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Is Agility Ladder Training good for athletes? Does Agility Ladder Training actually make you faster and more agile?
You may have been told before that Agility Ladder Training is useless and a waste of time for athletes, since it doesn't actually improve your speed and agility.
And to some extent, there is some truth behind that. BUT, there are also many benefits that come with Agility Ladder Training that can improve your performance on the field.
In this blog post, the benefits, and the misconceptions of agility ladder training will be covered, and you will get some insight onto how to actually get the most out of incorporating agility ladder work into your training routine.
The Misconceptions of Agility Ladder Training
Many people have the conception that the agility ladder is excellent for improving your over all speed and agility.
However, this idea is flat out incorrect. The Agility Ladder doesn't improve your speed and agility.
If the ladder doesn't improve your agility, then why is it called the "agility" ladder?
To be honest, I have no clue, but by definition, nothing about the agility ladder drills you see on YouTube or Instagram or wherever have any real impact on your agility.
Why? Let's start off with the definition of 'agility.'
Agility vs Change of Direction
Agility: Your ability to change directions when reacting to an external stimulus.
There is a difference between agility training and change of direction training. Agility training incorporates aspect of your change of direction, but it isn't predetermined, meaning you have to make a decision on where to run to when reacting to a visual or audible cue.
Remove the aspect of external stimulus, then you're purely working on your change of direction, where you are training your body to move quickly and easily, but it's predetermined, meaning you already know where you'll be heading next.
Looking to see some example of Change of Direction Drills? Click here to check out this Post on the GoGrind Soccer Instagram Page!
The agility ladder doesn't incorporate any aspect of agility or change of direction in the usual drills you would typically associate with it.
However, just because the agility ladder doesn't directly target your speed and agility, there is still some use for it, and you shouldn't completely abandon it.
The Benefits of Agility Training
Although the Agility Ladder doesn't target your speed and agility, there are some things that the agility does work on that can help you improve as a player.
Here are a few benefits of doing agility ladder training:
Foot Speed and Coordination
The agility ladder is a great way to train your mind-feet connection and how you're able to accurately coordinate your feet quickly.
The more you're able to control the movement and placement of your feet in a fast speed, the more balanced and coordinated you will be when actually practicing athletic movements such as quickly changing your footing to change direction.
This doesn't mean you'll be better at changing direction, the only way to actually improve your change of direction is by practicing it.
However, by improving your foot coordination, you can definitely adjust your feet quicker when reacting to a stimulus.
Having good foot speed can also help your dribbling and ball control to some extent, since you're practicing the movement of moving your feet quickly and accurately, which can translate to your reactive dribbling and how fast you can move your feet to move the ball out of a sticky situation.
However, I want to emphasize that the only way to actually improve instinctual dribbling and to have faster feet with the ball, is to practice footwork with the ball.
Here is a great video that can help improve your footwork on the ball!
Your Defending
Agility ladder's can also be helpful in improving your defending to some extent.
When you are defending an attacker, you are constantly on your toes, and you would jockey your opponent to anticipate his next move.
Whenever the attack makes a quick and sudden change of direction, you need to be able to adjust your feet quickly to be able quickly flip your hips and accelerate to defend the attacker.
By doing agility ladder drills (specifically drills where you are moving backwards), you can actually improve the way you adjust your footing when moving forward/backwards/sideways, etc.
By improving your foot coordination and your ability to adjust your footing when moving backward, you can more effectively practice and improve the actual action of constantly flipping your hips and jockeying and opponent.
Again, I want to emphasize that the agility ladder is only an extra supplement to boost your training effectiveness. If you actually want to improve your defending and your ability to switch you hips and adjust your footing, then prioritize practicing the actual motion.
Great For High Intensity Interval Training
The agility ladder is also really effective for building up fatigue in the legs and challenging your mind-feet precision when you're exhausted.
Again, this can help you build up the ability to be more precise with your footwork when dribbling, defending, and changing directions, since you are pushing your body to be as precise as possible despite the heaviness in your legs.
You can add an agility ladder component into your high intensity interval training routine to build up your anaerobic capacity, as well as some coordination when under fatigue.
Here are some great drills from 7MLC that you can add to your agility ladder routine.
In order to make your agility ladder exercises high intensity, I recommend increasing the work time, challenging yourself with more difficult variations, and decreasing the rest time.
Need more ideas on how to improve your stamina for Soccer? Click here to read a step-by-step guide on how to build Stamina for Soccer.
Great for Warm Ups
Lastly, agility ladders are great for warming up effectively before an intense speed and agility session.
This is personally how I use my agility ladder. I like to incorporate some footwork drills that challenge my legs in order to activate my body just that little bit extra before I hit the meat of my session.
Agility ladders are great for warm ups because they can further activate your fast twitch muscle fibers and cause those legs to burn to ensure that they're not inactivated before going into more intense drills.
Agility ladders are also great to warm up that mind-muscle connection, and allow you to be more precise going into your more intense drills.
Want to see some footwork drills I use to warm up before my speed sessions? Click here to check out this Instagram Post!
Summary
Many people have the misconception that agility ladder training increases your overall speed and agility.
However, this isn't exactly the case.
Agility ladder training doesn't directly target your speed and agility, but it improves many different aspects of your performance that can come in handy in a game.
The agility ladder has many great training benefits, such as:
Improving Foot Speed And Coordination
Improving Your Defending
Improving Your Stamina
Great for Warm Ups
By properly using the agility ladder, you can definitely get some use out of it, so don't completely overlook agility ladder training.
I hope you found some value and answers in today's post.
Thanks for Reading! Get Up. Go Grind.
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