Ask any soccer coach, player, or fan and they know that a most critical factor in the game today is for soccer fitness training. For serious players, it is essential. Even world cup players who are undersized and lack “natural talent” have made up for their shortcomings by their enhanced strength, speed exercises, superior conditioning and exceptional skilled work ethic.In researching many speed and agility training and fitness programs, I was curious to see what was available for soccer. When I came across Total Soccer Fitness, I was very impressed. This ebook bundle is the most comprehensive program I’ve seen. The package consists of:
- Total Soccer Fitness - complete conditioning resou
rce for players and coaches at all levels - The Soccer Exercise Library – over 100 conditioning drills and exercises specifically designed for soccer players
- Total Soccer Nutrition – how to eat and drink for soccer peak performance
- Total Soccer Psychology – 10 powerful mental techniques for soccer peak performance
- Smoothies for Athletes – 120 delicious recipes for energy and recovery
ne ebook, Total Soccer Fitness, is written by Phil Davies, who developed fitness programs for some of Europe’s professional soccer teams and owns his own athletic performance facility. This book covers conditioning, including aerobic endurance conditioning, strength and power, speed and agility, flexibility, warm-up and cool-down exercises and theory with vivid images for the best learning. Also included is a section showing you how to chart your progress and results.Davies is a genius in breaking down the game position by position, from an endurance and conditioning perspective. His programs are based on scientific research and data. The wealth of data he supplies isn’t just for show, he explains how to use this data, and how it applies to your training for your position and overall game. For example, a midfielder will sprint for eleven percent of his total running time and how that links into the conditioning program.
Speed – The Difference Between Good Athletes and Great Athletes
A strength training coach for a professional sports team, certified strength and conditioning Specialist and Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology, Mark Strasser was urged by clients to put together a speed training manual that would guarantee to increase speed using Mark’s proven training methods which are used by World-Class athletes and coaches.
Results have proven that athletes not only gained speed, but got stronger and performed better on the field.
Since inception of this program, the former professional football coach and professional strength training coach for the Minnesota Twins organization has helped thousands of men and women get in shape and gain speed for improved 40 yard dash results and enhanced the athlete’s chances to play to maximum ability.
What happens frequently is that many athletes stumble – and more than once on false teachings of other speed programs.
With this speed training system, athletes and coaches gain immediate access to the program created by Mark Strasser that focuses on increasing speed. This step-by-step strategy can be utilized by athletes at all performance and fitness levels. The goal is to achieve rapid speed while developing strength.
So, you’re interested in learning how to improve your speed and agility. You’ve come to the right place. By the end of this article you will have EVERYTHING you need to get started in Speed and Agility Training. This site is a personal blog that scours everything new and everything old. Old is usually good because it has stood the test of time, but the new stuff is sometimes amazing. For example you can check out sports visions training – a newly popularized mode of training that improves the hitherto unclassifiable things like dynamic visual acuity, depth perception, peripheral vision, fusion flexibility and stamina etc. PS: Do you know what’s the easiest way to improve your dribbling skills? Tell a boxer his mom’s a tart. Speed and Agility: How To Get Started The world of speed and agility training can be quite confusing. If you are like most people visiting this site you have realized that, for some reason, you now have a need to improve your speed and agility, but how do you actually go about doing it? Well I am going to attempt to answer this question both in a general and a specific way. Don’t worry, by the end of this article you will have a clear understanding of what you need to be doing. The first thing you must know is -> Why are you trying to improve your speed and agility?
