If you want to get faster & more powerful, chopping your feet around hoops & cones is the last thing you want to be doing.
“The best speed & agility training takes place while athletes are playing sports.
This doesn’t mean we should train it outside of sport.
But no, this doesn’t mean dancing around cones.
It means strength training (force acquisition) & sprint training (force expression).”
-Ray Zingler on X
Speed & Agility.
It’s what everybody wants but have no idea what it means, or how to get it.
It’s actually very simple to acquire, it’s just not easy.
And because people want easy with a side of confirmation bias, our “speed & agility” training has been relegated to cones, hoops, and ladders, sprinkled on the ground by charlatans as they yell at kids to go faster.
The problem is, they can’t go faster.
They don’t have the capacity to.
Sure, they can chop their feet a bit more quickly, but do choppy feet go anywhere fast? Of course not.
There is no force being applied into the ground from the hip which is what allows athletes to go anywhere fast.
But what does your kids speed & agility trainer care? It’s not about actually getting Timmy any better..
It’s about getting him tired and sweaty so that you can justify the highway robbery of directionless, non-compounding activity you signed him up for.
The best speed & agility training, excuse me, SPORT SPECIFIC speed & agility takes place in their sports.
Imagine that.
Playing sports is the most sport specific speed & agility training of all time.
Think about changing directions, mirroring offenders in hoops, or DB’s having to react to WR’s moves, and so on and so fourth.
You can’t train that in a closed drill speed & agility setting. (Drills where athletes know the outcome before they start.)
If you’re going to train speed & agility outside of sport (you should) it most definitely shouldn’t be random choppy feet drills.
It should first be strength training.
“What, huh? We want speed & agility.”
Of course you do, but you can’t just have it.
You must earn it.
You earn it by recruiting more motor units. You earn it by acquiring more force to display (strength training).
This is why speed development, in the absence of strength training is impossible for young kids.
From there, you must sprint.
Straight up sprint.
You must apply your newly force into the ground. And you have to get better at it expressing it through practice.
If you want speed & agility, it’s strength & sprint training you’re looking for.
Not the palatable bullshit you see today.
