“Agility” is a buzzword in coaching circles, and everyone has their own idea of what it means. When you hear the word, what comes to mind? Plyometrics? Change of Direction? Hurdles? Quick Feet? Stuff with cones?

Let’s dig into what agility actually means in a basic sports performance context before we review some of the drills that we use to improve our athletes’ agility.

The Four Components of Agility

Agility is best defined as “a rapid whole-body movement with change of velocity or direction in response to a stimulus” (Shepherd 2005). It’s what happens when the shortstop makes a split-second decision to lunge for the ball and quickly pivot to throw to first. It’s what happens when a running back reads the defense to lunge and jump in multiple planes and then pour on top speed.

Let’s break agility as a skill down into its most basic components so that we can understand how to work on them during training.

Acceleration: The ability to rapidly increase your velocity
Deceleration: The ability to stop quickly (this is crucial to reducing chances of injury!)
Change of Direction: The ability to rapidly plant, pivot, or jump to change direction
Reaction to a Stimulus: The ability to process a situation and react with your physical direction, acceleration, deceleration, or strategy accordingly

Reframe your thinking around these four component skills instead of something like ‘quick feet’ or ‘footwork.’ Do this, and you’re on your way to understanding exactly what your athletes need to work on.

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The Pros and Cons of Pre-planned Drills

What are pre-planned drills? Drills with a repeatable, unchanging patterns that don’t require athletes to react to a stimulus.

Most pre-planned drills utilize some components of agility, but not all of them. One of our example drills, the 5-10-5 Pro Agility Test, lacks the “Reaction to a Stimulus” component, but it’s still useful for improving Acceleration, Deceleration, and Change of Direction. It’s a common college measurable, so it’s important for athletes to know how to perform it. However, its name is deceiving. It should be more accurately called the 5-10-5 Pro “Change of Direction” Test.

Find out why ladders also don’t improve your speed, contrary to popular belief.

The Myth About “Agility” Ladders

What about Agility Ladders? Like the 5-10-5 test, this name is also deceiving. Most of the common agility ladder footwork drills do not train any the four components of agility. At most, you may be working on some deceleration.

Ladders work well to build body awareness and proprioception, or as a warm-up, or in a circuit where you need to keep athletes moving, or in a sport-specific skill practice context… or to escape a burning building 😉

I’m on a mission to put a Dad Joke in every post. Sorry.

We do not recommend ladders for improving agility or improving deceleration. Full stop 😉, there are better drills below that will help your athletes improve their agility at a much faster rate.

So, are pre-planned movement drills bad? Absolutely not. While agility and change of direction are slightly different, pre-planned drills are crucial as your athletes learn how to efficiently accelerate, decelerate, or change direction in all planes.

How to Incorporate “Reaction to a Stimulus” into a Drill

The easiest way to have athletes react to a stimulus is to incorporate something visual or auditory. Use some of the ideas below to modify what you do in your training.

Visual Stimulus Ideas:

React to a partner’s movements
React to a hand signal or gesture
React to an object (dropping a ball, lights, etc.)

Auditory Stimulus Ideas:

React to a whistle
React to a command

Be careful not to sacrifice intensity for the sake of reactivity. Encourage your athletes to move and stop as fast as they can.

Now that we’ve covered the four skills make up Agility, let’s dive into some drills to work on it.

7 Drills that Will Help You Improve Your Agility

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and you can make any drill more or less advanced. If you’re looking to add competition, you can execute the individual drills side by side with partners.

If you’re looking for ways to improve your speed, head on over here.

Reaction Ball Drop (Agility)

The athlete is only allowed to move after the partner or coach releases the ball. Then they sprint and try to catch the dropped ball before the second bounce. In this video, I am about 5 yards from the athlete, but depending on the athlete’s speed and reaction time, you could lengthen or shorten this to make it more or less difficult. You can make this more advanced by using a Reaction Ball that will change the bounce direction at random.

Components: Acceleration, Deceleration (in the most basic sense), Change of Direction (varies on the bounce), React to Stimulus (Beginner)

What I like: It’s a great challenge for initial reaction time.

What I don’t like: Unless you add specific instructions to work on more intentional deceleration, the athlete will stop on their own time… or try to sacrifice dive to catch the ball.

5-10-5 Pro Agility Test (Change of Direction Drill)

The athlete starts in the middle, sprints to one side (5 yards), plants and sprints back through the starting line to the other end (10 yards) , then plants and sprints back through the starting line (5 yards). This is meant to be timed, and we usually use the Zybek Sports laser timing gates to accomplish this.

Components: Acceleration, Deceleration, Change of Direction

What I like: The short distance is really challenging for Change of Direction and quick gas and brakes. It’s easy to measure and repeat to assess improvement.

