Agility

Agility is the ability to change direction quickly, as well as accelerate and decelerate at a moments notice. Football, basketball, and baseball are examples of "open-skill" sports. This means there is ever changing movement required from the athlete.

When one player is covering another the critical factor becomes which player can move faster into a superior position. The competitive edge goes to the player with this ability.

Think of agility as applying speed, accelerating, decelerating, maintaining balance, maximizing power and changing direction while your surrounding environment continues to change.

You can improve these skills through drills. However drills will only be effective if you have a foundation of strength, power, and speed already in place.

It's crucial for your body to be able to react swiftly and with high precision. This is a very important trait for any athlete and is a vital part of your training routine.

Some popular exercises are:

The hexagon exercise, which is used like the ladder exercise.

Skipping rope at different speeds.

Running in a zigzag formation while avoiding the cones.

Hi-stepping with emphasis on speed.

Running in a T-pattern while involving all types of movements – backwards, forward, lateral and forward.

Shuffle drill- cones would be placed at varying distances and the course has to be completed running both forward and backward.

A Few Critical Points:

You are actually training your body to move fast laterally. In order to measure your success the following three areas need to be taken into consideration:

See how much strength you have on a single leg, to stop and restart movement. This is an important aspect to agility, which would enable the athlete to stop at top speed and start again with little effort using one leg.

Your ability to decelerate. Can you bring yourself to a halt from the top speed whenever you want? The ability to 'apply your brakes' when you want to.

Stability of your landing. Are you able to land with stability and balance?

These are the three most important areas. If you master these you would surely have a competitive edge over your competition.

During your training always try to:

·Complete the drill without touching any cones; Correct form should come before speed.

·Build a rhythm and everything will make sense to your feet. If it helps, talk yourself into the rhythm by saying "IN-OUT, IN-OUT"

·Try to always use your arms. Your arm movement and foot movement should be totally integrated for your training to have its best effect.

What sports need agility training?

Any sport that requires the athlete to move quickly in reaction to another player or the ball would benefit from this type of training. Whether it is soccer, boxing, tennis, baseball, basketball, hockey or football – agility exercises will help improve your overall performance. Sports that require the athlete to respond to a fixed environment like track or swimming do not require this type of training as much as the sports mentioned above.

Drill using cones.

This video shows how to do right legged thrusts using a ladder.

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