Since most scouts and recruiter look at speed and agility first and foremost, I would like to improve upon these before summer practice for linemen which is august 11. I know I can knock off some time in 4 months and hopefully someone can take a look at my speed and agiity stuff and add to it or maybe give suggestions of other things as well.
day 1: 4-40 yard interval sprints(50%, 70%)
6 stadium stairs( about 20 steps)
10-10 yard sprints
4-100 yard form runs( 60%)
day 2: 4-4 cone drill
4-nebraska drill
4- pro agility shuttles
4-20 yard sprints for form(60%)
day 3: 4-50 yard form sprints(60%)
4-10 yard sprints
6- 100 yard form runs
I also find that splitting up agility work into smaller components really improves your overall agility. What I mean is this:
Say you want to work on changing direction(or studder stepping). What I would do is jog around and then without warning fire one of your legs out and explode in the opposite direction. Only take 1 or 2 steps in the opposite direction and then resume jogging. You can do this many times because it doesn’t tax the CNS like sprints. I also do the same for spins and pretty much any change of direction movement whether it’s backwards, forwards or laterally.
I am doing a 3 phase routine for speed and agility. I do straight ahead speed on monday, change of direction on wednesday, and plyos/explosion on friday. I do 4 exercises with 5 sets of each. Sound good?
I am doing a 3 phase routine for speed and agility. I do straight ahead speed on monday, change of direction on wednesday, and plyos/explosion on friday. I do 4 exercises with 5 sets of each. Sound good?
That sounds pretty good to me but your volume might be high if that’s 4 exercises per workout for 5 sets each. This is a situation where I’d let performance dictate your volume. You want to stop before your speed starts to drop off noticeably. Three days per week of speed/agil/plyo/deceleration is about the most I’d go and even 2 days will be better for some people. Intense agility and deceleration work can beat a person up pretty good.
Yeah I usually see how I feel and adjust accordingly. Yeah in total 4 different exercises with 5 reps or sets of each, sorta confused how you name them. For example I will do 1 exercise of the nebraska drill for change in direction, doing the drill 5 times. So do you think I should do it 2 days a week say Monday and Friday?
It really depends on your individualities as an athlete. I know you’re trying to gain bodyweight and you don’t want to interfere with that too much but if footwork and general movement efficiency are not a strong point for you then you need to address that year around. I would say at this point anymore then 2 days of agility work would be overkill and I’d be happy with one speed day and one agility day. You can see an example of how DeFranco arranges his plan in the link below where he uses far less running up until July.
I guess Joe doesn’t understand the concept of lowering the intensity of the sprints by changing the surface you run on. Sprinting itself is a dynamix flexibility exercise so hill sprints on grass are certainly compatible during a preparatory phase.
I have nothing against Joe D. but to paraphrase Coach X: “Speed must be trained year round. When Joe left Parisi, he fucked up!”
Also, why the 2:1 ratio of upperbody to lowerbody workouts? Weekend tournaments/pick-up games are taxing to the muscles of the lower body but do not serve as a strength/hypertrophy stimulus. Why not keep the 1:1 ratio and lower the volume of lower body lifts?
I would leave agility out until a couple of weeks before camp starts. Just to avoid injury etc. Try to split the training days into linear speed days (hills and shorts sprints) and lateral speed days break away belt, shuttle runs and slide boards. Also dont be afraid to do some general endruance work after the speed and power sessions.
So, yay or nay to agility? I will be doing 2 days a week of speed training. I sorta need to know which to do. Also, what is the rep range usually for a 335 bench max? For 225 rep test?
Why do you think this is better than working on agility at all times? From an injury standpoint, I think it would be better to always work on agility so that your muscles and ligaments are used to the forces you are applying. Also, there is always room for agility improvement and I don’t see how this will be accomplished with only a couple weeks of work.
Because the off season is a time for working on the basics of athleticism (strength speed power stamina)agility IMO is a by-product of these basic elements.
The GPP is NOT a time for doing the same stressful stuff to the joints. If you keep doing agility all year long, eventually you will see overuse injuries. There’s nothing wrong with agility training but, build up the the basics first. then get funky…
Don’t forget you will get plenty of agility work when working on your specific sport. A faster /powerful /stonger athlete will always be better on test day than an average guy you just focuses on doing drills… As a matter of fact I am working with a good soccer player who looks awsome when doing agility drills but looks slow as dog shit when she does a straight ahead sprint. Ever wonder why some althletes pick up on athletic skills right away and become better than athletes who have been doing the same sport for many years? They never did the drills they never did the sport but they become good right away. This is because they developed mulitlateraly. They became good athletes by developing the basics NOT by doing drills…
Do the speed/power training. And work on your position specific drills. I guess if you want to know you could test yourself every week on the drills just to see if you are improving but, I would not start doing agility drills until you see some nice gains in speed and strength.
