Agility

Agility is the ability to stop, start, and change the direction of the body or body parts in a rapid and controlled manner. It enables an athlete to move explosively, brake, change direction, and accelerate again, and is often more important than just achieving and maintaining high velocity. In comparison to linear sprinting, agility involves greater emphasis on deceleration and the subsequent ability to reactively couple it with acceleration. The athlete must be able to execute these changes in direction at multiple velocities.

Agility is classified as general or special, according to its skill specificity to the sport. Agility can further be categorized as closed/programmed (optimization of a motor pattern or technique) or as open/nonprogrammed (reaction and adaptation of a trained motor pattern to new or unforeseen situations). The agility protocols that we design are based on careful analysis of movement patterns in the athlete’s sport, and combine horizontal (backward, foreword, lateral), vertical (falling, jumping, tumbling), and two-point (bipedal) versus four-point (quadrupedal) movement patterns at different velocities and intensities to continuously challenge the athlete.

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