An Agility Training Continuum for Team Sports: From Cones and Ladders to Small-Sided Games

• Published in: Strength and conditioning journal 2022-02, Vol.44 (1), p.46-56
• Main Authors: Mota, Tomás, Afonso, José, Sá, Mário, Clemente, Filipe M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cognition & reasoning; Team sports
• ISSN: 1524-1602; 1533-4295
• DOI: 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000653

Agility is a key and complex concept within team sports performance. Because of its multidimensional nature, agility benefits from perceptual and cognitive skills as well as physical capacity (e.g., ability to exert acceleration, deceleration, and changes of direction). Agility should be integrated in different and complementary ways in team sports training. From more analytical to more ecological tasks, there is a need to comprehend the respective adaptations and identify how to integrate such a spectrum and, eventually, combine them in the training process and manage it accordingly to the player's needs. Based on this premise, the purpose of this article is to present alternative methods and recommendations that may help to develop agility in field-based invasion sports. The main concepts pertaining to agility and associated capacities will be explored. Afterward, a proposal for a more analytical approach based on the use of cones and ladders will be introduced, as well as approaches based on small-sided games. Finally, an integration of agility training and a combination of approaches will be presented using soccer as an example.