This is the set up I do for 3x/week
1.linear speed
2.jump up plyos
3.light tempo
4.wieghts
day 2.
1.warm up 1+2
2.position drills or break away belt pursuit drills or some sort of team game B-ball etc…
3.jump up plyos
4.if you have access to a slide board you can use this as a lateral tempo work or 50yd shuttle runs
5.wieghts
day 3.
same as day one.
For the tempo work you should keep it short no more than 50yds try to gradually add a light wieghted vest to simulate the weight of the helmet and shoulder pads…
I agree that general improvements in strength and speed should be worked on in the off season. I would also work on agility if it is specific to the sport.
Could you not make the same argument against speed work?
A faster/powerful/stronger athlete who works on sport-specific agility drills will pretty much destroy anyone. You don’t have to sacrifice strength to become more agile.
With regards to your soccer player, he looks like shit with straight ahead speed because acceleration and agility are relatively unrelated. An agile player doesn’t necessarily mean a fast sprinter.
Most all round athletes can pick up any sport and be good at it because they are stronger and more explosive than the average player. For instance, I have never kicked a soccer ball in my life but, I would guarantee that I would win almost any foot race on a soccer field.
Great athletes have unbelievable body control, strength, speed, anticipation… you name it. This is why they are generally good at any random sport. To excel at a specific sport though, IMO they need sport-specific agility work year-round.
Yeah,this is like me. I have always been an athlete. I am pretty good at any sport I try. As for running, I am doing a monday and wednesday program with the team. The after spring ball, I will move into mon, wed, fri. I feel a hell of a lot faster now than ever before. I am slowly putting on pounds. I feel more muscular. I have been at 6 meals a day with an average of 600-700 calories a meal.
Why have an off season? Training for agility all year is bad news… It leads to over use injuries. Let the agility come from learning the skill of the sport/or position.
Not really. If done right the injuries will be minimal. I hate to use Ben as a reference but… I believe he only had one major injury.
Yes. Including himself. There is nothing wrong with learning foot placement sptial awareness etc… But I think its better too spend time learning the skill of a sport than learning agility drills.
True. But what do you think happens to her after she breaks a few players? Nothing she has no break away speed. So all her fancy drills and foot work mean nothing after 5yards.
I’ll say it again, too much agility work=injuries…
I would use agility like speed work, train it all year round, just vary the volumes based on what phase of the year it is.
That is why both agility and speed have to both be trained. I believe the two most important factors in most team sports are agility and acceleration work. It sucks that these two aren’t more closely related to each other… (if they were, a fast sprinter would also be very agile) But this isn’t the case and that’s why both aspects must be trained. With your soccer player, she has good agility but lacks acceleration. So, she should devote most of her time to increasing acceleration through 20-30 yard sprints, weights, and plyo’s.
I agree that some agility or lateral work is most definitely needed. My gripe is that some coaches (not saying you) think that its the silver bullet for a slow sloppy athlete.
You are right the fastest guy is not necessarilly the best player on the field. But when you get a fast guy that knows how to play… You will have an amazing athlete. Thats why I say learn the craft of your position and add the speed work…
This is my weight and speed schedule, can you tell me if this looks good to you guys?
Monday- lower body(weights)
speed and agiltiy
Tuesday-upper body
edurance sport( full-court basketball)
Thursday-lower body
speed and agility
Friday-upper body
endurance sport(full court bball)
Other days I am off completely to rest and grow. I will start each workout with olympic lifts, then move to multi joint free weight exercises, then to auxillary lifts. My question also, would I still build muscle even though I am not doing bodybuilding type workouts? I am at 251 and gaining slowly, but I would like to keep adding muscle mass. Thanks in advance, Phill
How do you measure agility? If you look at 20y shuttle times and 40y dash times, they are somewhat related (No player running a 5.0 in the forty will clock 4.2 in the shuttle).
Also, Charlie says agility improves with elasticity and core strength, two qualities that are also necessary for proper sprinting execution.