Lesson video

Hi.

Mr. Wnuk here.

And we're going to do some agility training today.

So when you're ready, let's do this.

If you're unsure about doing any of the activities in this lesson, make sure you have a trusted adult nearby when you start them.

This session should take place in a space indoors such as your living room.

Ensure there is space for you to work safely including overhead.

Use bare feet, not socks.

Make sure the floor is not slippery.

Wear comfortable clothing, put your hair up if needed and remove any jewellery.

Pause the video now, if there's anything you need to get ready.

Hello everybody.

And welcome back to our lesson of agility today.

And we're going to be focusing on improving how we changed directions at speed, which is what agility is.

So before we start, we're going to do a warm-up.

Can you remember the three stages of a warm-up from our previous lessons? What's stage one? Yes, you're right, it's a pulse raiser.

Can you remember what stage two is? Stage two.

You're right, mobility and stretching.

Well done.

Now I'm going to show you what to do today.

You guys can go away and do your warm-up.

So I want you to start off with your pulse raiser and then do your stretching and then join me back for stage three.

So hopefully you guys have done your warm-up and you've joined me back ready to do stage three.

Stage three is called something, I can't remember.

Yes I can.

Can you remember what it's called? You're right, it's the skill practise.

So I've put my trainer on the floor here and I'd like you to do the same.

Grab a trainer.

Also grab your phone or something you can time on, and I want you to set the timer for one minute.

So you might want to pause the video while you quickly go and do that and set your trainer up.

Okay, you hopefully got everything together and we've got our trainer on the floor.

And now what I'd like you to do, is we're going to jump over the trainer like this, still light practise.

Now this is called a speed bounce.

And we're going to do this for a minute and you're going to keep jumping over and over and over for one minute and count how many you do.

You can write this down if you want at the end of it.

Now at school, you may be asked to do this in an event called indoor athletics.

So all you're going to do for a minute, is keep jumping over your trainer side to side.

And see how many you can get to give you another target area of around 90 to over a 100.

That'd be a good performance.

And if you don't make it, that's not a problem.

It's all about, it's just warming up and getting ready to try this and improving.

And you can keep going back to the speed bouncing and measure your scores every week and see if your improve.

Once you finally got at that, our warm-up is done and we'll get onto the actual drills.

See you in a minute.

In this lesson, you're going to need your regular PE clothing.

So shorts and t-shirt are fine.

If you're doing this inside, make sure you've got bare feet 'cause you might slip on your carpet.

If you're doing this outside definitely put some trainers on.

You will have to need some socks, a couple of bundles of socks will be great.

I'd say about four to five.

You can use these as markers for our agility drills and a space around you around one and a half metres space.

The more space, the better is great for us.

We're going to get on with our warm-up.

So what's the assessing going to look like then? Well, we've already done our warm-up but we're going to then start off with some forward-facing ladder drills, where are we going to move forward in ladder exercises.

We're going to do some sideways ladder drills, and then we're going to do some multi-directional ladder drills and then we're going to finish off the lesson with an exit quiz.

So, which of these are reasons why we warm-up? Is it to reduce the levels of arousal, to increase our levels of confidence, to reduce all that was a confidence, or to reduce the blood supply being used at the muscles? Which one do you think it is? Well, if you said it was to increase the levels of confidence, then you are right.

Well done, you're awesome.

So some of the key words that we've used so far in today's lesson, one of them is a ligament.

Now a ligament is a soft tissue that connects our bone to bone.

So it forms the joint and it holds our joint together.

And joints is where movements take place.

So you need to have them nice and sturdy and ligaments keep them sturdy.

So we're going to look at similar skills now and we're going to look at some larger drills.

You might want to pause the video in a few minutes to get some of the equipment which is your balls of socks.

But before we do, we're going to look at some key words, the first being agility.

Now agility is your ability to change direction and speed whilst keeping yourself under control.

So you might be running in rugby, for example down the wing, and then you quickly need to change direction 'cause you're evading a tackle.

Well, that's agility.

In today's session we're going to look at different ladder drills and ladder drills tend to be used in team sports like football, rugby, and netball and American football, quite often in American football.

So, as I said before, we're going to look at forwards facing drills, sideways facing drills and multi directional drill.

So the type of training we're going to be doing is called SAQ training, which is also stands for or is known as Speed, Agility, Quickness training.

And again, like I said it's used in different team sports such as football.

Now these are ladder drills.

I've got a ladder here.

I'm not going to use a ladder 'cause many of you won't have a ladder at home, but it's the same principle.

We're going to create a ladder using cones.

