Agility is basically the ability to change direction without the loss of speed, strength, balance, or body control. It is, arguably one of the most misunderstood and under-trained attribute in our sports. Certainly highly visible and measurable attributes such as strength, speed and endurance are easily measured and improvements prescribed. Agility, on the other hand, is much harder to measure. Yet everyone knows agility when they see it and can benefit from working on their agility.

To improve agility, it is important that gains are made in strength, balance, coordination, and reaction times.
By incorporating an element of agility training into you program you stand to gain better control of essential fast movements, making them more efficient, accurate, and reliable.

Specificity

Any activity you choose to practise must be specific to an intended skill in order for maximum improvement, or transfer to occur. This means when selecting various drills for your agility program, you should ensure the movement patterns precisely mimic the essential movement patterns of your discipline. For example sand running in preparation for a Gobi desert crossing rather than intervals around the Tan in Melbourne.

Goals

Remember to work out exactly what you are trying to achieve and why before investing time and effort.You need to set goals to more clearly define the drills; e.g. to run steep inclines without falling. When setting these drills goals, you must have an understanding of the purpose of performing a particular agility drill, how to properly execute the drill, and what to specifically focus on when doing the new drill.

Footwork

How well your hip relates to your feet has a major influence on agility; moving with alacrity about a well tuned centre of gravity reflects in fine footwork.

Changing Direction

Goat Pass is no athletic track. Whether you are running a trail in a multisport event or rogaining across an unfamiliar patch, you can be assured of the need to constantly alter your footfall and change direction.

To change direction, you need to get your centre of gravity outside the base of support and then regain control to move in the intended direction. You can’t change direction without being able to stop quickly then overcome your inertia and get back up to speed. This principle must see its way into your agility drills.

Strength

With its demands in terms of stopping and starting, agility mandates good body strength particularly in your legs and hips. Weaknesses here will severely limit your movement quality and assuredness. You certainly need to enhance leg strength in parallel with agility work.

Incorporating agility drills that focus on coordination and reaction time will help in enhancing movement efficiency.

Balance is the foundation of athleticism and agility. It involves improving the ability to stand, walk, and stop by focusing on the centre of gravity, posture, and foot placement. Not to mention in-boat stability for paddlers!

Basic no gym required balance drills for you to try include: standing on one foot and moving the other leg in full range-of-motion, walking backwards with eyes closed, and standing or walking on a balance beam (a four-by-two works just as well).

With good balance you can improve coordination. A large part of coordination work is performed by breaking a skill down into parts, then slowly uniting the parts. Typical coordination activities include tumbling, rolling, footwork drills, and jumps. More difficult examples that combine balance and coordination are: walking on a balance beam while playing catch, or trotting along a line while a partner lightly tries to push and pull you off while try to stay on the line.

The peak of agility preparation and performance comes in random agility. Here, you are forced to make split-second decisions with movements based upon visible or audible signals - simulation training is important here.

Simple drills

Warm-up exercises

• Walk on toes
• Walk on heels
• Lunges
• Run with Butt Kicks
• Run with High Knees
• Run with Crossovers - front leg lead

Drills

‘Classic Z and M’

Using witch’s hats lay out ( 5-10m spacing) a Z and an M shape; practise running (starting form jog moving through to flat out) to each hat and changing direction to finish the shape.

Bar work

Using boards of varying widths practise traversing, gradually reducing the width of the board and increasing the speed of the traversal.

Agility ladder

Your local school should have one of these ( or failing that make your own); they are used extensively in football (soccer) and are a great device to use in preparation from running road and track to trail. It’s a matter of moving through the squares without touching the rope.

The standard ladder is 10m long with 50cm squares.

Agility is the key to optimising an off road performance. It can also contribute preventing injury and accident. An athlete who is more agile will be more able to safely get into and out of potentially difficult positions.

To be efficient in any sport, particularly those as demanding as off road running you need to have the agility to readily change your centre of gravity to match your required movement. Sound balance enables your joints to move through the full range of motion easily.

A finely honed balance brings with it an acute sense of where your body parts are relative to one another in 3-dimensional space. Through targeted training, balance can be learned, and improved. You don’t need to invest huge amounts of money in equipment or trainers to improve your balance.

Balance sessions are ideally incorporated into rest days and or warm-ups; they help break up the monotony of continuous sessions and have the advantage of instant feedback - you are either getting better or you’re not!!

For many mature athletes, the sense of balance often diminishes slowly. Balance is lessened through the subtle ways in which a body is misused over a lifetime. Bad posture, favouring one side over the other, poor bike, running and paddling technique and inactivity resulting in weaker muscles - all these contribute to bad balance. We’re not naturally symmetrical beings, and our actions make us even less so. One of the best ways to become more balanced - not to mention one of the most enjoyable - is Yoga.

