee to pinch inward, or bow outward in relation to your foot placement, defeats the purpose of the exercise and can also place you at risk of injury. That said, in the beginning it's perfectly fine to use a larger object, or place the cone up on a couple of phone books to limit the range, so that you can execute the drill with proper form. As you get stronger, simply lower the cone.