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This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness,
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and we're talking about agility training
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using one of my favorite agility tools, the agility ladder. This is one of my
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favorite tools because we get to not only use this with our elite level
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athletes, but also our beginners. We can use this with the general consumer, we
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can use this with somebody just getting involved in fitness, and they tend to
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have a great time with it. Now, when we start talking about performance, we use
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the agility ladder not for breakneck speeds. If I want something that I'm
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going to practice agility and breakneck speeds, I'm going to use something a little
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bit more open, like a cone drill, or a shuttle run, where somebody can take the
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stride length that is most efficient for them. This is all about optimizing
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mechanics, we can think about it as a proprioceptively enriched agility
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drill, and I want to make sure that my athletes are as efficient as possible
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through the various footwork drills that we do. I'm going to have my friend Mike
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come out here and show you kind of the beginning of ladder drills. So maybe step
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here Mike. The first thing I want to make sure Mike is doing on his ladder drills
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is making sure that his arms and legs are moving the way they're supposed to.
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One of the biggest mistakes I see in the latter is people just kind of drop their
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hands to their side and try to get through the ladder as fast as they
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possibly can. We need to make sure we keep that optimal gait mechanic. So Mike what
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I'm going to have you do is you're going to step forward, and come forward
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with the opposite arm. Good, and again. Good.
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Go ahead and go all the way through the ladder like that. You have somebody go
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all the way through the ladder like that a couple times, usually this starts
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to feel pretty natural for them. So I have Mike maybe go through this one or
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two times just thinking, forward leg, forward arm. Now that Mike seems to have
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this mechanic down pat, I'm going to have Mike start concentrating on our first
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performance queue, which is pushing. Great athletes push, they don't pull, they don't
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reach. So now Mike, rather than reaching forward with that arm, that's
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not what I want you to focus on. This leg I want you to think about pushing
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through the floor, and driving that elbow back. Alright, so you can start in that
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same position, but push, good, push, push, push, good. I'll have Mike go through a
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couple times with this mechanic, just working on that queue of each step as a
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push, rather than a reach.
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Now, the next drills I'm going to do with Mike involve how the foot should land.
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So I want to make sure that he stays on his fore foot, or that area
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just behind his toes, and then every step rolls forward so he's getting efficient
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forward motion with every step. None of the kind of stopping. In fact, I can you
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show us what the bad way of doing this where you see people kind of lean
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forward and kind of crushing the foot in the ground. Yeah! You see people where
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they kind of drive there their fore foot into the ground. You want to make
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sure it's a roll mechanic that Mike feels like he could take off, and go
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faster with every step. Let's work on that roll mechanic. Good, good, pushing
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forward, rolling forward with every step.
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Now, one sign we can use for maximum efficiency, is if Mike is
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efficiently eccentrically decelerating force, isometrically stabilizing, and then
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concentrically accelerating his force, there should be almost no noise. Now,
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this floor is pretty loud, it's a hardwood floor and he's got a hard
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rubber sole on his shoes, but I'm going to have Mike try to get as quiet as he
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possibly can, plus all of the other queues we talked about before. Nice, Mike,
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let's try that one more time.
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And for our last queue, Mike has had to look down because he's had to get used to
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where his foot placement should be, where that ladder is. Now I'm going to have Mike work
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on a little bit more upright posture, all the same queues we've been talking about
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before. Good, let's try that one more time Mike.
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So there you have it, that's our first ladder
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drill which is called a one in, putting one foot in each box. You can see that
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there're a lot of little mechanical things that we need to break down, and I
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think Mike did about 10 reps through the ladder, do you feel a little tired there Mike? -I do.
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Okay, so that might equal one set through, and we can work that into our resistance
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training program, we can work that in after a warm up, and maybe do 6 to 10
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times through the ladder, two to three times. Thank you for watching the