Lateral Agility Ladder Drills

A component of our Speed and Agility training involves working on footwork and foot speed.  When using the agility ladder, we like our athletes to perform drills that involve both linear — forward and backward — and lateral movements.

Here’s a short video clip in which one of our athletes demonstrates a few lateral agility ladder drills.  This particular progression involves the following drills, performed in both directions:

1. Lateral shuffle
2. Lateral crossover (foot over foot)
3. Lateral crossover (foot under foot)
4. Carioca

The “foot under foot” drill becomes more challenging when performed at high speed, as your muscle memory will try to turn it into carioca.

These drills should be performed as quickly as they can be done, cleanly (without mangling the ladder).  For the purpose of this video, I asked our athlete — a local high school football player — to demonstrate the drills at a slower speed to better show the correct footwork.

Your thoughts?

WE WILL HELP YOU BECOME A BETTER ATHLETE!

We provide motivated athletes with a simple, customized training plan to help them improve performance and reduce injury risk.

Exercise Spotlight: Weighted Lateral Speed Shuffle

Lateral movement is important in most sports.  It is complemented by speed and quickness of both movement and change of direction.

The ability to move laterally — side-to-side — in response to the movement of a ball, puck, or opponent, is one that can be practiced and developed.  Agility drills — those that emphasize acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, and reaction — should be components of every athlete’s performance training program.

This video shows one of our athletes — a basketball player — performing the weighted lateral speed shuffle.  This is just one of the many drills we use to improve agility, quickness, endurance, and conditioning.  We especially like exercises and drills that reflect the demands and movement patterns of the athlete’s sport — in this case, basketball defense (although shared by many other sports).

Here’s how we do it (you can vary it to meet the athlete’s needs):

• Set up two cones, 4-yards apart
• Have the athlete assume a relaxed, athletic stance
• Feet positioned slightly wider than hip-width
• Holding dumbbells (we used 5-lb. dumbbells for this drill), palms up, hands outside the body
• Shuffle quickly, from side to side
• Don’t let feet touch or cross
• Do as many repetitions as you can in 30-seconds
• Perform 3 sets, with a 30-90 second rest interval between sets (depending on the athlete’s level of conditioning)

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Boost Your Performance with Contrast Training

There are various differences in the physical demands of sports, based on factors such as the sport, itself, and positional differences among and between athletes.  Different sports require athletes to move through unique movement patterns which, for training purposes, can be categorized into vertical, linear, and lateral.  Exercises that focus on strength and power development, in these three areas, should be at the forefront of every athlete’s training program.

One of the goals of athletic performance training should be to increase the athletes’ work capacity while improving (reducing) their recovery time.  Contrast training is a highly effective method for improving many physical attributes involved in athletic performance, including strength, power, speed and agility — if implemented properly.  Contrast training involves performing a set of a heavy resistance exercise, immediately followed by a set of a biomechanically similar power exercise (for example, a barbell back squat, immediately followed by a squat jump).  Complex training is a similar approach, which involves performing 3-4 sets of heavy resistance training followed by 3-4 sets of the biomechanically similar power exercise.

The benefits of contrast training include:

• Effective in producing results
• Highly efficient
• Allows for high work density
• Time effective
• Allows athletes to complete fewer training sessions in order to yield the same or greater results
• May have implications for injury prevention

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Lateral Agility Ladder Drills

A component of our Speed and Agility training involves working on footwork and foot speed.  When using the agility ladder, we like our athletes to perform drills that involve both linear — forward and backward — and lateral movements.

Here’s a short video clip in which one of our athletes demonstrates a few lateral agility ladder drills.  This particular progression involves the following drills, performed in both directions:

1. Lateral shuffle
2. Lateral crossover (foot over foot)
3. Lateral crossover (foot under foot)
4. Carioca

The “foot under foot” drill becomes more challenging when performed at high speed, as your muscle memory will try to turn it into carioca.

These drills should be performed as quickly as they can be done, cleanly (without mangling the ladder).  For the purpose of this video, I asked our athlete — a local high school football player — to demonstrate the drills at a slower speed to better show the correct footwork.

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Exercise Spotlight: Weighted Lateral Speed Shuffle

Lateral movement is important in most sports.  It is complemented by speed and quickness of both movement and change of direction.

The ability to move laterally — side-to-side — in response to the movement of a ball, puck, or opponent, is one that can be practiced and developed.  Agility drills — those that emphasize acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, and reaction — should be components of every athlete’s performance training program.

This video shows one of our athletes — a basketball player — performing the weighted lateral speed shuffle.  This is just one of the many drills we use to improve agility, quickness, endurance, and conditioning.  We especially like exercises and drills that reflect the demands and movement patterns of the athlete’s sport — in this case, basketball defense (although shared by many other sports).

Here’s how we do it (you can vary it to meet the athlete’s needs):

• Set up two cones, 4-yards apart
• Have the athlete assume a relaxed, athletic stance
• Feet positioned slightly wider than hip-width
• Holding dumbbells (we used 5-lb. dumbbells for this drill), palms up, hands outside the body
• Shuffle quickly, from side to side
• Don’t let feet touch or cross
• Do as many repetitions as you can in 30-seconds
• Perform 3 sets, with a 30-90 second rest interval between sets (depending on the athlete’s level of conditioning)

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Boost Your Performance with Contrast Training

There are various differences in the physical demands of sports, based on factors such as the sport, itself, and positional differences among and between athletes.  Different sports require athletes to move through unique movement patterns which, for training purposes, can be categorized into vertical, linear, and lateral.  Exercises that focus on strength and power development, in these three areas, should be at the forefront of every athlete’s training program.

One of the goals of athletic performance training should be to increase the athletes’ work capacity while improving (reducing) their recovery time.  Contrast training is a highly effective method for improving many physical attributes involved in athletic performance, including strength, power, speed and agility — if implemented properly.  Contrast training involves performing a set of a heavy resistance exercise, immediately followed by a set of a biomechanically similar power exercise (for example, a barbell back squat, immediately followed by a squat jump).  Complex training is a similar approach, which involves performing 3-4 sets of heavy resistance training followed by 3-4 sets of the biomechanically similar power exercise.

The benefits of contrast training include:

• Effective in producing results
• Highly efficient
• Allows for high work density
• Time effective
• Allows athletes to complete fewer training sessions in order to yield the same or greater results
• May have implications for injury prevention

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?