Getting Down to Business With Better Agility
What is agility, and why does it matter to you as you devise your athletic training regimen?
Often the subject of agility is overlooked in favor of something like strength training. No one questions whether you should be building up your muscles during a training regimen. However, if you’re involved in a sport requiring quick movement and efficient use of your body resources, then agility training is every bit as important as strength training.
There are four main components to agility training. These components are speed, balance, strength, and coordination.
One can think of balance as one’s ability to keep equilibrium while both moving and standing still. This results from coordinated actions of nearly all the sensory functions, like seeing and hearing. Static balance refers to the kind of balance we experience staying in place, and dynamic balance is balance while in motion.
Speed, naturally, is moving your body quickly.
Think of strength agility in terms of the ability of your muscles to overcome some sort of resistance.
Coordination is defined as your ability to have control over your various movements of body as you respond to sensory input. Think of how you must see a ball flying through the air in order to reach up and catch it.
Improving your agility can be achieved through a series of different exercises to hone your abilities. By working on each of the four components of agility separately, you can use a systemic formula to improve your overall agility.
One of the most basic agility tools is the agility ladder. This is a tool that lies on the ground, and is used in the training for such sports as football, soccer, tennis, hockey, and rugby. It is referred to as a ladder, since it looks like a horizontal ladder on the ground. These are readily available at sports supply stores, but feel free to construct your own out of sticks and tape, or some rope.
Various exercises are performed in the agility ladder. You can run through the agility ladder making sure to places one foot in the middle of each square. The movements you make with your foot are deliberate, as you endeavor to place your foot accurately in the square. You can create more agility drills by simply varying the pattern you create with your feet – be creative!
Improving your athletic performance is a multi-stage endeavor, and agility is but one component of your overall plan of action. Give these agility suggestions a try – you’ll see results sooner than you think!