- you are applying for a sport scholarship and you need to increase your speed and agility as fundamental testing is concerned (ex: 40 yard dash)
- you practice a sport (football, basketball, soccer, baseball etc.) and need to increase your sport specific speed and agility
- you are parent looking to help out your child to improve his speed and agility
- you want to be a better coach (teach others to get good and also coordinate a team)
- you are an amateur that wants to get better
Speed and Agility - Dunking vs Flipping
One thing that must be absolutely clear to you is that there are many, many different facets of speed and agility training. Here is an example: a basketball player and a gymnast. Now both of these athletes obviously have great speed and agility. But, can the basketball player do what the gymnast can do? Most certainly not. And the same is true vice versa. Dunking is very different from flipping and this sort of difference can be classified as sport specific speed and agility. There is also something known as general speed and agility. This is the sort of thing that the NFL Combine measures: pure raw athletic ability as measured in speed exercises, strength training workouts or speed and agility drills. These sort of thing can also be trained, BUT… you have to know why and how. Examples:
- how to improve your 40 yard dash or 50m dash
- how to improve your dribbling skills if you play soccer
- if you’re a football player you might be interested in ways that you can more better tackle your opponents or dodge them
You see where I’m going with this? You need to know what aspect you are trying to improve. Now obviously I can’t answer all the questions in the world in one article, but the purpose of this article is to point you in the right direction, so… Step one: why are you interested in speed and agility training? Step two: what aspects of your speed and agility would you like to influence? Here are some possible answers and, as promised, here are some directions that you can go into: There are two groups of people in the world, there are people who focus on learning and there are people who focus on doing. The people who focus on learning will probably delay their results because they haven’t started doing anything until they’ve learned everything there is to know about their field and their objectives. Downside, they delay their results, upside they have the potential to become truly great because once they do start training they know how to train right. The other class of people start doing and learn as they go along. They start improving sooner, but there is a risk that they can learn things incorrectly and then be forced to backpedal and unlearn improper techniques. Tiger Woods had this problem and he had to relearn his whole swing. I recommend a mixed approach. If you want to get started doing something right now. And I mean right now. Here is a link to a great article about improving speed and agility with a simple leg training exercise: Speed and Agility Training With The 1 Legged Squat. PS: Here’s the link for: Speed and Agility Training with Sports Vision training.
What can you do to get maximum gains from each and every workout?
It is important to know that after speed and agility training , the process of refueling is very important. Not only does refueling make your workouts count, it can be the difference between better performances or stale performances in any given contest. Does this sound far fetched? Not at all, just ask any college level or professional athlete.
There are three areas of nourishment an athlete needs to address; fluid, carbohydrates and protein.
FLUID
Drink at least 3 cups of fluid plus an additional 2 cups for each pound of weight loss acquired during the practice. This can be water or powerade. Powerade should be the fluid of choice if you are a salty “sweater” or if your training exceeds one hour. Note that you always must weigh before and after practice in order to accurately assess your fluid needs.
CARBOHYDRATES
Intense workouts use up the carbohydrates in your system. In order to provide energy, it is very important to replace the carbohydrates (carbs) burned, and store some additional carbs for the next workout. It is recommended that an athlete consumes 50-100 grams of carbohydrates after practice or workouts.
PROTEIN
Protein is used for muscle fibers in order for them to build up stronger and faster and to prevent muscle breakdown. The recommended amount for refueling is 10-15 grams. A study with Marines during 54 days of basic training reports those who refueled with a 100 calorie recovery drink that contained only 10 grams (40 calories) of protein, not only enhanced muscle protein deposition but also contributed to 33 percent fewer total medical visits, 28 percent fewer visits due to bacterial and viral infections, 37 percent fewer visits due to muscle and joint problems, and 83 percent fewer visits due to heat exhaustion. (Flakoll, Med Sci Sports and Exercise, 2004)
REFUELING SNACKS
Below are some suggested snacks for after workout nourishment.
- Chocolate milk low-fat ( 2 cups ) and 1 banana
- 4 oz. snack size container of lowfat cottage cheese:
- Two tablespoons of hummus on four Kashi Heart to Heart crackers
- 6 oz. container Chobani vanilla nonfat Greek yogurt
- String cheese (part-skim mozzarella) and Bagel
- Peanut butter and jellysandwich and Powerade (2 cups)
- Yogurt ( 8 oz.) low-fat mixed with 1/2 cup granola cereal
So next time you do your speed and agility training, speed exercises or agility training, refuel to make your hard work count.
Every year over 300 of the best college football players in the country are invited by the National Football League (NFL) to the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis Indiana. Why? Millions of dollars are at stake for the teams and players in salary, bonus’ , endorsements, winnings, appearances and more.
There the athletes showcase their athletic skills and abilities to NFL top executives, coaching staffs, player personnel departments and medical personnel from all 32 NFL teams prior to NFL draft. So why is this necessary when teams have already seen these athletes play game after game either live on Saturdays or on TV?
Football player - Speed and Agility Training
The answer is simple, the NFL places great value on the fundamentals of a true athlete. No matter how often a scout has seen an athlete play the game live or on the screen, the NFL needs to evaluate an athlete’s raw ability in speed exercises, strength training workouts and speed and agility drills. In other words, the yards run, the passes caught, the touchdowns scored are not a factor at the combine. It’s all about measuring how fast, agile, strong and explosive the prospect is – athleticism. The following are the actual drills used at the NFL Combine to judge potential draft picks.
