Confused about Agility and Conditioning

Other Sports Football
1

I have been using the search button trying to find info on how to get into better condition during the pre-season and I have read many things on the best ways to train Change of direction. I have come up with some questions about both that I can’t seem to find the answer for:

Some people have recommende doing basic agility cone drills while others suggest working on the deceleration part of the change of direction (what does that mean?) and I have heard just to do speed sessions as speed and agility go hand in hand. Which is the best way to train for a LB/DE?

About conditioning I have heard that long tempo runs (100m-150m) are not good as a football player is never going to run that distance, so the logical thing to do would be to decrease the distance of the runs to about 50-80m but then running at 75% effort wouldn’t be fast enough for preperation for practice or game situation. What do you make of this?

In order to effectively simulate a football practice where it is constant stop and go couldn’t one do multiple 20 and 10 yard sprints with very low rest. If so how could they fit in a program?

2

Why don’t you just play some pickup basketball? There is alot of quick sprints and you’ll never run more than 30 yards.

3

Currently one of my athletes are a 26 year old who is trying to get back into football shape (Defensive End) bwith hopes of trying out for the arena league. He hasnt played for 4 years. Here is one of our sessions from last week.
Some thing may not make sense since they have no real name that I am aware of.

A.Dynamic Wamup #1
B.High Knees-> 20y Sprint x2
C.Str8 Leg bound ->20y sprint x2

1-Accel Development
Bleachers 3x3 Rest 90"

2-Agility/Change of Direction
Cone Drills
Forward back x3 ->10y sprint
Lat. Forward x3 ->10y burst

Bananna Hurdles Sprint->
Lateral Forward cones->
Forward back cones->
Sprint back

Modified T-Drill x2 90" R
T-Drill x2 90" R

3-Plyos
Bleachers
Squat Jumps w/2" Pause x2 R-90"
Double Leg Jumps x2 R-90"
1 legged Hops 1x each leg
Drive up x1

4-Hurdle Mobility

4

Changed my plan look below

5

Ftballstar, I recently asked a similar question to James Smith (who also uses CFTS) on the Elite site. He replied that he does do anaerobic conditioning with his football players because of their need to exert “maxiumum effort” with incomplete recovery (which isn’t addressed by the tempo or the speed). He said that you can do this as long as you account for it by doing it on a CNS intensive day, so that you give yourself ample time for recovery (he really stressed that point). His athletes have “tire fights” (I don’t really know what these are) on Friday, where they exert effort for 4-7s and then have approx 30s to recovery to simulate what happens in football. You can read his whole response under the sports specific section of the Q&A on elitefts.com (it is under the question posted by Ralph on 6/18).

What I am considering doing and throwing in a couple gassers or 300yd shuttles after my 2 speed/cod days, just to make sure that I am ready for these runs that we will do in camp. On what is typcially the 3rd speed day in the CFTS I am going to make that a “sprints and stuff” day. On this day I will likely include some metabolic conditioning in the form of pattern runs (for me pulling, reach steps, etc.) , some med ball throws, some sled pulls, shuttle runs (40yd, 150, 110 etc.) , and possibly some sprints with minimal recovery. Obviously I wouldn’t do all of this in a given day, but bits and pieces.

6

Speed, plyo’s and core work will take care of your agility work. No need for cone drills.

7

I dont believe in all kinds of fancy ladder and cone drills but I feel that working on change of direction is important in the off season. During the season playing/practicing the actual game takes care of this but in the off season I feel this needs to be trained. The salamon(sp) cone drill, t-drill variations, zig-zag drills, pro agility shuttle, and 3 cone drill variations I feel are great at developing this skill.

8

what i smeant by training to develop your deceleration?

does this mean maybe going at a slower speed when performing the agility drill and really focusing on decelerating/planting and absorbing the force your body takes in (when decelerating) in order to be able to produce a more forceful/explosive contraction in the oppsite direction?

if so what would be some good ways to train this quality

9

Would you do any of these in a real game situation?

10

Strength Session 1:
Tier 1 – Speed – Bench Press
Tier 2 – Effort – Power Clean or Clean Pull
Tier 3 – Volume – Crossover Step Up

Strength Session 2:
Tier 1 – Speed – Back Squat
Tier 2 – Effort – Bench Press
Tier 3 – Volume – Hang Clean

Strength Session 3:
Tier 1 – Speed – Clean from Blocks
Tier 2 – Effort – Lunge
Tier 3 – Volume – 3 way positional raises

Abs work:
Side Bends: 4 x 10
Iso-holds Abs: 10 second holds x 10 reps

Monday:
Hyperextensions: 2x15
DB Shrugs and External Rotation: 2x30
Strength Session 1
Mobility: Lateral Lunge, GHR’s
Abs work
EMS-Hi Stim

Tuesday:
Jump Rope
EMS- Ramped Tens

Wednesday:
Conditioning sprints
Strength Session 2
Mobility: Chin ups, Hyperextension
Agility
Plyometrics (Hurdle Bounds)
EMS-Hi Stim

Thursday:
Jump rope
EMS- Ramped Tens

Friday:
Hyperextensions: 2x15
DB Shrugs and External Rotation: 2x30
Strength Session 3
Mobility: Reverse Lunge, RDL
Abs work
EMS-Hi Stim

Saturday:
Plyometrics (Hurdle Bounds)
Acceleration Development Day B
Agility
EMS- Ramped Tens

Sunday: EMS- Restorative Tens

Conditioning Sprints:
Warm up lap
Static Stretch
Dynamic Stretch
Sprints: 10x 10 yards, 5 x 20 yards

