Speed and Agility Training is fast becoming a focus for more and more athletes as they find that strength training is just not enough anymore — not that it ever was, but as times get more competitive you are going to need all the edge you can get.

The purpose of this article is to function as an introduction into the relation between speed and agility training and a practice known as Plyometric training. You will learn what plyometrics are, what role they play in your speed and agility training.  You will also learn and what are some of the benefits you can expect when corectly introducing plyometric drills into your speed and agility training.

So what are plyometrics anyway?
Plyometrics are simply a type of exercises whose purpose it is to link strength with speed of movement in order to create a lot of power. The objective is to be able to use more of your strength — faster — thus producing more power. An example of application of plyometrics in a sport that requires a lot of speed and agility is doing a vertical  jump for height in basketball.

Plyometric execises are simple in purpose, they are meant to:
- increase your bodies ability to absorb and store force;
- teach you how to release that force — creating a movement which has a lot of power behind it.

Traditional sports endeavors who have benefited a lot from these types of exercises are those that involve throwing, kicking, jumping and lifting.

Purpose of plyometrics as part of a speed and agility training program
Plyometric drills are meant to train your muscles and tendons to absorb high amounts of force and teach your nervous system how to control and stabilize that force. Speed and agility can be developed very quickly with such practices – the best gains come if you have already strengthened your muscles and tendons.

The short term gains in speed and agility that result from incorporating plyometric exercises come from the education of your nervous system. This is why it is critical to perform plyometric exercises following these guidelines:

• only perform when rested
• perform with maximum concentration and focus for each rep
• keep the rep number low (no more than 20 regardless of the exercise used)
• keep the set number low (no more than 3 sets regarding the exercise)

Gains in the long term will rely on body composition — this is why a focus on nutrition and avoidance of injury are critical with regards to plyometrics. Plyometric training will change the structure of your muscles and tendons. You should be aware that practiced over a longer period of time, the result of plyometric training will make your muscles and tendons and make them have more spring.

Plyometric movement works like this:

• first the body absorbs and stabilizes the force from a negative (eccentric) contraction
• as it does this, it  loads up your muscles and tendons with force (think of it like a compressing a spring)
• your body releases this energy in the opposite direction
• the spring unloads and the body (for legs) or an object (for arms) is propelled with astounding speed

Here’s an example,when you cock back your arm to throw a rock the natural thing you do is to first cock your arm backwards.  The effect of this is that the muscles of your arm and shoulder muscles lock, forcing your tendons to stretch thus storing a lot of force in those tendons and essentially turning them into loaded springs. When you throw, the stored force is released, allowing the rock to be accelerated at a rate which is higher than your normal rate of force development.

The reason plyometric training was so big when it came out in the 70 ‘s is that it allowed athletes to specifically train their muscles and tendons to be more spring-like. You naturally use plyometric movements but before plyometric training came out there was no clear cut way to train for this. That is why it was thought for so long that jumping for height for example was an innate ability.

As I said before, the more you use this type of training the more you will also develop an inherent springiness in your muscles and tendons.  Coupled with an increased nervous system learning on how to corectly perform the movement at higher speeds, you can expect to see massive improvements in your speed and agility. The question is: how do I adapt the principles of plyometric training to my speed and agility training? The answer is, and you aren’t going to like it, by tailoring your plyometric training to the specific speed and agility requirements of the sport that you are practicing. This is a long discussion and goes way beyond the scope of this article.

In this article you have learned:

• what plyometrics are
• how plyometrics work
• the role of plyometrics as part of your speed and agility training
• the benefits you can expect when introducing plyometric drills into yours speed and agility training

I also recommend you check out this article on exercise for speed and agility training and preventing injuries.