40-yard dash
This is the main event. Teams look for explosiveness and speed from a dead start. The athletes are timed at 10, 20 and 40-yard intervals. One of the most important speed exercises.
Bench press
Every athlete is given the weight of 225 pounds to bench press. The objective is to see how many times he can bench press this weight, which is called repetitions, or reps for short. The repetition factor measures the athletes endurance. This also tells a lot about the work ethic of the athlete in college and whether he attended strength training workouts.
Vertical jump
The vertical jump starts with the athlete standing flat-footed while his reach is measured. The athlete then is told to jump and touch a the highest point he can, which is a flag in the series of flags above him. The difference in the standing reach and the flag is the vertical jump measurement. This exercise evaluates the lower-body explosion and power .
Broad jump
The broad jump tests the athlete’s lower-body explosion, lower-body strength and balance. From a starting point, the athlete stands balanced . He then jumps out as far as he can while sticking the landing.
3 Cone Drill
The 3 cone drill tests an athlete’s speed and agility. It measures ability to change directions at a high speed. From a starting line, three cones are place in an L-shape. The athlete runs 5 yards to the first cone and back. Then, he turns, runs around the second cone, runs a weave around the third cone, which is the high point of the L, changes directions, comes back around that second cone and finishes.
Shuttle run
Remember the suicide drills in PE? The shuttle begins with the athlete starting in a three-point stance and exploding out 5 yards to his right, touches the line, goes back 10 yards to his left, left hand touches the line, pivot, and he turns 5 more yards and finishes.
Now Its Your Turn
The NFL, through research and experience has put together drills and exercises it uses to evaluate potential million dollar athletes. If you are a serious athlete, or just someone who wants to be a better athlete, practice the speed and agility exercises above and who knows, and maybe someday you too will be invited to the combine.
People always like to hear the secret, the quick gains how to, the massive improvements in just 3 short weeks and I am going to give to you straight: Massive gains in a couple of “short” weeks are quite possible BUT, they are not for newbies. Let me elaborate on this, when you are first starting any endeavor, both physical and mental, you can expect to get easy increases at the beginning. Training for speed and agility is no different. This is despite improper training, unoptimal eating habits, drinking, yes, a newbie can get past all of these simply because there is so much untapped potential in his body.
Harsh lesson: most newbies won’t get that far after that, and then, frustrated, they will quit. I will wager that this is especially true for speed and agility training. There are some very different approaches in the world: some people, called information junkies, like to read up and know everything there is to know about a subject before doing anything at all. At the other extreme, there are those people who jump in and just start doing. Neither are doing it right. The information junkie people are wasting time, they are throwing away time that could be used to start molding their minds and bodies into a machine of explosive speed and agility for the sake of the most quantity of information. I am not going to even address the topic of lousy information and people teaching stuff that simply is not effective, just to throw you a bone. Then when frustrated and plateauing, get you to buy their products – that don’t work.
The people who just jump into speed and agility training seem to have an advantage in the beginning, this is because if you do anything, just getting off your couch and doing any speed and agility training, you will get some results. This is due to the untapped potential I’ve mentioned earlier. But, the problem with this approach is that they will tend to flatline pretty fast and after that, doing more of the same thing will unlikely produce any more improvement. This is why people who run laps every day will not improve their speed, they will just build more and more endurance, which is fine, as long as that is what they are going after. This is where the info junkies have the edge, this is because:
Practice does not make Perfect, Perfect practice makes Perfect
…and info junkies have the best chance of eventually coming across the good information and getting the right speed and agility training.
Another problem for people who just jump into things is that they may learn improper techniques. Tiger Woods had to relearn his whole swing, because it was not a sustainable swing and would have eventually led to carrier ending injuries. This is the problem most frequent with people who train without guidance. So the best thing is to get the best of both worlds, you need proper guidance and you need to take action. In the world of speed and agility training this is even more true due to the high risk of injury.
Speed and agility training has a higher incidence of injuries and a higher severity of injuries than training for strength, endurance, muscle size, etc. Take a good look at my ankle and learn from my mistakes. Six screws, a titanium plate and 2 months in crutches. Hope you’ll be smarter than me.
This is why I must caution you to be aware than speed and agility training is a long term process. If you want to get anywhere worth going in the shortest amount of time, then think of things in terms of a two year process. This is just a guideline. I don’t want to make this article any longer so let me tell you that I hope you have enjoyed and got something out of it.
