WHILE YOUR PLAYERS perform their usual preseason sprint work and weightlifting, Brian Dessart says that it’s critical not to overlook agility training.
“Have your athletes do a series of different agility movements such as cut-sprinting, backpedaling, shuffling, carioca and lateral running,” says the strength and conditioning coach for East Rockaway High School in Long Island, N.Y.
He says that you should use cones set up in different patterns as courses on the field. Players start at cone No. 1 and complete the course by doing either the same movement all the way through or by switching the movements as they move through the cone pattern.
The following are two drills that Dessart says will help your players improve their agility.
- Individual Agility Drill: The Square. Set up four cones in a square pattern, 10-yards apart from one another. At the sound of a whistle, have your athletes move from cone No. 1, all the way around to cone No. 4. Each time a player passes a cone, it represents a switch to a different movement to be performed until the next cone is reached.
- Team-Agility Drill: Competitive Race. Break your team into smaller squads and have them compete against one another. Players should be split into even groups, with cones lined up the same distance apart and alike for each squad. At the sound of a whistle, player 1 from each team races to the first cone on his team’s course. They must then backpedal to the second cone, shuffle to the third cone, sprint back to the fourth cone and tag the next player in line, who subsequently runs through the same course. The first team with all five members finishing the cone obstacle course wins. Each time the agility drills are performed, move the cones to different angles and distances on the field.
“You’ll find that the competitive aspect of the drill works great as a motivation tactic,” says Dessart. “Especially if you allow the winning team to sit out some other conditioning activity as a reward.”