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Agility Fitness

For Superior Competitive Performance

Athletes build agility fitness through training programs that match their specific sport demands and individual skills. Agility training must boost strength, speed, power, flexibility, and dynamic balance for changing directions and making position transitions quickly. See Fitness Components

Athletes require specific foundational training to (a) execute braking actions, (b) explode in any direction, and (c) rapidly shift weight in response to any competitive situation. See Reaction Time and Decision Making

Agility Fitness Training Tips

1. Building Explosiveness. Explosiveness requires an athlete to rapidly accelerate using coordinated, whole body efforts. Developing speed and strength (power) gives athletes the tools for jumping, starting, stopping, sprinting, and changing direction.

In addition to plyometric workouts, ladder/tire drills, and other such agility drills, an optimal combination of squats, speed squats, power cleans, and other Olympic lifting variations are ideal for developing explosiveness for rapid directional changes with control.

2. Decreasing Reaction Time. Reaction time involves both information processing and the ability to move quickly. When an athlete responds to an opponent's moves, he or she must quickly consider the options, make a decision about how to respond, and then quickly begin to move in the proper direction.

Mental processing can be accelerated in practice through such techniques as narrowing choices, learning to anticipate, identifying cues, and visualizing appropriate responses. Physical training involves reaction drills, line drills, hurdle drills, plyometrics and other such activities that force quick foot movement reactions. Olympic lifting variations that require rapid foot repositioning are very effective (e.g., jerks, split cleans).

3. Executing Rapid Weight Shifts. Changing direction under control means that athletes have to brake or redirect momentum rapidly. Weight shifts require the development dynamic stability, as well as strength, speed, and power to change the direction of body forces.

The Jerk for Sports Training

In addition to shuttle drills, lateral drills, cone drills, and weight training for strength and explosiveness, specific stability training and instruction are very useful. While building fitness, teach athletes to lower the center of gravity when changing directions or to maintain balance, shift weight in the direction of an anticipated, forceful collision, and use other mechanically-based strategies to combine mental plus physical training.

4. Joint Stability. Training must prepare an athlete's joints for the agility demands of a sport. Injuries inherent in the sport can be minimized or prevented with joint strengthening. Changing directions can place substantial demands on ankles, knees, and hips.

Strength and explosive training activities do well in strengthening and stabilizing joints, but additional attention may be required. Athletic trainers can perform tests to determine weaknesses or threats to joint integrity. It may be advisable incorporate additional single joint exercises, such as hamstring curls, leg extensions for quadriceps, and ankle strengthening activities.

5. Trunk Strength and Stability. Shifting weight, reaching, and bending are examples of sport movements that require adequate trunk strength and stability, particularly when changing directions rapidly.

It is essential to include a variety of core strengthening exercises. Abdominal exercises, such as crunches, trunk rotations, and sidebends, should be combined with back hyperextensions, roman chair sit ups, and a variety of medicine ball exercises that emphasize trunk strengthening, stability, and flexibility.

6. Flexibility. Agility fitness to maintain dynamic balance requires adequate flexibility. The explosiveness inherent in sports demands that athletes move through long ranges of motion with ease. Muscle imbalances that can contribute to injuries can be minimized through a combination of strengthening and flexibility exercises.

A full body stretching regimen is an essential component of any sports training program. Special attention must be given to trunk, hip, and knee flexibility. In addition to static stretching, dynamic stretching at these joints can prevent injuries and prepare athletes for the explosive competitive demands of their sports.

7. Needs of Individual Athletes. Agility fitness requires a multi-faceted training program for each sport, but individuals with varying skills, abilities, and needs require personal attention.

Achieve ideal competitive body weight to improve agility may mean that certain athletes reduce body fat. Some athletes who tend to be naturally slower than others may require emphasized speed work. Fitness and sport skill testing can assist coaches in making informed decisions about individualizing training programs and monitoring progress to determine an athlete's best competitive weight for greatest agility fitness. See

For tips to improve quickness through mental training, see a related article at Knoxville Sports Performance Examiner: Mental Training: Reaction Time and Decision Making

Related pages:

Endurance Fitness

Fitness Components

Definition of Fitness

Physical Demands of Sports

Power Fitness

Strength Fitness

Top of Agility Fitness

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