All the best,
Damian

Technorati Tags: Agility Training, Speed and Agility

In this article I will continue my discussion of the 1-legged squat as it pertains to your speed and agility training protocols. If you have not read the introductory first article you can do so here: Speed and Agility Training – One Legged Squat: Part 1

Article breakdown:

• the criteria important in your speed and agility training
• how to perform the 1-legged squat specifically in order to develop your speed and agility

…as a bonus I will also be including some tips on how to make this exercise even harder and a video of its performance.

My Experience – Your Gain
In taking from my experience of overcoming an injury, as well as the things I learned testing different variations, the training protocols as applied to the 1-legged squat are very impressive.  I will also offer you ways to incorporate this exercise in your speed and agility training. Give this exercise a trial period of two weeks.  Focus on no other exercise and use the variations as I show them to you.  I promise you are going to be VERY impressed with the results.

As we all know there are some things that you can feel or be aware of but are difficult to measure. Some of the benefits of this exercise are like that. One benefit of this exercise that you can both feel and measure are: increased rate of force development — ie explosiveness, the ability to generate a high amount of tension, read force, in a short amount of time, the result of this is that you can use your legs or leg to propel your body in any direction you want VERY FAST, something that can really show up in your speed and agility.

Something You Won’t See Anywhere Else
There is something that should make the variations of this exercise more appealing to the “looking for a secret” person.  These variations are not something you will find anywhere else.  I have  been involved in amateur athletic endeavors for 9 years.   I am an information junkie as well.  I have researched and studied the areas of bodybuilding, strength training, vertical jump development, speed and agility training, dietary supplements, isometric training, as well as others too numerous to name.

Why is this important?
In our hyped up marketing world, people tend to focus on niches.  They focus on either training for muscle, for strength, for fitness, for being ripped or a million other variations. Being an amateur athlete I have extensively researched and developed various training methods.   I have also applied many training protocols in the past 9 years.  So please bear in mind, if you are not familiar with these training techniques, it is simply because what I have exclusively developed them and they are influenced by many disciplines from which I have taken what I thought best served my purpose.

At this point in time I am focusing on developing speed and agility.  This means that I am taking all the things I have learned over the years and combining them to achieve the highest outcomes possible. This is a work in progress and what you are going to read about are the results I have gotten using interdisciplinary training protocols. It is by no means the only way, it is JUST   a very good and time efficient way of doing things. Please remember individual results may vary so do some testing of your own.  That being said, after 9 years I have a pretty good understanding — to say the least, of what can produce results and how fast you can get them.

So let’s get back to the 1-legged squat, first, the purpose. The 1-legged squat will have its training variables modified so as to maximize your speed and agility gains. It can be used to develop strength or to develop muscle mass, but I will focus on improving speed and agility.

Explosiveness
Speed and agility largely depend upon your explosiveness.  In running for example, speed depends on your ability to drive force into the ground with your legs, one at a time, and propel yourself forward. The more force you can develop and the faster you can develop it, the more your speed will increase. With some aspects of agility the same apply. This is, in a nutshell, as far as running speed and agility is concerned.  This means that the variables of performing the 1-legged squat for the purposes of speed and agility training will need to maximize your maximum strength and your rate of force development.

Most Efficient Way to Train
The most efficient way to do this is to train in a range of 65% to 85% of your 1 rep maximum. This has the effect of making your muscles suffer a high degree of tension while keeping your rep number low, optimal ways to develop strength. Also, training in the 65% to 85% range while emphasizing speed of movement, has a very high training payout as far as your rate of force development goes.   Put another way, the faster you attempt to move a very heavy object, the better your body will become at generating force quickly – this directly influences acceleration which in turn directly influences both speed and agility. It influences speed by enabling you to accelerate faster and put more force in each of your strides.  It influences agility because you are able to change direction much faster.

For example, let’s say you are running and you suddenly have an object in front of you that you want to avoid. Your body must first neutralize the momentum it already has before being able to dodge the object, the faster you can develop the force needed to neutralize that momentum the faster you will be able to change direction. This is how the negative part of the 1-legged squat benefits your agility.

