Athletic Factors that Determine Agility

                  When training for agility, most people are looking to improve the way they move their body during their chosen sport. There are thousands of books and internet based resources that are devoted just to developing the best drill to improve an athlete’s agility.  This is a very common goal in sports.  Most people set out to train for agility by incorporating specific drills into workouts that are designed to train the athlete in movements that are useful in sports, so that the athlete will be able to perform these movements under fast paced sport conditions.  These drills are often resemble obstacle courses in which an athlete has to run, side shuffle, cut, back pedal, etc. to finish the drill in a short amount of time.  Herein lies the problem. 

When performing these drills, especially under conditions where improvement in these drills are tested by a coach or trainer, the athlete will attempt to memorize and perfect their movements specific to the drill.   The problem is that in sports there is rarely a situation where the athlete knows before beginning a series of movements how that particular series is going to end. 

For example, if a running back in football gets the ball and starts toward the hole his line has created, he doesn’t know what is about to happen other than the direction in which he is going to begin his run.  A linebacker could fill the hole, forcing the running back to make the decision to continue forward or change direction.  This decision is made in a split second and probably without the running back consciously knowing he is making it.  With this scenario in mind how do you use a pre-determined agility drill to attempt to make this movement more efficient?  The simple answer is, you don’t!

An agility drill that is understood by the athlete before beginning the drill will never be able to do more than hope to improve basic athletic movements.  Which, is great, if you are only training beginning level athletes, or are trying to improve the general coordination and body awareness of the athlete. If the athlete can execute basic movements, like shuffling, sprinting, back pedaling, etc., and change between these movements with relative ease, then a common agility will only improve the speed at which the athlete can perform the specific drill. 

The purpose of many specific agility drills is the test and retest performance of the athlete during training. They are non specific agility skills that can be indicative of an athlete's performance upon beginning a training program and show progress in these skills as the training cycle concludes. Without a doubt, the true effectiveness of the training program should be evaluated by the overall improvement of athletic performance as it applies to the athlete’s specific sport. 

With this being said, the question still is unanswered.  How do you, if not through agility drills, improve the on-field movement of an athlete in real time, game situations? 

There are two answers to this question and they are both characteristics that have to be developed in each athlete before improvements in real-time sport movements should be expected. 

                  The first performance factor that needs to be improved is strength relative to body weight.  This is described mathematically as:

Maximal Weight Lifted

Body Weight of the Athlete

For a simple example, if an athlete is able to Squat or Deadlift 300lbs and the body weight of the athlete is 200lbs, they are lifting 1.5 times their own body weight.  What this means is that the lower body and core muscles of the athlete are able to express enough force to stabilize and move a weight significantly greater than that of their own.  Since forces placed on the body during athletic movements are generally much greater than those of just the body weight of the athlete, a high strength relative to body weight is desirable in any sport.  In the example with the athlete lifting 1.5 times bodyweight, that athlete should strive to improve that ratio to 2 or 2.5 times body weight.  If this is accomplished that athlete would be able to generate forces so great that moving their own body weight would become a simple task that the athlete would be able to perform very quickly.      

When considering strength relative to body weight, most people would point out the fact that, in general, maximal strength lifts are performed at very slow speeds.  They would then question, how do you translate a slow speed movement into performance of high speed tasks, such as agility?  The answer to this question is, by improving the rate at which force is developed. 

The force developed in the muscles of the legs and core is what is measured by maximal weight lifted in a squat or deadlift.  The rate at which this maximal force is developed is what allows an athlete to accelerate their body in different directions.  If their rate of force development is high, the athlete will reach near maximal force very quickly.  This will allow the athlete to accelerate their body in a given direction in a minimal amount of time, which is viewed by coaches and spectators as great agility. 

There are two ways to improve the rate of force development.  One method is to move a submaximal load at a high rate of speed.  Examples of this type of training include all of the Olympic lifts and variations as well as other speed lifts like jump squats.  These types of movements should be coached only by professionals that have a specific background in coaching them.  Specific technique and loading strategies are required during these lifts to elicit high levels of performance. 

The other form of training to improve rate of force development is plyometric training.  Plyometric training is defined as the sudden decceleration of the body, followed by a maximal acceleration of the body in the opposite direction.  Plyometric training is a method of training the central nervous system to send and receive electrical impulses faster to and from the muscle cells and other receptor cells that are designed to help the athlete determine what movements need to occur next.  This will increase the percentage of muscle fibers that contract during athletic movements, and also the speed at which these muscles are signaled to contract.  Examples of plyometric exercises include depth jumps, hurdle jumps, box jumps, etc.  It should be noted that this type of training should be used only with mature athletes that have high strength relative to body weight.  Use of plyometric exercises with weaker, less mature athletes could result in soft tissue injuries and even stress fractures do to forces much greater than the body weight of the athlete applied to the structural components of the body (tendons, ligaments, and bones).  Weaker, less mature athletes can perform other less intense forms of these exercises, but should do so only under supervision of a professional that is able to detect any subtle break down in technique. 

Think about what you consider to be an athlete that has great agility.  As stated before they are able to move their own body with ease, which includes deceleration and acceleration in all planes of movement.  The key to developing this capability in an already matured athlete is not to subject them to hours of pre-planned movements that are only able to improve their basic control of their body; but, to improve the force, and the rate of force developed by the muscle groups that are responsible for those movements.  The rest comes down to playing sports and developing a feel for the game that cannot be duplicated during training.

Videos of Acceptable Plyometric Drills for Athletes with good Relative Strength