In my opinion, time spent doing programmed agility drills is time better spent focusing on sprinting, power and strength. However, “coordinative capacity” must be enhanced as well for athletes involved in sports like basketball, football, soccer, etc. What do others on this forum do to enhance movement skills?
Recently I’ve been practicing different basketball moves, trying to emulate LeBron. I feel that these moves mimic the type of moves I use in lacrosse and football. My theory is that once I develop the smooth relaxation and confidence with these moves, they will help translate to relaxation and confidence while performing similar moves in other sports. Thoughts?
I played on my HS’s basketball team for the first time when I was a freshman, and I found it really difficult to do all of the jukes and stutter steps that a lot of the good players on our team were doing. Everything was rigid… Until I played a good 6 months of intramural basketball. Now I’ve got gooder body control (ball control still sucks), and I can juke, stutter step no problem. I rock all the huge fooball players at flag football.
After three years of not weight training? Yah I probably would get “light up” as the mexicans at my school say. That doesn’t mean I’m less agile than the “First Team All League Defensive Back” I guess beating that guy at flag football in P.E. is the only petty gratification I can get for being as skinny as I am
I agree that crosstraining should be used to give athletes better body control. It is also useful at strengthening ligaments and muscles that aren’t used in the primary sport.
I don’t understand what you mean by programmed agility drills. Are these just general drills for footwork?
I find that sport specific agility drills are very useful for programming your mind and body to do certain tasks required by the sport.
programmed = you are programmed to move a certain way (ladders, cones, shuttles etc.)
to return the question, could you clarify what sport specific agility drills would be? I’m guessing working on specific dodges with the stick in your hand?
I think the ladder and cone drills are useless too.
For lacrosse, I just go to a field and mimick game movements like this:
-toss the ball behind me, react as fast as I can, pick it up, make a studder step and shoot.
-studder step(either way), shoot on the run
-wind up for a shot, don’t shoot, tuck the ball in and go to goal
-pick ball up, roll dodge, drop ball, pick ball up, dodge and shoot
-toss the ball behind your back to yourself, catch and shoot as quick as possible
-jog, studder step, sprint
-sprint, stop on a dime and change directions
I could list a million drills. I typically rest for about a minute between drills, it depends how i feel. I find that the fences around tennis courts are good for shooting practice because the ball doesn’t fly back at you like shooting at a wall would. After I do those drills I’ll normally practice shooting for a good 30 minutes.
That doesn’t mean I’m less agile than the “First Team All League Defensive Back” I guess beating that guy at flag football in P.E. is the only petty gratification I can get for being as skinny as I am 