So you've been training for a while and you've built a respectable
amount of strength along with really good endurance. There is
one problem. When you put them together something is missing and
worse if you add something that takes a little coordination things
start falling apart. So you go and work on agility, taking the
recommended rest intervals and your coordination is increasing
almost daily. You say to yourself I'm ready for anything now.
Then you put it all together and you find yourself getting winded
and losing coordination rapidly. Darn it, you say how do I avoid
this? Well think about the problem; you have the strength, you
have the endurance, and you have the agility, so the problem must
be that each have been trained separately. This is where agility/endurance
training comes in.
You need to take agility exercises and train them back-to-back
so that you have to use skill/coordination while under a certain
amount of fatigue. Note you don't want to do this if you haven't
done agility training before, because all you'll end up doing
is locking sloppy neural patterns in to your system. You can
set agility/endurance workouts up in countless ways. Pick a few
agility drills set them all up ahead of time and go through them
one right after the other. If you start getting too sloppy stop
for a second or two and breathe then continue. Gradually increase
your pace. Maintain good form, notice I said good not perfect
you don't want to be sloppy but don't obsess over small mistakes.
Correct them the next time. If you put sandbags, kettle bells,
clubs or medicine balls into the mix you are adding the strength
factor. Of course you could use barbells and dumbbells, but the
above are easier to implement into the workout. Some really fun
and convenient things to use are agility ladders, cones and hurdles.
Here is a workout my partners and I have been using lately.
Agility/Endurance 1:
Ladder/Sprint/Ladder - Set up two
short agility ladders with 5 yards in between. Step one foot then
the other in each square as fast as you can. When you come to
the end sprint 5 yards, you'll notice this is hard to do because
as soon as you accelerate you have to decelerate and repeat the
second ladder. You jog back to the start and repeat until you
have done it four times. After the forth run-thru go to:
Hip Lines over Hurdles - Starting
from the side swing your lead leg over and as your foot hits the
ground LET it propel your other leg over use the force of that
foot to propel your lead leg over the next hurdle. You will look
like a Rockette dancer in Vegas. We use five hurdles set at three-foot
heights. Down and back the other direction is counted as one and
this is also done four times. Next repeat both the:
Ladder/Sprint/Ladder and
Hip Line Hurdle
Immediately go to:
Medicine Ball Granny Toss - Take
a medicine ball (we use my 13.2lb ball) and with arms semi-straight
squat down exhaling and explode your hips up shooting the ball
forward as high as you can. Quickly catch it and repeat until
you have done ten reps.
Cone Spin-Turns - Set a cone up then
place one five yards away. Now place one five yards further. So
now you have three cones forming a straight line. Next place a
cone five yards to each side of center cone. Your cones should
look like a big "+". From first cone sprint to center
touch cone then spinning left shoot to the right cone. Touch right
cone spin right and shoot to end cone. Repeat to other side.
Perform 5 each side.
Carioca Sprints - Sprint sideways
crossing in front then behind lead leg when you reach 50 yards
smoothly continue but face opposite direction. You will have carioca
sprinted 100 yards with fifty facing one way and fifty facing
the other. Repeat this until you have done three.
Star Jump - Squat touching tops of
feet explode into the air forming a star or "X" while
in mid-air then land in start position repeating until twenty
reps are done.
Finish off with some Tornado Ball or another core exercise that
takes agility and endurance and you are set.
Now if you don't have the time to do agility training separate
from your other types of training you have some other options.
The first is to do some agility training as a warm up. I prefer
to do this after or in with my mobility drills. I often use balance
training with a Bongo Board (TM.) or other balance type equipment.
Whether you use balance dominant drills or some other coordination
drill is totally up to you. Which ever you perform, take at least
five minutes and work on agility drills that you would like to
master. Agility drills when used as a warm up should not exhaust
you, but should help you master the drills for later when you
choose to add the endurance factor. After you have become good
at some chosen drills you may decide to try out the next way to
incorporate agility training into your routine. Adding an agility
drill into a circuit will help you to train agility while working
on strength, power, speed and flexibility. I recommend placing
the agility drills first in your circuit. This way you can work
the drill fairly fresh without being totally exhausted.
You want agility with endurance not endurance with sloppy coordination.
An example would be to perform a set of zigzag hops (sometimes
known as crooked stick hops) then break into a sprint (50 yards
is a good distance) to a pull-up bar perform a variant of pull-ups
then drop down and perform some version of push-ups. Fast walk
back to the zigzag stick take a deep breath and repeat as desired.
By this time your legs should have recovered enough to repeat
in good form. You will have done agility, leg work, pull work,
and push work. All of this gave your core work as a fringe benefit.
Of course you can replace any of the above exercise examples and
create a plethora of circuits.
Now that is just one of millions of workouts you could perform,
the main thing is to do many so that your body gets used to performing
skill while fatigued. You'll notice that the next time you need
to "synergize" (my word J) you will be able to perform
without feeling like a tin man. So go out there and Synergize
to Energize! Most of all have fun!
James Smith is the founder of the Animal
Ability strength training board.
