With Neil Barry

RECORD books are excellent tools for measuring individual sports performance, but history often remembers the artists behind the performances more than the numbers. The most prolific strikers in World Cup Football are Germany’s Klose and Brazil’s Ronaldo, but the mesmeric movements of Pele and Maradona are the stuff of legends.
Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson doesn’t feature on the top 25 list of all time highest scorers in the NBA, but his no-look passes still inspire children born decades after his retirement. Jonty Rhodes is still remembered for his fielding prowess and athletes like Roger Federer and Floyd Mayweather can be counted among the great dancers of our time, with the sheer grace with which they compete.

This edition of ProFormance explores one of the underlying traits that history remembers these athletes for- agility.

What is agility
Agility, like every other facet of sport, can be trained. To see a basketball player evade an opponent and ‘taking an ankle’ in the process is not just down to talent, it takes practice.
Offensive plays in the NFL and rugby are rife with athletes who abruptly change direction at high speeds. In these sports, being able to sprint through a straight line is important, but having speed in multiple directions is worth paying for.
Thus, agility is the ability to change direction with minimal loss of speed.

Elements of agility training
Vern Gambetta, in his book–Athletic Development: The Art and Science of Functional Sports Conditioning, lists the components of agility training as Acceleration, Body Control and Awareness, Change of Direction, Footwork, Recognition and Reaction, Starting, and Stopping.

How to train agility
Detailed descriptions of how to train each component will prove too voluminous, so be sure to look for How-To videos on our upcoming Facebook page. It is important, however, to start by assessing your current agility before embarking on a plan to improve it. As popular management consultant, Peter Drucker said, “what gets measured, gets improved.”
Many teams use the “Illinois Agility Test” or “T” Test to get the measure of their agility. These tests require the athlete to sprint through a small distance with multiple changes of direction by running around marked cones.

Once you’ve been assessed, the self-same tests mentioned above can be used during training sessions to improve your footwork, body control and movement precision as you manoeuvre around each of the cones in the tests.
Agility drills are also meant to be very sports specific, so it is very useful to get coaches involved with athletes in developing activities that mirror the types of movements and scenarios likely to be seen in actual play.

Another critical aspect of agility training is to help improve the athlete’s ‘awareness and reactivity’. Most sports are very reactive–one team responds to the actions of another team, or one player to another. Being able to respond quickly and efficiently largely determines who has the upper hand. Partner-mirror drills are good ways to train reactivity and awareness.

In addition to Partner Mirror Drills and Sport Specific-Drills, there are also exercises which help to train Multi-directional Speed. Lateral A-skips, Line-stop deceleration drills, and agility ladder drills are a few popular examples.

Finally, if you are just beginning agility drills for the first time, it is important to follow a safe progression. Beginners can start with improving movement skills, like simply working on running form. Learn to jog forward, backward, and move well sideways at slow speeds before increasing speed of movement in each direction.
As you gradually add speed to your movements, you may at some point start to add activities that challenge you to react to what is happening in your environment, e.g. sprinting on the sound of a whistle.

Former Brazilian Football captain, Socrates believed in the Joga Bonito.
“Beauty comes first” He said. “Victory is secondary. What matters is joy. Sport not only remembers athletes by the joy their results bring, but by the majesty of their seemingly languid nimbleness, and nonchalant speed that appears to slow down time for a brief moment as they perform a feat that may be remembered for a lifetime. How will you be remembered?

If there are specific topics you would like to see discussed here, or you have questions, you can email proformance592@gmail.com or leave a message on the Facebook page.