Agility: Let's ACTUALLY get better!

When it comes to on-field athletic ability, high levels of Agility are one of the most valued physical skills a player can have… and yet it is one of the most misunderstood, and perhaps most improperly trained, abilities among players and coaches. Fast, dynamic, athletic players who can quickly change direction standout on the field and can make life very difficult for opponents, so it is completely understandable why players with great Agility are valued so highly. The challenge for you as a player, then, is how can you go about TRULY improving your agility; how can you ACTUALLY get faster and more athletic on the field?

When you think about Agility training, the first image that often comes to mind is a collection of training equipment: “agility ladders”, “agility sticks”, “agility squares”, and endless repetitions of players shuffling/stepping/turning around cones as a coach blows his whistle. And while those training aides have some value, that value is very, very limited at best. At worst, they can be an extensive waste of a player’s time and energy, with very little transfer to actual on-field improvement.

So what, when it comes to improving Agility, what really makes a difference? Well, there are three realities to Agility training that all players should understand:

First, it’s important to realize that Agility is its own, specific, category of athleticism. One of the all-time great research studies looked at professional athletes and determined that, on the field, there are three unique, individual types of speed: Acceleration sprinting, Maximum Speed sprinting, and Agility. Simply improving one type of speed did not mean the other two got better… to be your best as a player, you must intentionally and specifically train each skill.

Second, it’s essential to embrace the “open skill” nature of Agility – real, game-speed, Agility is about responding to your environment, the players, the ball, and reacting accordingly. This is a highly sport specific skill and one that comes through the proper combination of Agility work and in-game/practice Tactical training.

Third, it’s tough to overstate how important Technical skills are to enhancing on-field Agility; quite simply, improving your technical skills will dramatically enhance your practical Agility. At the end of the day, Technically skilled players can move fast with the ball and are tough to beat.

Recognizing those three realities, it’s then important for you as a player to do Agility work that embraces them, that trains Agility specifically, that challenges you to respond to your environment in ideal ways, and that understands technical skill with the ball is always essential to success. Your goal should be to give you the fundamental skills to create a great base of movement competency that you can then use to be dynamic and athletic on the field… to not just move around cones or ladders, moving the same way you’ve always moved and expecting a different result. But, instead, to learn the fundamentals of Agility and apply those essential basics to real, on-field training.

At ATSC, we utilize an Agility training system that’s been tested and proven for over two decades at the Division I and professional sport levels, improving the real, game-speed Agility in players who are at the highest levels of soccer. Here are three of our favorite Agility fundamentals, activities that can truly improve on-field movement potential!

The Straight Leg Adductor Mobility is simple, ground-based mobility activity that is great for the early or mid warm-up period. Once you’ve gotten a bit warm with some general movements, this activity can serve to prepare the muscles on the insides of your hips and thighs for the high speed, dynamic actions to come. Mobile joints are happy joints… and they’re very often healthy ones as well. When doing these, you should feel them working the inside of the thigh, right on your adductor muscle. If you’re doing these as part of a warm-up, try them for one set of 10-20 reps each leg

Lateral Skips are not only a great way to dynamically prepare the adductors for movement, they also serve as a tremendous tool for teaching athletes the proper fundamental mechanics of Agility. By rehearsing proper leg recovery and proper ground contact mechanics, you can teach your body where it needs to be and how it needs to move when you’re cutting or changing directions… giving you the fundamental skills to apply to rapid, chaotic, high speed movements on the field. While they can be challenging for some athletes to learn initially, including them in the warm-up process for 1-2 sets for 10-20 yards each side can be both a great agility teaching tool and a neuromuscular potentiator before high speed on-field movements.

The Harness Lateral Acceleration Run is a core movement progression that builds on the Lateral Skip, increasing the speed and power demands of the movement. While the neurological underpinnings and movement fundamentals are very similar to Linear Acceleration mechanics, the mechanical challenges of moving in the Frontal Plane (i.e. side-to-side) makes the drill significantly harder. Try these for 2-3 sets of 10-20yds each way, focusing on applying force not just down into the ground, but over to push your body to the side.

And there you have it! Three activities you can integrate directly into your training to begin improving your on-field Agility. To be your best in this movement skill, you have to train it properly, doing those small things each day to make yourself just a little bit better than you were the day before. When you then add improvements in these fundamental aspects of agility into your open skill, dynamic sport practice, really good things can happen to your on field Agility!

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us through our Contact page here and, for more general and sport-specific training information, visit our Instagram at: atsc_solutions. We also have a vault of proven, effective programs that we implemented at the Division I and professional sports levels for purchase on our Products page here. And if you’re looking to take your game to your highest levels, click here and let’s work together either in-person if you’re in the Cape Fear area or here if you’re interested in our individually-specific online training!