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Agility
The dictionary defines agility as the ability to stop, start, and change direction explosively and in a controlled manner. This can refer either to the whole body, or the limbs. This is an essential skill for almost anyone who participates in sports.
Developing agility is the key to playing a game at speed, and has implications not only for improved performance, but also for injury prevention. The athlete who has developed their agility will be better able to safely get into and out of positions that are impossible for others.
So how do you develop agility? Like any other component of sports performance (speed, strength, flexibility) we each have a genetic component that determines our starting point, but beyond that any improvements must come from a systematic development program that is founded on sound motor learning principles.
Before starting any training of this kind, an athlete must be appropriately conditioned. The essential prerequisite is strength - without sufficient strength, making the moves required is simply impossible.
Beyond that, it is important to understand that this is not basic conditioning work, it is speed development work. The correct progression for training is as follows:
- Learn individual skills/reactions
- Add game situations
- Add fatigue training only once the movements have been mastered
Only once the basics have been learned can the plants, cuts, starts and stops that make up much of this training be performed in a fatigued state.
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