Be Agile, Not Fragile: Strength Training is the Foundation
Michael Hauf demonstrating strength and agility exercises.
Watching a soccer game, have you ever seen a forward making his way downfield with the ball when a defender stops in front of him and starts to riverdance? Me neither. It might be distracting but probably not the most effective defensive strategy.
When training for sports, skill set is very skill specific. Riverdancers (if that’s the proper term) have insanely fast feet, but that does not mean their skill set will transfer to sports. What is agility and how does one acquire it? Will performing drills like those done on an agility ladder transfer to the field? What is the most effective use of an athlete’s time in the offseason?
Agility is “rapid whole body movement with change of velocity or direction in response to a stimulus,” as defined by J.M. Sheppard and W.B. Young in a 2006 article in the Journal of Sports Sciences. I like the “in response to a stimulus” part. When an athlete is on the field of play, he must actively and continually make decisions and react in response to an opponent, teammate, playing equipment, playing surface, etc. This decision-making is accompanied by change of direction, change of velocity, or both. When using agility ladders, there might be drills utilizing both change in direction and change in velocity, but they lack the most important aspect of agility training, reaction to stimulus.
When Carson Wentz is practicing his three-step drop, he does it over and over and over again until that movement pattern is grooved and solidified. It becomes an acquired skill. His body is able to perform that three-step drop the most efficient way possible because he has performed that same movement pattern a billion times. This is not agility. When an athlete is performing a drill on an agility ladder, he or she might become very proficient in that drill because that pattern has been grooved in over repetition. This is an acquired skill. This is not agility.
Unless there is a sport that happens to have an agility ladder on the field, this acquired skill is not going to transfer. Any drill that is predetermined where an athlete has to run a specific pattern with specific changes of direction has the same issue. The athlete will get better at running that specific drill. Becoming proficient at changing direction may be a complement to agility training, but it is not agility. There are many agility drills where an athlete is required to make decisions in response to stimulus such as the coach telling the athlete where to move using auditory signals, reaction lights, etc. There are cat-and-mouse partner drills and games and free play. A lot of the change-of-direction, change-of-speed work is done just by playing one’s sport.
Michael Hauf demonstrating strength and agility exercises.
Some trainers also believe that agility ladders (sometimes called speed ladders) will help an athlete increase foot speed. Speed is just strength displayed quickly. In order to display strength quickly, you must first have strength. Speed is dependent upon how much force you can produce into the ground. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. When you generate an immense amount of force into the ground you are propelled forward with an immense amount of force. You can have the fastest feet in the world, if those feet can’t produce a lot of force into the ground those feet are going to go nowhere quick. Michael Flatley can tap 35 taps per second (Guiness Book of World Records) but can he run a fast 40-yard dash? (I bet he can; he’s Michael Flatley, but that’s not the point.) The most efficient way to improve how much force you can produce is strength training. You must work on lower-body strength and power and you must do it with single leg exercises. If you want to get faster, you must get stronger.
When you are an athlete, in the offseason the first priority should be making your body operate efficiently. Solve all those nagging little issues that were bothering you all season. Strength deficits can be the beginning of the injury process. A body has to be balanced in strength, or those little biomechanical inefficiencies will eventually turn into pain and injury. Strength training eliminates weak areas and strong muscles and tendons help keep the body in proper alignment.
Researchers at the University of Florida studying more than a dozen high schools found “78 percent of severe injuries to the upper body struck non-lifting athletes, or those students who were not in a controlled weight-lifting program. And non-lifting athletes accounted for 64 percent of those with severe injuries to the lower body.” Those are some significant numbers. So, it’s not just total strength that’s important, but balanced strength.
Do some injury prevention and become bulletproof. Then work on getting stronger. It’ll be the most bang for your buck in the offseason. There is a huge correlation in vertical leap and sprint speed. Use strength training to increase that vert and you’ll be running circles around the competition in no time.
I bet Michael Flatley can dunk. He is Lord of the Dance.