What I don’t like: It doesn’t have any kind of reactive element. It’s a more accurate measurement of speed/change of direction than agility, despite its inaccurate name.

Cone Sequence Drill (Agility)

Place a line of cones about 8 yards from the athlete. The athlete runs forward as you call out a sequence of cones (by color, number, etc.). The athlete goes to the first cone and then shuffles back and forth as fast as possible in that same sequence. Then, the athlete back pedals to the start line.

Components: Acceleration, Deceleration, Change of Direction, React to Stimulus (beginner/intermediate)

What I like: This drill works on moving in different planes of motion. It works lightly on initial reaction and more heavily on cognitive recall to remember the pattern order.

What I don’t like: This initial reaction to process the command to the first cone is basic in our video example. It could be made more difficult by waiting until the last moment to give the command and thus shorten the available time to react. You can also move the cones in a different configuration to make it more challenging.

Stick Reaction Challenge (Agility)

If there’s an official name for this game out there, let me know. Athletes grab PVC poles (or bats!) and arrange themselves in a circle. The coach calls out when to leave the pole and run to next one. The object of the game is to not let your pole drop. You win if you’re the last one standing! Coaches can make this more advanced and more reactive by adding in claps before the athletes can move, calling out a random direction, and increasing the distance between players.

Components: Acceleration, Deceleration, Change of Direction (varies), React to Stimulus (varies)

What I like: Athletes love this game, and the competition makes them work hard to win. It’s great for cognitive processing of directional commands, and it challenges athletes to move in unconventional ways to keep the pole from touching the ground.

What I don’t like: Unless you call out the direction at random, or start introducing more. verbal chaos with your commands, the physical reaction training isn’t very challenging.

Modified T Drill (Agility)

This drill is modified from the “T Drill Test” or “T-Test” used to measure “agility,” but more accurately Change of Direction. We’ve shortened the length and width of the drill area and added a reactive component to make it an Agility challenge. The athlete sprints to center cone and must react to either an auditory command or visual gesture from a partner or coach to change direction accordingly as fast as possible. The athlete shuffles as directed and then retreats by backpedaling to the start area.

Components: Acceleration, Deceleration, Change of Direction, React to Stimulus

What I like: The cognitive processing required for a quick physical reaction can be challenging as the athlete must process either a heard command or a body gesture to determine their next course of action.

What I don’t like: The layout of the cones in our video example doesn’t add a lot of variety for angled change of direction.

Tic Tac Toe Drill (Mostly Change of Direction / Light Agility with the Cognitive Processing)

Two athletes face each other at one end each with 3 cones of two different colors. At the “go” signal, they shuffle sprint in the same direction to the end where there is a Tic Tac Toe grid on the floor. They place their cone as their marker on the grid and shuffle sprint back to the starting point before returning again to place their next piece. First one to Tic Tac Toe wins!

Components: Acceleration, Deceleration, Change of Direction, React to Stimulus (advanced cognitive)

What I like: The element of competition gets athletes moving fast and having fun, and it really is a challenge for cognitive processing (fast strategy and decision making)

What I don’t like: The Reaction to Stimulus strategy element doesn’t really impact change of direction except if you’ve realized your next move will either make you win or lose

Partner Mirror Drill (Agility)

Two athletes face off. One athlete is the leader, the other is the follower. The leader can perform any kind of movement (within the bounds of your physical space and ability), and the follower has to mirror their actions and keep up. There isn’t a winner or a loser, and the drill is over after the coach calls time.

Components: Acceleration, Deceleration, Change of Direction, React to Stimulus (Advanced)

What I like: It’s a great method for working hard on all four components of agility. Athletes really enjoy this drill as it feels like a game even though there isn’t a true winner. It challenges cognitive processing in order to read, react, and imitate… as well as change direction at random.

What I don’t like: It can be difficult to put the right guide rails on this drill if you can’t match up partners of similar athletic abilities.

In Conclusion

Reframe your thinking about agility around its four basic skills– acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, and reaction to a stimulus.

While this post has covered the basics, there’s a lot more advanced concepts to explore for like training deceleration to reduce the chances of injury, cognitive processing as it relates to reactivity, task constraints as it relates to sports, attacking different planes of movement, and postural considerations. If you want to dig into that level, we recommend you hire a sports performance professional (hey, that’s us!) to consult with you.

Follow a few of these reputable strength and performance coaches on Twitter if you want to pick up more ideas on agility, change of direction, acceleration, and deceleration training outside of what we’ve touched on here.

Interested in training with us in-person or online?

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References

Sheppard JM, Young WB. (2005). Agility literature review: classifications, training and testing. J Sports Sci. 2006 Sep;24(9):919-32. [PubMed]

Breaking down agility training: 7 drills to your improve your agility