This little routine is great for not only warming up, but can also be used as a standalone practice routine by itself. If you are short of time, it is a great little session that can get your arm going, gives you good practice at every double on the board, and can be as intensive as you want, by trying to hit as many consecutive doubles as possible and breaking your previous records.
You are going to hit every double twice, but with a twist. You could just go around the board from 1 to 20, hit the bull and come back to 1, and that would work just fine. However, you are practicing for the game of 501 (or any 01 game), so it makes sense to practice with this in mind.
Rather than go around the board linearly, you are going to start at D20, and then throw as you would in a proper game. So next you throw at D10, and then D5. This gets you used to throwing the same way as you would in a match-play situation, and gives you an edge because you are always used to throwing at doubles in the same manor.
So, you get to D5, then what? Well, you have gotten as far as you can get in this segment, so you come back up again. You hit D5, D10, and then D20. You always go as far as the breakdown of that number allows before coming back up again.
Next you move onto D19. As this does not break down you hit it twice (it doesn’t have to be in the same throw, although that is always nice to do). Then it is the turn of the 18’s, and you hit D18, D9, D9 and then D18 again. This may look complicated at first, but it is easy once you have done it a time or two,
Continue in this manor until you reach D11. Again, you hit two of those and then the outer ring of doubles is done. It is now time for the bullseye, and this time you have to hit two of the red, center bulls. The red bull is double the green ring (25 points), and is the highest double you can finish on. It is also the most difficult, and it comes into play a lot more as you get into the higher finishing combinations.
For clarity, the doubles warm up routine is shown in the table below. The more you can practice hitting the doubles the better you will be when it comes to the real thing.
20 | 10 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 20 | ||||
19 | 19 | ||||||||
18 | 9 | 9 | 18 | ||||||
17 | 17 | ||||||||
16 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 |
15 | 15 | ||||||||
14 | 7 | 7 | 14 | ||||||
13 | 13 | ||||||||
12 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 12 | ||||
11 | 11 | ||||||||
B | B |
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At first this may take a while to complete, but don’t give up. Mastering the doubles is as difficult as it gets in the game of darts, and the more you practice the easier it will get. As a rough guide, eventually the entire sequence detailed above will take you no more than 15-20 minutes once you reach a good level. If you can do it faster than that then you are a very formidable player indeed!
This routine, along with many others can be found in Darts Finishing Mastery: How to Master the Art of Finishing. The easy to understand methods explained in this core book will take any player - from beginner to Pro level - to a World Class level of knowledge and expertise in the art of Darts Finishing. The difference between being an average player to being a great player is within your grasp, so pick up a copy of Darts Finishing Mastery: How to Master the Art of Finishing below:
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