Leave a comment and tell me what you though of the article: here.
All the best,
Damian
There has been arguably the biggest breakthrough in speed and agility training in 50 years. What was once considered to be untrainable, is quickly becoming a must in the training of elite athletes and those wishing to become as much. Think of the obscure skills such as reaction speed, sport intelligence, anticipation, game tempo, field vision, timing , focus and concentration. It all starts with the fact that our body reacts to what it can see. The better the body can “see” the better reaction time, the better it can anticipate the next move of the opponent. What we are talking about is the breakthrough of sports vision training.
But even the quickest players around will be beat or make mistakes if their minds or sports vision is not up to the challenge. This is what traditional speed and agility training has not been able to do and that is why speed exercises for the mind are crucial. Most often, these are called speed and span of recognition training. These exercises help with reflexes and reactive ability, it is just one of the sports vision skills an athlete can train for in order to become the best. Using sports vision training, athletes process greater amounts of visual information faster and more precisely in order to make better decisions making their physical reactions faster and more precise, especially when under pressure. Other vision skills included in this type of training, but not entirely exhaustive include:
- peripheral awareness – while focusing on a fixed point, seeing people and objects out of the of the corner of the eye
- visual reaction time – is the interval of time between when a change or stimulus is seen and when you react to that change or stimulus
- dynamic visual acuity – the visual strengths and weaknesses of players with regard to moving objects
- eye tracking – the ability to to watch or follow the ball carefully no matter how fast it may be traveling
- eye focusing – changing focus quickly and accurately from one distance to another
- depth perception – the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions to speedily and correctly judge the distance and speed of objects
- fusion flexibility and stamina – the ability to the eyes working together under excessive speed and physically demanding situations
This breakthrough in speed and agility training answers the question of having two athletes; same height, same weight, same strength, same training, same times in speed exercises, but one plays the game noticeably better than the other.
Speed and agility training is a dangerous business, unlike strength training workouts or other muscle building programs there is a high risk of injury. This is because while strength deals mainly with high force and low speed, speed and agility training often involves high force AND high speed, resulting in very high power. Misapplied forces executed at high speeds can lead to serious injury. I should know, this is a picture of my ankle. It has 6 screws and a titanium plate in it. You gotta have real passion for what you do and there’s nothing that shows real passion more that the ability to suffer trauma and then get back up on the horse.
But I digress, the purpose of this article is to show you some ways that your speed and agility training can benefit from what other sport cultures have discovered and how you can apply this knowledge to your speed and agility training.
The short story is this:
-> a protein supplement can help out tremendously with your gains.
I have touched on the subject of speed and agility training and creatine before. Today I will turn my attention towards speed and agility training and a protein supplement.This is a great aid in improving speed and agility.
A protein supplement is important for maximizing your results for the following reasons:
It allows you to recover from the micro injuries that any training session worth it’s salt will inflict upon your body. Basically this means that each time your body is damaged, if you give it the right nutrients (and yes proteins are a macro-nutrient that is critical to your body) it will recover and build itself up stronger each time. If you fail to do so, you will reach plateaus or worse yet, regress. Regression happens when your body is in a negative repair mode, or a deficit repair mode. This basically means that your body can’t keep up with the damage you inflict upon it and each training session will leave you ever more weaker.
Another problem you might encounter is improper repair. Basically your body will patch itself up with whatever it has on hand but it will not build itself back up as strongly as it could. This is influenced both by the quality of the food you intake and of the specific tolerance of that food with your body. Believe it or not food allergy exists in every living individual, the problem is that when we are healthy we barely notice this and we keep right on trucking. But this is not at all smart. Just think of the gains you could be making if you were to feed your body properly with foods that don’t harm it. If you provide ample micro-nutrients and cofactors and supply high quality macromolecules.
See the whole Gallery:
Don’t get me wrong you can still benefit from speed and agility training if you just eat from the 1 dollar menu. But you will recover more slowly, you will repair yourself more badly and you will be affecting your ability to train correctly and increase your chance of suffering an injury. So this basically takes care of why you should use a protein supplement in your speed and agility training program.
This brings me to another topic which I have discussed somewhere else: the protein supplement issue. What, why and how to select the best protein supplement.
Leave a comment and tell me what you thought of the article: here.
All the best,
Damian
PS: Here is a great speed and agility exercise for you to use.
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