Speed & Agility Training

Speed and Agility Training - Drills That Can Help

Speed and agility training will help you to improve your acceleration and your speed in terms of athletic performance. This can be accomplished through drills. The most important part of this training is to make sure that the training you engage in is quality. It doesn't matter how much you do it, but rather how consistent you are at doing it. Quality performance is the key to drills for agility and speed. Doing these drills in sets will help. When doing sprints in sets, they should be short. When doing sprints, between your sets you should rest completely.

There are general guidelines that you should follow before engaging in speed and agility training. The first of these is to warm up. This should be done thoroughly so that your drills will not leave you out of breath. When deciding to do drills, they should be done immediately after your warm up or on separate days from other exercise sessions. These drills will benefit you ideally if you already have a power base and solid strength from previous training. When you decide to do repetitions, they should be in five sets of ten so as not to strain yourself.

Two or three drills will be enough to fill each session for your speed and agility training. There are a number of drills you can choose from, each with their own benefit. Sprints in their basic form can be helpful, and you can also use varying forms. For basic sprints, simply set two markers apart by ten or 20 meters, such as cones. Sprint to one cone, then to the next and jog back to the beginning. You can also do this backwards to build the muscles in your calves. Other variations of sprints include downhill sprints and uphill sprints.

Downhill sprints as part of speed and agility training is designed to build coordination and leg speed. The distance of the hill you are running down should be short, no more than 15 meters. For uphill sprints, the distance should be able the same. While doing uphill sprints, you should allow yourself more time to rest between your repetitions. Another variation is hollow sprints, which will require much more distance. Hollow sprints require you to sprint to the first cone, then jog to the next and continue alternating until you reach the final cone. Upon reaching it, walk back to your starting point and repeat.