Agility is one of those key fitness skills that is often overlooked. So often we will trundle through our workouts or do repetitive activities that require no change in direction - but how often is the exercise in our daily lives really like that?
Now of course it is easy to see why agility might be important for a footballer or a dancer - it can help them escape an opponent or perform an impossible jump - but it is easy to forget that agility is just as important in everyday life. So often in life things won't happen slowly and they won't happen as we expect them to. When something falls off a ladder above your head, or a car comes screeching around a corner unexpectedly, it is really important that we can move fast but also in a balanced and coordinated way. If we cannot, then we are likely to either get hit by the object or get injured trying to get out of the way.
Agility is really the one skill that enables you to put all of the eight other general fitness skills together into one swift efficient movement.
So how do you train to be more agile?
Well, you train your agility by doing exercise that involves speed, strength, coordination and balance all at the same time. A great example is one of those agility ladders that we see footballers running, hopping and stepping through. They require short, fast movements of the feet in a balanced and coordinated way. Similarly, an agility ball is a great exercise. It is basically a misshaped ball that bounces off of a wall in an unpredictable manner (a cricketer's slips cradle is another great example of this). This has the added advantage of adding a degree of unpredictability which adds to the amount of agility required.
So remember, agility is not just for elite athletes. We can all benefit from the ability to move in a fast, coordinated and balanced way when the need arises.
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