What I have.

And if you don't have cones you can just use socks like this.

So you just put your cones down to represent our ladder.

You can put your socks down if you wanted to.

Now, that's our ladder.

We're going to do agility drills using this.

Now these agility drills based on SAQ which is called speed and agility and quickness, SAQ, speed, agility, quickness drills.

So the first drill we're going to work on is a forwards drill, and it's about fast feet, moving our feet rapidly through the cones or the ladder.

So what I'm going to do is just forwards and backwards in this one.

So I'm going to go two feet in, just two feet in like this.

And the good thing about using cones, you hit them, what's lost, it doesn't matter.

Just make sure you've got appropriate footwear on for a way of your working.

And if you're working outside, trainers and socks but if you're working inside, bare feet.

I'm going to show you side on.

So imagine you've set your ladder up in this way.

Same thing.

Forwards, backwards.

So forwards and backwards, just feet in feet out, feet in feet out, really quick.

It's about using our arms and coordinate your hands and feet together working off our toes rather than flat feet which is really going to work gastrocnemius muscle at the back of your leg.

So pause the video, set your ladder up, have a quick go in and out, in and out, in and out.

So the next drill we're going to do it called jacks and it's straight forward.

We're just going to jack off the open and close.

If they're going outside ladder and inside ladder, and we move forwards as we do it, facing forwards.

So this one, what we're going to do keep down your hands just in if you want or you can bring them up if you want.

I'm going to keep my hands in.

You go in out, in out.

You can say I'm hitting the cones, it doesn't matter.

If you've got socks, it doesn't matter but something that doesn't slip to make sure health and safety is there.

It's a very straight forward.

You can move in and out.

The side on, same thing goes in, out, in, out.

You can choose to bring your arms up or down if you want.

So how'd we go with that? Pause the video practise the jacks.

So the next drill we're going to do is just a linear run.

What we're going to do is run through forwards through the ladder, stepping two feet in each space of the ladder every time.

So you're going to go step, step, step, step, step step.

What's really important is to coordinate your arms and your legs.

So opposite arm and opposite leg are moving at the same time.

You don't want to be doing that, same hands and same foot as you run.

You've got to go opposite coordination.

So coordination is when we move two limbs at the same time.

Okay, excuse me my lace has just come undone.

Health and safety.

So I'm going to go through this ladder.

Two feet in.

Flap my arms just like that.

Hitting every cone, but that doesn't matter.

I'm going to go through a couple of times.

Point, keep your head up, looking forwards.

If I'm looking down, I might fall over, trip over.

I want to be looking forward the direction I'm going into.

So set your ladders up if they've been moved, have a practise of that and then join me back in a second.

Okay, right guys welcome back.

The next drill we're going to do high knees.

Now just quickly before I do, quick true or false question.

Agility involves quick feet.

True or false? What's the answer, is it true, is it false? You're right, It's true.

The definition of agility was the ability to move and change directions at speed while maintain control of your body.

So at speed means you got to move your feet very quickly.

Quick feet.

These exercises are sometimes called quick feet as well as SAQ drills.

So we're going to the next drill high knees.

The same as the linear drill.

You're stepping in between each one.

This time our knees are going to go as high as we can.

It's not about going forward fast, it's about getting our knees moving fast.

So remember coordinate your arms and legs.

So, high knees, take two steps in as you go.

Hit about every cone in that one.

So you can do it stepping in two or you can go right through the middle.

So you can go to each one, so you can go out and go step, step, step, step in each box.

We can go step, step in each box, step step in each box, step step in each box.

Okay, last drill.

Sideways, I'm going to put my foot in each ladder step as we go.

So I'm going to run forward, stepping my left foot in.

So I'm going to step in like this, so I can hop side to side or I can bring my feet to join one another.

So I'm going to step, step, step, step, step, in, step, step, out, step, step, in.

Okay, so here we go fast.

Now it doesn't matter if you're not really good at this one, it takes coordination.

And you're going to try that on the left side and the right side.

Okay, I'm going to show you both 'cause you can do that.

So pause the video, have it go running down the side, stepping your feet, either side.

It doesn't really matter how it works as long as you're working your feet quickly.

So one of the muscles that I've been talking about in the lesson so far is called the gastrocnemius.

And that's the muscle on the back of your lower leg sometimes called your calf.

And what it's used for is to drive out of the ground.

It's used to contract and point, sorry.

When it contracts it points your toe downwards, and that's used to drive you out of the ground, propel you forward or upwards.

We also talked about coordination which is the ability to move two or more limbs at once or body parts at once.

