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.
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.
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