Speed and Agility Training for Success
Jogging or pedaling a stationary bike will raise your body temperature, get your blood pumping, and make you breathe hard, but does this sound like the type of warm-up an athlete should use? We have a different approach to warming up and agility training.
First, we prefer that athletes use the dot drill to warm up before all workouts. The dot drill is an ideal warm-up because not only does it fulfill all the requirements of a good warm-up, but it improves coordination, foot speed, and agility. It also strengthens the ankles, which could be considered a weak link in the body because they are frequently injured in athletics and can be frustrating to rehabilitate. And because an athlete who injures an ankle is five times more likely to injure it again, it makes sense to include exercises that will prevent the ankles from becoming injured in the first place.
When athletes first attempt the dot drill, they often feel clumsy and find it extremely tiring. These difficulties will pass, especially if the athlete commits to performing the drill six times a week. For most athletes, we’re asking for less than 10 minutes of work per week—an investment well worth the price. To further motivate athletes, here are the BFS standards for male and female athletes.
After the dot drill, we encourage athletes to perform agility drills to help with cutting and changing direction. To this end, we have developed a free download, 25 Agility Drills for Every Athlete. This practical guidebook gives you 25 simple drills using cones to simulate all the basic movements that occur on the field and the court.
At BFS, we’ve found that if you’re really serious about improving performance in any aspect of strength and conditioning, you have to test it. Whether it’s by how much you lift, how high you jump, or how fast you run, you have to find a way to accurately measure performance so you can set personal records and then break those records. This is also true with the dot drill and agility drills, and we recommend that athletes test themselves twice a month and record the results.
THE BFS DOT DRILL PAD
The BFS Dot Drill Pad is the warm up foundation to all the work we do in the BFS Total Program. The BFS Dot Drill gives athletes a perfect start to get their muscles firing before a work out while building the agility and foot speed to compete on the field of play. We recommend two Dot Drill pads for every work out station.