In summary: performing the 1-legged squat specifically for speed and agility training purposes requires that you:

1. Use weight that is between 65% and 85% of your one rep maximum
2. Move that weight slowly on the way down and take a 1 second break on the lowest part of the exercise (I did not do this in the video btw)
3. Move that weight as fast as possible on the way up — without bouncing

Tip: how to make the exercise even harder- do it very slowly while emphasizing perfect posture and control

[flv:/speedandagility1leggedsquat.flv 560 450]

I’d love to hear what you though of this article, leave a comment here speed and agility training

All the best,
Damian

One Legged Squat: Part 1

Speed and Agility Training: One Legged Squat

In this two part article I am going to discuss a particular exercise that comes in very handy in your speed and agility training: the 1-legged squat.

The purpose of this article is to explain:

• Benefits of the 1-legged squat for your speed and agility training program;
• How to perform the 1-legged squat;
• Tailoring the 1-legged squat specifically for your speed and agility training;
• How to modify different parameters in order to keep advancing and avoid plateauing;

The areas that the 1-legged squat can develop are the following:

• Maximal strength (it will make your legs very strong AND it will do something that 2 legged weight training won’t — increase your stabilizing muscles strength — critical as far as speed and agility training goes)
• Strong Joints (the particular nature of this exercise means your supportive muscles, joints and tendons are subjected to higher than normal tensions this decreases chance of injury by building strong resilient joints well capable of sustaining the forces that speed and agility training inflicts)
• Develop Fast Reflexes (performing this exercise correctly will require you to generate strong nervous impulses, this will translate into increased rate of force development, improved speed, quick reflexes and a round butt — I couldn’t resist mentioning this as girls seem to like this particular anatomical part in a guy);

Let me comment a bit on how highly I think of this exercise. You see, last year, I broke my ankle. It required surgery, a titanium plate, six screws and 2 months walking in crutches. I’ll post that x-ray up one of these days just to show you how my ankle looks on the inside. This happened in March 2009. At that time I had 28 inch vertical jump (from standstill) and I didn’t know anyone who could outrun me on the 50 yard dash.   I lived speed and agility training. The accident changed all that, but I knew I could get back up to where I was competitively.  The problem was that at the end of 2010 I was still very weak.  Even though I started to run pretty fast again, I felt it in my bones that my strength was not the same. At the beginning of this year I remembered the 1-legged squat, an exercise I had used previously to increase my vertical jump. Even though I am a big fan of jumping for height (due to my love of basketball) and as such I am familiar with many verticals jump programs, I never did see one that addressed this particular exercise. To make a long story short, 6 months on classic exercises aimed at rebuilding the strength in my left leg left me completely unsatisfied and fearful of permanent damage. I was wrong.  After two months of using the 1-legged squat on and off I saw results, so I got serious and started applying the solid training principles that I knew in order to maximize the results I was getting with this exercise. I also scrapped every other leg  training exercise I had been using and focused exclusively on this one. My left leg is still not 100% strengthwise, but I have accomplished something I hadn’t before, I can now leap stairs four at a time.

This is a short description of the 1-legged squat as it should be done in your speed and agility training:

1. Slowly lower yourself down to the floor while standing in 1 leg. Your main foot must stay flat on the floor, your heel must be planted.
2. Descend with perfect tension throughout your body until your hamstring  almost touches your calf.  Your free foot must be held as straight as possible in front of you. Remember to pause at the end of the movement.
3. Lift yourself up without any bounce

In summary, this article has explained the benefits of the 1-legged squat, how they can benefit your speed and agility training  and a demonstration of the 1-legged squat.

In my next article I will expand on the specifics of performing the 1-legged squat.  I will explain how to perform this exercise specifically for speed and agility training and how you can modify the parameters of the exercise in order to avoid plateauing and keep improving.

All the best,
Damian

Technorati Tags: Speed and Agility, Speed and Agility Training, Speed Exercises