Tag Archive for: Change of Direction

Martin Bingisser

GAINcast Episode 257: Rethinking agility (with Bill Knowles)

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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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James de Lacey

4 sports science research trends to keep an eye on

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I’m a science nerd. It was my best subject through school and this thirst for science and love for sport is what took me down the road of physical preparation as a career. Alongside coaching, I like to write. I synthesize the latest research for coaches in the trenches on my websites Sweet Science of Fighting and Lift Big Eat Big, as well as contribute research updates to Science for Sport. Being exposed to the latest research each month I get to see where the trends are heading and what might be emerging in the future. As 2021 comes to a close, below are a few of my thoughts on current trends in sports science research.

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Martin Bingisser

May 2020 in review: changing direction

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Few sports are played in one direction. How fast you can change direction and move in multiple directions is often the different maker. In May our site theme was changing direction and agility. We put together 1 new video, 2 podcasts, and 9 articles from 12 contributors exploring how athletes change direction, how to train for that, and more.

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Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 224: Anatomy of Agility (with Frans Bosch)

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Frans Bosch has made coaches rethink how how we approach strength and conditioning. Rather than thinking just about muscles and strength, strength and conditioning can be use to enhance motor learning and coordination. His new book on agility comes out in June and we had the chance to sit down with him to discuss the topic. We cover the role of perception in agility, intrinsic learning through sport, groups of attractors, strategies to strengthen cocontractions, and the role of classical strength training.
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Nick Lumley

What coaches can learn from Frans Bosch’s Anatomy of Agility

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Frans Bosch’s upcoming book Anatomy of Agility: Movement Analysis in Sport is the most comprehensive text I have seen on human movement and the underlying biological systems that regulate it. It expands on Bosch’s previous book Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrative Approach and goes into a huge amount of detail to explain how complex dynamical systems theory applies to the regulation of change of direction in field sports. Below I hope to explain the key takeaways in the book, where I struggled, and how it will impact my own approach as a strength and conditioning coach. Read more

Domhnaill Fox

Preparing the body to change direction

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The purpose of this article is to give any readers an insight into how I think about and prepare people for change of direction tasks. These change of direction tasks are simply that, not agility tasks. We want athletes to be able to change direction powerfully, quickly and efficiently in competition. In preparation, I like to look at these qualities in reverse: efficiency, speed and power. Change of direction all starts with promoting efficiency by understanding the attractors of the movement. Read more

Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 223: Water the bamboo (with Travis Knight)

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Underdogs come and go, but Gonzaga University’s basketball team keeps coming back. The small school team is the perennial overachiever and strength coach Travis Knight has been there the whole time. He joins this week’s podcast to discuss the unique team culture and process that helps them keep up with their bigger budget competitors, as well as his approach to training agility for one of the most demanding sports out there.

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Warren Young

The importance of sport-specific stimulus in training agility

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When we talk about agility in sports, you cannot separate the concept from perception. What makes the quality of agility unique is that it is a movement in response to a stimulus. How we set up training to deliver that stimulus has an impact on whether our agility training will actually transfer to improve agility performance in games. In the article below I look in more detail at the role of the stimulus in both training and competition. Read more

James de Lacey

Training for the demands of curved sprinting

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While great attention has been placed on how to train linear sprinting, in team sports running in a straight line is only a small part of the game. As players have to evade the opposition, sprinting is more often curvilinear and very rarely linear. Does this mean as coaches we should spend less time sprinting linearly and more time sprinting in a “sport-specific” curvilinear manner? Read more