Recently, I was asked by two different coaches what suggestions I had to improve "lateral" range of baseball or softball middle infielders. Both coaches were asking specifically on behalf of high level athletes so it's important to program in that context for the remainder of my response. Lateral range can be partially determined by sport-specific mechanics and [...]
Archive for the ‘Speed and Agility’ Category
Four Phase Program for First Step Speed
August 22nd, 2011
Posted in 
Tags: 
Explosive Change of Direction and ACL Injury Prevention
June 13th, 2011
There's one exercise that will decrease ACL injury-risk, immediately and dramatically improve agility scores and also improve an athlete's endurance. It's not strength dependant, and can give athletes with the weakest engines a head start on their opponents. It's easy to coach and it's even easy for athletes to retain. It's the Cut Stop. Ok, we [...]
Redirecting Plyo Progressions
September 27th, 2010
Continuing the theme of Speed Training with No Space, this post will disclose our stance on plyometric training. Plyos are a critical piece in our programs, but only a piece. Within a training session we will spend about 15 minutes jumping and about 45 or more minutes strength training. Our primary focus is strength, but [...]
Lateral Speed Training With No Space
July 26th, 2010
A few posts ago, I introduced our stance on training for speed in a small facility. While the first post covered early training considerations for linear speed, this post will emphasize principles of training for lateral speed and agility. When training for lateral speed, we are ultimately enhancing the capacity to create and tolerate angles that [...]
Training Speed with No Space
June 10th, 2010
If you’re going to open a sports performance facility in a small space, prepare to answer the question "but how do you train speed and agility"? Understandably, most athletes and parents expect turf, track lanes, and elaborate cone drills from their "speed and agility" resource. As you can see from our videos, we have neither of those [...]
A Closer Look at Agility
April 20th, 2010
A few posts back, I explained the theoretical consequences of coaching an athlete to "get on their toes". For this week’s post, I decided to provide some close up, visual evidence of my stance (no pun intended). Here is a video of an adolescent female tennis player and male baseball/basketball player. Both athletes compete or practice [...]
Agility: Think Outside the Cones!
April 6th, 2010
Having limited space or time can be a training advantage. Fewer resources can direct a coach to dial in on the essential components of preparation, while eliminating the fluff. Unfortunately, the question remains, "How do you train for speed and agility in a small space, without track lanes or turf?" In a presentation that I contributed [...]
Be ready! Get OFF of your toes!
March 30th, 2010
If you played a variety of sports growing up, you undoubtedly can remember being told by a coach to "be ready on your toes". It was the universal stance whether you were a little league shortstop, point guard or aspiring tennis star. Although I believe most coaches have good intentions, getting athletes up on their toes [...]
