For youth athletes, quick agility is one of the most important qualities to have.
Agility improves an athlete's ability to make quick, coordinated movements in response to unpredictable circumstances by opposition (ex: making quick cuts around opponents, fast changes-in-direction, etc.)
Here's a few of the training exercises we use at Barbell Coalition to help our Cedar Park & Leander athletes improve their game-day agility.
Lateral Skaters
For a great deal of sports, it's important that athletes are quick and powerful moving side to side.
Athletes need to build the ability to forcefully push their foot into the ground laterally with a great deal of power to make quick sideways movements.
A great exercise we use for this is lateral skaters.
This will see the athlete hopping side to side landing on one leg at a time, and then using that same leg to drive into the ground and hop sideways as far as possible with another strong landing on the other foot.
This movement greatly improves an athlete's coordination and agility.
Broad Jump
Broad jumps, where we task an athlete with jumping as far as they can with a nice strong landing, are a great way to build explosiveness and reactive strength.
This movement is tried and true for developing lower body power for athletes. Big lower body power is the foundation for athleticism.
And while we're building explosive power with the jump, we're also training an athlete's ability to absorb force effectively when they land.
Absorbing force effectively is important for then moving quickly into another athletic movement in high-pace game situations.
Mini Hurdle Hops
On the topic of absorbing force, this is another great movement to simulate absorbing force quickly and then immediately transitioning into another athletic movement.
This is what athletes are doing when they sprint, change direction, decelerate, etc.
Mini hurdle hops will task athletes with performing a series of small hops over hurdles in sequential fashion while maintaining coordination and proper landing mechanics.
This is an advanced movement for continuing to boost elite-level agility for our athletes.
Our Training Improves the Agility of Cedar Park & Leander Athletes!
Interested in our training? Click here to book a free consultation and tour of the facility!
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