GAINcast Episode 257: Rethinking agility (with Bill Knowles)
The debate about the transfer of change of direction and agility training is a bit like the debate about general and specific training. Specificity is a critical factor, but not all general training is the same. And specific training can also be counterproductive if you don’t understand what you’re training for. On this weeks GAINcast, Bill Knowles joins us to discuss how he sees the spectrum of agility training and how a purposeful approach can improve performance all along the spectrum.
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Notes and quotes
Knowles the founder of Knowles Athletic, where is a world leader in reconditioning, working with top professional athletes from around the world. He honed his skills working as an athletic trainer and athletic development coach in skiing for over 20 years, as well as extensive work with the Philadelphia Union Academy in soccer.

- 0:00 – Introduction.
- 3:00 – Knowles perspectives on game speed and agility: “Ladders or cones force you into a confined space. I need athletes to more cognitively see the game and see the space, not the cones.”
- 8:00 – Repetition: “How many times do you cut right and left 8 times in a row in any sport? If you do a few cuts and go then athletes are more interested in going game speed. Then it is game relevant.”
- 9:30 – Thoughts on warmups and progressions.
- 11:45 – Deceleration training: “A lot of deceleration training is artificial braking. It is just stopping, sitting, and dropping deep. Where can you go from there? Deceleration has to be contextual. What’s the next play?”
- 19:00 – Bodyweight training and coordination: “If you don’t know how to coordinate an action, external load won’t teach you, it’ll just force the movement. It’s not asking you what you can do, it’s telling you what you have to do.”
- 24:45 – Agility with and without the ball.
- 27:45 – General agility training and transfer: “Just like the strongest aren’t the best, those best at general change of direction skills aren’t the best in the game. But just like best are still all strong, and the best can all master those basics of COD.” “General agility training needs to be done with purpose. What shapes do you need to be able to make? Are your drills even training those shapes?”
- 30:00 – Teaching and instructing.
- 32:45 – Foot and ankle stiffness.
- 34:15 – A youth rehab case study.
To hear more about these topics you can listen to the full episode above. If you like what you hear on the GAINcast, don’t forget to give us a review and subscribe on iTunes.
Further reading
The following links were referenced in the podcast or provide some additional reading material on the topic:
- The GAINcast is sponsored by GAIN. Prior GAIN attendees can renew their membership to get continued access to the GAIN library and this year’s talks. If you haven’t been to GAIN before, sign up for the GAIN Master Class series for access to 24 in-depth lectures on a variety of athletic development topics.
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- You can also learn more about Knowles Athletic on their website, Twitter (@BillKnowles_KA) and on their Instagram (@knowlesathletic).
- Bill Knowles was a guest on Episode 124, as well as GAINcast 49. You can get a look at him coaching in action in GAIN Video 16: Philadelphia Union Warmup (with Bill Knowles).
- For more resources on agility and change of direction training, check out our theme overview here. This includes a great article about the importance of sport-specific stimulus in training agility by Warren Young, an interview with Frans Bosch, our agility fundamentals video lesson, and much more.
- We referenced the research of Damian Harper in regards to deceleration. You can find his articles and more on ResearchGate.