Acceleration Day B:
400m warm up jog
Static stretch
Dynamic stretch
Acceleration from push up position- wk 1: 180 (6x30), wk 2: 200 (4x30/3x20/2x10), wk 3: 230 (3x40/3x30/1x20), wk 4: 180 (4x40/1x20), wk 5: 250(4x40/3x30)

Plyometrics:
Low Hurdle Bounding: 8 x 3 hurdles
High Hurdle Bounding: 8 x 3 hurdles

Agility:
Forward sprint then back peddle for total of 20 yards: 4 sets
Nebraska agility: 4 sets

Tier 1 Priority Emphasis Dynamic Effort - Speed
Total Body Movement – Clean from the blocks
Wk 1 50% 5x5
Wk 2 52.5% 5x5
Wk 3 55% 5x5

Lower Body Movement – Back Squats
Wk 1 47.5% 8x2 1x2 +50 lbs
Wk 2 50% 8x2 1x2 +50 lbs
Wk 3 52.5% 8x2 1x1 +50 lbs, 1x1 +90 lbs

Upper Body Movement – Bench Press
Wks 1-3 50% 8x3

Tier 2 Major Emphasis Modified Maximal Effort Method – Effort
Total Body Movement – Power Clean
Wk 1 80% 5x2
Wk 2 82.5% 5x2
Wk 3 85% 5x2

Lower Body Movement – Standard Lunge
Wk 1 5x8 each
Wk 2 5x6 each
Wk 3 5x4 each

Upper Body Movement – Bench Press
Wk 1 80% 5x2
Wk 2 82.5% 5x2
Wk 3 85% 5x2

Tier 3 Minor Emphasis Modified Repeated Effort Method - Volume
Total Body – Hang Clean
Wks 1-3 4x3
Lower Body – Cross Over Step Up
Wks 1-3 3x60 seconds
Upper Body – 3 Position Raises – [lateral, front, bent]
Wks 1-3 3x15 each

11

Yet here I lie still confused. The only agility work I was planning on doing is:

Agility:
Forward sprint then back peddle for total of 20 yards: 4 sets
Nebraska agility: 4 sets

I understand theoritcally speed, core work and plyo’s would be all I need but does that work out in the real world.

12

Also could anybody explain to me what this means:

Tiers 4-6, Posterior Chain
We are considering this portion of our work as mobility work. The majority of these movements will be single limb bi lateral or unilateral in nature. We are implementing a similar 3-week regime cycle as Coach X and 62 utilize.
Wk 1 Iso Miometric (Dynamic)
Wk 2 Sub Maximal Eccentric
Wk 3 Dynamic

13

Here is a link to Wisconsin Lax.'s strength and conditioning page. Here you will find examples of some of the agility drills that I have my athletes do.
http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/Athletics/Programs/Summer/Agility,%20Power%20and%20Speed/APS.htm

14

The Parisi School teaches you to decelerate properly in order to teach you to take the brakes off your body.
Think of it - if you can’t stop yourself, do you think your body will let you go fast?

15

the regime is how you do the exercise - in wk 2 you emphasize the eccentric portion of the lift.
tiers 4-6 just mean use 1-3 exercises to train the posterior chain, after your 3 main lifts

16

Ok but what about wk. 1 and wk 2

17

My fault, I didn’t say what kind of plyos I was refering to. For plyos, I actually use change of direction plyos. Here are some examples:

-Jab step and go the other way(at about 45 degrees)
-Spins

I’ll keep the volume low and intensity and recovery high. I do maybe 3 foot contacts/minute and in total I’ll only about 20 foot contacts/session

18

Normal Reps (“Dynamic”)

check out Kelly B’s article at innosport for a primer on methodics.

19

First point that I would make about the title is that conditioning and agility are separate qualities and you should train them separately. I’m not saying you were suggesting they were the same, but I see too many coaches running endless gassers and cone drills thinking they are killing two birds with one stone…when in actuallity, all they are doing is breaking down their athletes, wasting time and making them slower.

The answer to this question depends entirely upon the athlete. For an athlete that has solid motor patterns with respect to COD, then simply getting stronger, faster and more reactive may be all that is necessary. However, for other athletes, they may need to work on basic motor patterns for effective movement or they may need to build strength before they can even start doing that.

The deceleration portion of COD is simply learning how to stop quickly and efficiently by lowering your center of gravity using different movement patterns (forward runs, backward runs, side runs, shuffles, etc.)

About conditioning I have heard that long tempo runs (100m-150m) are not good as a football player is never going to run that distance, so the logical thing to do would be to decrease the distance of the runs to about 50-80m but then running at 75% effort wouldn’t be fast enough for preperation for practice or game situation. What do you make of this?

Conditioning in this context is a general quality. Tempo runs are used to build aerobic capacity and for recovery purposes, not to prepare you for game speed. Shorter distances are sometimes used for football players not because that makes the distances more specific, but because the big guys take a lot of pounding in their joints doing long runs.

In order to effectively simulate a football practice where it is constant stop and go couldn’t one do multiple 20 and 10 yard sprints with very low rest. If so how could they fit in a program?

I wouldn’t try to do this. It will be too intense to recover from quickly, but not intense enough to have a positive impact on your speed and acceleration. Work on your speed and acceleration when you are fresh and rested. multiple 10 and 20 yard sprints are a good way to go, but take your time in between them and make sure they are all high quality. Then work on your conditioning (tempo) on the days in between speed work.

20

I train linear speed, agility and conditioning on seperate days.

How would one be able to effectively distinguish between an athlete that needs to get stronger, faster and more reactive vs. one that needs to work on basic motor patterns?

Ok man so i have to learn this by doing some cone drills but w/ full recovery.

How could I effectively prepare for game speed?

But will this prepare me for game speed?