{"id":5057,"date":"2020-02-06T07:55:45","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T12:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/?p=5057"},"modified":"2021-10-05T09:42:19","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T13:42:19","slug":"why-flashy-footwork-agility-ladders-and-sprint-mechanic-drills-are-mostly-a-waste-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/blog-post\/why-flashy-footwork-agility-ladders-and-sprint-mechanic-drills-are-mostly-a-waste-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Flashy Footwork, Agility Ladders, and Sprint Mechanic Drills are MOSTLY A Waste of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the most common pieces of equipment\nsport coaches and strength and conditioning coaches love to use are agility\nladders\u2026 but why? Mostly people love to use them because they are very portable\n(can take to practice, use on the field), easy to set up and requires little\ninstruction to demonstrate patterns for athletes to go through. But is this a\nreason for using them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            While\nagility ladders and footwork drills do have their place for building general\ncoordination and foot speed in younger athletes (or as part of a warm-up), for\ndeveloping athletic multi-planar speed and power, they are largely a waste of\ntime and our efforts can be better spent elsewhere. I would even argue for\nsoccer (the sport where foot speed is probably the most important) they are\nlargely a waste of time as through practice for their sport they will build\nthese foot speed skills that are more specific to their sport and learning\nagility ladder patterns is not going to improve this further. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I\nwould even go on to say a lot of drills commonly used by coaches that work on\nfoot speed are also a waste of time. If we are wanting our athletes to get\nfaster, the number one thing that can be done do to improve their speed is to\nhave them run FAST!!! The more practice our athletes get at accelerating,\nchanging direction, and reaching and maintaining maximal velocity the better\noff they will be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Another\ncommon thing I see in coaching is to spend hours on sprint mechanics and track\nand field type drills. While I believe these have their place (in warm-up;\nextra work sessions) we must remember that our field sport athletes are NOT\nsprinters. While we can use these drills to work on some of their MAJOR\ndeficiencies in sprinting form, we must remember that some of the running\nstyles and techniques develop from their sport and help them to perform at\ntheir best.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            While\nthere are techniques we can use when getting our athletes to run fast such as\nresisted sprinting, sprinting with sleds etc. sometimes simplicity is key when\nit comes to getting our athletes faster! We combine our speed training with\nplyometric and resistance training exercises specialized for our athlete\u2019s\nsports and position, keeping in mind the work to rest ratios used in their\nsport. Keep in mind, we can\u2019t do speed training if we are tired! To run fast\nand do proper speed training this involves FULL recovery. So, when coaches are\ndoing endless conditioning drills just remember this also is not training\nSPEED. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            Bottom line, to get our athletes faster we run\u2026 and we run FAST!!! We love to use reactionary drills to mimic the sporting environment, and to add competition to our drills to push our athletes to their fullest potential. Athletes want to compete, and you get the best out of them when they are doing just that, competing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want to get faster with us? Click here<\/a> for more information or to sign up for our FAST program!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information regarding our soccer speed camps please contact us at sst@sstcanada.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most common pieces of equipment sport coaches and strength and conditioning coaches love to use are agility ladders\u2026 but why? Mostly people love to use them because they are very portable (can take to practice, use on the field), easy to set up and requires little instruction to demonstrate patterns for athletes … Continue reading “Why Flashy Footwork, Agility Ladders, and Sprint Mechanic Drills are MOSTLY A Waste of Time”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","wpupg_custom_link":[],"wpupg_custom_link_behaviour":[],"wpupg_custom_link_nofollow":[],"wpupg_custom_image":[],"wpupg_custom_image_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[626,99,206,32],"class_list":["post-5057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-athlete","tag-fast","tag-fitness-program","tag-speed-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5057"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6696,"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions\/6696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sst.training\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}