0:02 This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, and we're talking about agility training 0:07 using one of my favorite agility tools, the agility ladder. This is one of my 0:12 favorite tools because we get to not only use this with our elite level 0:15 athletes, but also our beginners. We can use this with the general consumer, we 0:20 can use this with somebody just getting involved in fitness, and they tend to 0:23 have a great time with it. Now, when we start talking about performance, we use 0:27 the agility ladder not for breakneck speeds. If I want something that I'm 0:31 going to practice agility and breakneck speeds, I'm going to use something a little 0:34 bit more open, like a cone drill, or a shuttle run, where somebody can take the 0:38 stride length that is most efficient for them. This is all about optimizing 0:42 mechanics, we can think about it as a proprioceptively enriched agility 0:46 drill, and I want to make sure that my athletes are as efficient as possible 0:50 through the various footwork drills that we do. I'm going to have my friend Mike 0:55 come out here and show you kind of the beginning of ladder drills. So maybe step 1:02 here Mike. The first thing I want to make sure Mike is doing on his ladder drills 1:06 is making sure that his arms and legs are moving the way they're supposed to. 1:10 One of the biggest mistakes I see in the latter is people just kind of drop their 1:13 hands to their side and try to get through the ladder as fast as they 1:16 possibly can. We need to make sure we keep that optimal gait mechanic. So Mike what 1:20 I'm going to have you do is you're going to step forward, and come forward 1:24 with the opposite arm. Good, and again. Good. 1:29 Go ahead and go all the way through the ladder like that. You have somebody go 1:32 all the way through the ladder like that a couple times, usually this starts 1:35 to feel pretty natural for them. So I have Mike maybe go through this one or 1:39 two times just thinking, forward leg, forward arm. Now that Mike seems to have 1:49 this mechanic down pat, I'm going to have Mike start concentrating on our first 1:54 performance queue, which is pushing. Great athletes push, they don't pull, they don't 2:00 reach. So now Mike, rather than reaching forward with that arm, that's 2:03 not what I want you to focus on. This leg I want you to think about pushing 2:07 through the floor, and driving that elbow back. Alright, so you can start in that 2:12 same position, but push, good, push, push, push, good. I'll have Mike go through a 2:19 couple times with this mechanic, just working on that queue of each step as a 2:24 push, rather than a reach. 2:31 Now, the next drills I'm going to do with Mike involve how the foot should land. 2:36 So I want to make sure that he stays on his fore foot, or that area 2:40 just behind his toes, and then every step rolls forward so he's getting efficient 2:46 forward motion with every step. None of the kind of stopping. In fact, I can you 2:52 show us what the bad way of doing this where you see people kind of lean 2:56 forward and kind of crushing the foot in the ground. Yeah! You see people where 3:00 they kind of drive there their fore foot into the ground. You want to make 3:04 sure it's a roll mechanic that Mike feels like he could take off, and go 3:08 faster with every step. Let's work on that roll mechanic. Good, good, pushing 3:15 forward, rolling forward with every step. 3:21 Now, one sign we can use for maximum efficiency, is if Mike is 3:30 efficiently eccentrically decelerating force, isometrically stabilizing, and then 3:36 concentrically accelerating his force, there should be almost no noise. Now, 3:41 this floor is pretty loud, it's a hardwood floor and he's got a hard 3:45 rubber sole on his shoes, but I'm going to have Mike try to get as quiet as he 3:48 possibly can, plus all of the other queues we talked about before. Nice, Mike, 3:54 let's try that one more time. 4:03 And for our last queue, Mike has had to look down because he's had to get used to 4:09 where his foot placement should be, where that ladder is. Now I'm going to have Mike work 4:13 on a little bit more upright posture, all the same queues we've been talking about 4:17 before. Good, let's try that one more time Mike. 4:25 So there you have it, that's our first ladder 4:33 drill which is called a one in, putting one foot in each box. You can see that 4:38 there're a lot of little mechanical things that we need to break down, and I 4:42 think Mike did about 10 reps through the ladder, do you feel a little tired there Mike? -I do. 4:45 Okay, so that might equal one set through, and we can work that into our resistance 4:50 training program, we can work that in after a warm up, and maybe do 6 to 10 4:55 times through the ladder, two to three times. Thank you for watching the 4:58 video!
