{"id":784,"date":"2010-10-27T05:42:14","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T05:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/?p=784"},"modified":"2019-01-19T23:26:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-19T23:26:43","slug":"developing-foot-speed-and-agility-by-michael-boyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/developing-foot-speed-and-agility-by-michael-boyle\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing Foot Speed and Agility by Michael Boyle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I have a guest article by\u00a0Michael Boyle<\/a>\u00a0regarding foot speed and agility.\u00a0 Mike raises a lot of great points about improving foot speed, and especially emphasizes the importance of getting stronger, which is an often overlooked concept in younger athletes as parents are commonly looking to put their kids into \u201cspeed camps\u201d which don\u2019t emphasize basic lifting and strength training exercises.<\/p>\n

Hope you enjoy the article!<\/p>\n

\u2014-<\/p>\n

Developing Foot Speed and Agility
\n<\/strong>Michael Boyle<\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple of threads on the\u00a0StrengthCoach.com forum<\/a>\u00a0got me thinking about the question of foot speed and athletes. I can\u2019t tell you how often I hear a parent or a coach ask, \u201cHow can I improve my son\u2019s\/daughter\u2019s\/athlete\u2019s foot speed or agility?\u201d It seems everyone always wants the shortcut and the quick fix. The better question might be \u201cDo you think you can improve foot speed?\u201d or maybe even the larger question, \u201cDoes foot speed even matter?\u201d
\nThat begs the larger question, \u201cDoes foot speed have anything to do with agility?\u201d I know coaches or parents reading this are asking, \u201cIs this guy crazy?\u201d\u00a0 How many times have we heard that speed kills? I think the problem is that coaches and parents equate fast feet with fast and quick feet with agile.\u00a0 However, fast feet don\u2019t equal fast any more than quick feet equal agile. In some cases, fast feet might actually make an athlete slow\u2013often I see fast feet as a detriment to speed. In fact, some of our quick turnover guys, those who would be described as having fast feet, are very slow off the start.<\/p>\n

The problem is fast feet don\u2019t use the ground well to produce force. Fast feet might be good on hot coals, but not on hard ground. Think of the ground as the well from which we draw speed. It is not how fast the feet move, but rather how much force goes into the ground. This is basic action-reaction physics. Force into the ground equals forward motion. This is why the athletes with the best vertical jumps are most often the fastest. It comes down to force production.
\nOften coaches will argue the vertical vs. horizontal argument and say the vertical jump doesn\u2019t correspond to horizontal speed, but years of data from the NFL Combine begs to differ. Force into the ground is force into the ground. In spite of what Brett Contreras may say, vectors don\u2019t seem to matter here. The truth is parents should be asking about vertical jump improvement, not about fast feet. My standard line is \u201cMichael Flatley has fast feet, but he doesn\u2019t really go
\nanywhere. If you move your feet fast and don\u2019t go anywhere, does it matter? It\u2019s the old \u201ctree falling in the woods\u201d thing.<\/p>\n

The best solution to slow feet is to get stronger legs. Feet don\u2019t matter. Legs matter. Think about it this way: If you stand at the starting line and take a quick first step but fail to push with the back leg, you don\u2019t go anywhere. The reality is that a quick first step is actually the result of a powerful first push. We should change the buzzwords and start to say \u201cthat kid has a great first push.\u201d Lower body strength is the real cure for slow feet and the real key to speed and to agility. The essence of developing quick feet lies in single-leg strength and single-leg stability work\u2026 landing skills. If you cannot decelerate, you cannot accelerate, at least not more than once.<\/p>\n

One of the things I love is the magic drill idea. This is the theory that developing foot speed and agility is not a process of gaining strength and power, but rather the lack of a specific drill. I tell everyone I know that if I believed there was a magic drill we would do it every day. The reality is it comes down to horsepower and the nervous system, two areas that change slowly over time.<\/p>\n

How do we develop speed, quickness and agility? Unfortunately, we need to do it the slow, old-fashioned way. You can play with ladders and bungee cords all you want, but that is like putting mag wheels on an Escort. The key is to increase the horsepower, the brakes and the accelerator. I think the answer for me is always the same. I wrote an article last year called \u201cIS ACL Prevention Just Good Training?\u201d In much the same way, development of speed, agility and quickness simply comes down to good training. We need to work on lower body strength and lower body power and we need to do it on one leg.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n

I love ladder drills. They provide excellent multi-planar dynamic warm-up. They develop brain-to-muscle connection and are excellent for eccentric strength and stability. We do less than five minutes of ladder drills, one or two times a week. I don\u2019t believe for a minute that the ladder is a magic tool that will make anyone faster or more agile, however I do believe it is a piece of the puzzle from the neural perspective. People waste more than five minutes on biceps curls, but we have long debates about ladder drills.<\/p>\n

These are also a great tool to show to coaches who want \u201cfoot speed.\u201d Sometime it\u2019s easier to \u201cyes\u201d them than to argue with them. Give a guy with \u201cbad feet\u201d a jump rope and you get a guy with bad feet and patella tendonitis.<\/p>\n

PSS- I have never used the term \u201cspeed ladder.\u201d We always call it an agility ladder if we call it more than the ladder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I have a guest article by\u00a0Michael Boyle\u00a0regarding foot speed and agility.\u00a0 Mike raises a lot of great points about improving foot speed, and especially emphasizes the importance of getting stronger, which is an often overlooked concept in younger athletes as parents are commonly looking to put their kids into \u201cspeed camps\u201d which don\u2019t emphasize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strength-and-conditioning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}