Strength Coach- Agility, Foot Speed and Direction Change

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Michael Boyle

Everyone wants to "break ankles". I get it. It's how to develop this ability to stop on a dime and change direction that is in question.

Agility and the concept of direction change is a topic that comes up over and over. There are always the people who put up videos like this

and then tell us that this is a waste of time.

The truth is most of what you see is a waste of time. This guy might be better as Lord of the Dance than playing a sport. Unfortunately, people continue to paint with a broad brush and color every pre-programmed agility drill as a bad idea. This is a classic example of what Alwyn Cosgrove like to call Overreaction and Undereaction.

All pre-programmed agility is not a bad idea. 

At Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning we try make agility development part of our warm-up. We will use an agility ladder for 2-3 minutes to work on footwork and, to teach stabilization, landing and crossover skills. Pre-programmed agility is great coordination work for young athletes and great prep work for older athletes. The problem is when we spend time getting really good at useless stuff (see video above).

Let me be clear. In general we don't do much agility work.

Most agility work is, in my mind,  “just running around". I think coaches waste lots of time running from cone to cone and then trying to get athletes to do it faster. That, to me, is a waste of time. 

I just think stuff like 5-10-5 etc is dumb. I can take 10 min and make anyone faster at it but I don't think they are more agile.

The big trend now is reactive agility and in my mind, that is what occurs...... Join StrengthCoach.com today to read this article and much more........