Poses such as the Tree (Vrksasana) are all about balance. “The Tree”.

# Stand straight with your feet together.

# Bring your weight onto your left foot, feeling the ground with your left foot as you prepare to balance.

# Pick up your right foot. Bend your right leg, placing the sole of your right foot on the inside of your left thigh.)

# Press your right foot into your left thigh as you stretch upward.

# Raise your arms above your head once you have your balance, shoulder-width apart, with your palms facing together. Keep your shoulders down.

# Practice until you can hold the pose comfortably for about 30 seconds.

# Repeat, this time standing on the right foot and lifting the left

They’re great strengtheners for the whole leg - they tone the muscles of the thigh and calf, and work your hip, knee and ankle joints. They also bring your mind right into the present - a necessary factor in balance that’s sometimes overlooked. Balance poses give you immediate feedback when it comes to form (bad form and/or lack of concentration almost always cause you to lose the pose). You can’t “try” to do a balance pose - you either do it or you don’t.

Simple exercises

There are 4 straightforward, safe exercises to practise which will, over time enhance your balance. They don’t require weights - or a gym.

Multi-directional one foot hop

This is exactly as it sounds - hop on one foot in 4 to 8 compass points in a confined space. Alternate between legs and do 5 reps building to 15 over 4-6 weeks.

Foot sweep with Swiss ball

This is actually relaxing and fun. Simply place your foot atop a Swiss ball and gently roll the ball from side to side (without falling on your arse); alternate feet. 10 reps building to 25.

One foot stand

Yep that’s right stand still on one foot; alternate and when you get good at it do it with your eyes closed.

Side cross step

Ever seen those grossly over paid soft as soccer players warming up in training? They run from side to side crossing their leg over one way then back again with the alternate foot. This is a Brazilian-inspired free movement pattern that is great during warm-ups and cool downs.

With weights

A simple way to develop strength, balance and coordination is to add one-legged squats to your training programs. The ability to perform this simple exercise easily and gracefully will develop your stability and core strength and also help you prevent injury, and improve your sports performance.
To begin adding this exercise to your routine you should start slowly and build up. You may find initially that you can not control your body, your ankle begins to wobble, your knee rotates, and your upper body sways. You may find your balance is not what you thought.

If this is the case, you may want to begin with simple one leg balancing until you can stand on one leg for 30 seconds. While performing this exercise, you will be developing the smaller stabilizing muscles. After several sessions, you will find your balance improves tremendously.

*The wobble board

The body has sensors all around it which sense where parts of the body are even without looking. These sensors are called proprioceptors. If the ankle or lower leg is damaged then the proprioceptors can be damaged also.

Using a wobble board on a regular basis can help retrain the proprioceptors and improve coordination, preventing further injury. All you need to do is stand on the board and try to keep it horizontal - without the edges touching the floor.

If your shoulder proprioceptive cells were damaged, and they were unable to send the proper nerve signal to the brain, you would not know if your arm was in front of you or behind you. Long term function of the shoulder is in peril if the proprioceptors are not re-trained properly. Permanent proprioceptive loss is possible and shows up as “weak ankles” or joints that are continuously re-injured. This functional instability can impair performance and increase the risk of re-injury.

Balance boards are wonderful core stability trainers, but people with back, neck or leg problems should be carefully instructed before using balance boards. In short, if you have any kind of physical problem, ask your physician if using a balance board would be safe for you.

Begin with a gentle range of motion (R.O.M.) on the Wobble Board until you get used to the movement. Exercises such as side-to-side, front-to-back, and circular rotation are all excellent basic exercises to start with.

Once you’ve mastered this, try kneeling on the board and doing these three exercises. See how long you can maintain your balance and try to increase that time gradually.

More advanced routines

# Perform “balanced pushups” with your hands gripping each end of the balance board.

# Sit on the balance board and do crunches, lifting your feet off the floor. (Not recommended for people with back problems)

# Standing with one foot on the floor, place the other foot on the balance board and slowly roll it, gently stretching your lower leg and ankle muscles

# One-leg exercises - you can do lunges and the like. Be sure to plant your foot arch on the center of the board and move slowly.

# Squats - very advanced, but very effective

Mimicking trail conditions

Running off road when you have spent half a lifetime training and racing on roads and tracks can come as a major shock to body and mind. Because many off road athletes live and work in urban areas, it is not always practical to get to a decent trail.

With a bit of lateral thinking and access to a few balance boards you can ready yourself for off road running by making an indoor obstacle course.

Trust us, it’s not as crazy as it may seem at first glance.