Hi …I’m asking you members what do you feel is the book offering the most complete agility and conditioning for football package(not the speed and strength portion):Complete conditioning for football, (mike arthur, nebraska…), 52 week football training( ben cook, N.C),How to get in football shape(bert hill, steve watterson)
I think you should make your program based on what you can find on this board.
I own the 52 week football training, and don’t think it’s worth buying.
You might wanna check this thread out:
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=196
hope this helps.
I own the first two books, not familiar with the third. Of those first two, the Arthur book is somewhat better, but I can’t highly recommend either one. Generally too much CNS stress and too much work in the intermediate intensity range.
If you feel like you have your speed and strength aspects taken care of (as you imply), then the agility and conditioning portion of your program should be fairly easy to address. Conditioning should be handled by your tempo work. No need to do gassers or any signficant lactate work for football.
Agility is largely based on reactive abilities, core strength, dynamic body control and sports specific skills. Reactiveness is covered to some extent by the speed work and you can also use plyos. Core strength can be addressed by med ball work and the usual core work in the sprinting / lifting program. Dynaminc body control and skills will be handled by actually practicing your position (don’t forget about doing that! 
However, if you feel that you have some specific needs or deficiencies with respect to agility, then you can throw in some low volume work on those specific aspects on a CNS day. I find that work on decelleration early in the training year is a good place to start.
Just a few questions Xlr8 on that post …
Do you think true agility be improved upon? One ‘Guru’ is very firm in the belief it can’t be improved after 11-12 y.o.
(Personally I don’t agree entirely)
Is this equation correct :
Reactive Ability = Starting Strength + Visual Interpretation
Agreed - Olympic Lifts maintain core strength IMO
How do you train decelleration?
- Stopping within certain distances?
The same ‘Guru’ incidently does not train decelleration or use eccentric training for such.
Don;t forget Renegade Training for Football 
I thought it was funny in light of the Davies thread
Reactive ability refers to the SSC. It’s not “reaction time”
I’m not sure what you mean by “true” agility, but I certainly think that complex movement patterns can be improved. Often times, especially with lower caliber athletes, they simply don’t have the specific strength necessary to execute the movements required in sport. In these cases, once they get properly strong, they seem to move much better. There are also some basic movement skills and body angles that sometimes are not properly executed and specific work on these can yield improvements.
In addition, since in team or 1 on 1 sports where reaction is often an important factor, “agility” improves as athletes become better able to see and anticipate what will happen on the field and court. They become smoother, keep their body in a better position to respond appropriately and become “faster” because they need less time to decide what to do.
Is this equation correct :
Reactive Ability = Starting Strength + Visual Interpretation
Actually, I was talking about the stretch-shortening cycle al la plyometrics. However, as I said above, visual (or auditory or tactile or all of the above) interpretation and anticipation is a huge part of overall agility. That is why you have to practice your sport!
How do you train decelleration?
- Stopping within certain distances?
The same ‘Guru’ incidently does not train decelleration or use eccentric training for such.
Certainly some simple drills can be used like jogging and then immediately stopping on a signal. As you improve, speed up the jog. You can also start from an appropriate stance (2, 3 or 4 pt) and then take 2 acceleration steps in a direction and stop on the third step. As you get better, take more acceleration steps, but try to stop in a single step. You can also run your usual agility drills with cones or whatever, but instead of cutting at the cone, come to a complete (balanced) stop (on either one foot or two feet) before exploding to the next cone. More general drills would be things like altitude landings to help with force absorbtion. Again, I’m not sure these are a necessary part of every training routine, but if there is a specific deficency identified, they may help to correct a problem. But first make sure that you have the necessary strengths in place.
where you should put those drills, stopping, changing directions etc…I think , i f they are low stress, they can add to the acceleration day in the final part of the warm up…