And in this sense we've been moving our arms and our legs at different sides of the body at once.

And it's often used, like, for example in American football, you're running and you've got to move the ball in your hands as well.

Okay, so the next drill we're going to be working on are sideways ladders drills.

We're going to be working on the lateral movement which means going to the side.

So I've just changed my ladder positioning.

You don't have to, I just change it for the sake of the camera.

Make sure you've cleared the area, make sure nothing's coming in the area you're working on and get a slip on.

Make sure you've got appropriate footwear on if you're outside, if you're inside bare feet.

So I'm going to step behind the cones in this one because there's a chance I might regularly stand on the cones in this one.

Starting in the middle, we going to go wide lateral steps.

So my feet are going to go out, out, in, in, out, out, in, in.

And as you go out movement on one arm, opposite arm, opposite arm in in, and we go fast.

So you can start running on the spot.

And when you're ready to go, out, out, in, in, fast feet, head up, balance, opposite hand, opposite leg and keep going.

So quick feet, moving the feet in and out in and out.

Pause the video, have a go and you've got wide lateral steps.

Okay, the next drill we're going to do is a lateral run.

So all we're going to do is run sideways, two feet in each cone, in each space we go backwards and forwards.

So we can either go behind, or you go in front if you wanted to or you can go over.

I'm going to step behind so I don't hit any cones.

And I'm just going.

Step over.

Now I'm going to try and do just two steps.

Step, step, step, step, step, step.

Step step.

So it's laterally moving sideways.

Try to move your feet over the cones.

Bring it forwards onto the cones.

Don't look at the cones.

And notice how I'm hitting them, that's why I'm going behind them.

So don't look at the cones, look forwards and try and step over each cone laterally.

Pause the video have a go at that.

Okay, well done guys, excellent stuff.

Next thing we're going to do is called an in and out movement.

Before I do.

Does agility mean change in direction slowly? Is that true or false? Agility changes direction slowly.

Is it true or false? It's false, you're right.

Agility relies on moving and changing direction quickly under control.

So the next movement is in and out.

We're going to go step forwards, step backwards and forwards.

Whoops, hit the cones.

Let's do that again so it's forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards.

We're changing cones.

So we do that fast, pumping arms as well.

Like in out.

As we go, you'll be tempted to look down, try not to look down, go back the other way.

Okay, it's hard to go in one way then the other way.

So in and out.

Keep those arms up pumping.

Keep your head up.

So practise your in and outs, laterally moving.

Pause the video and have a go.

Now we're going to look at training for agility using SAQ training.

My first question is, is it true or false? SAQ training is known as Speed Agility Quickness training.

Is it true or is it false? Well, if you said true then you're right.

Well done, a big pat on your back.

So what is agility? I want you to pause the video whilst you write the answer down using this sentence starter.

Agility is.

Well, I hope you managed to write, "Agility is the ability to change direction at speed "whilst maintaining control of your body." If you did, very well done.

Okay guys, we're going to do some multi-directional agility drills now.

The first we going to start off is the ickey shuffle.

Now just quickly concentrate hard on what your legs and feet are doing and your hands doing.

So any point you concentrate and really focus on what you're working on.

This is one of our themes of the lesson concentration.

So the ickey shuffle work as follows we go to the side laterally two feet in the middle the side, laterally two feet side, two feet side, two feet side.

If you couldn't do this quickly.

It looks like this.

Oops no it doesn't.

Side, two feet, side, two feet, side, two feet, side, two feet, side.

And we keep going quicker and quicker as you can.

Head up, pump your arms coordinated.

It doesn't matter if you hit the cones just keep going.

It's a lateral movement.

So it would be something like a rugby player might work onto the fade and defenders are running down the line.

Now just a quick question.

What are different ways to improve your agility? Is it concentrate on your coordination? Is it forget about coordination completely? Is it goes fast as you can? Or is it to go slow as you can? Which one of those options is that? Okay, your right.

It is to concentrate on your coordination.

Yes, you do need to go fast.

The definition of agility is to change direction at speed.

You won't be able to do that unless your arms and legs are coordinated, moving your limbs at the same time, different parts, different ways.

So we've done the ickey shuffle.

Pause the video, have a practise of that.

Okay, we're going to now work on our multi-directional movements.

We going to do a few jumping drills.

So the first one, I'm going straight forward towards the camera and I'm going to jump side to side.

So I'm just going to go two feet, middle, back, two feet, middle, back, middle, back, middle, back.

So just jumping side to side.

Similar to the jack drill we did.

So watch again.

If you go three jumps, it doesn't matter really how we do it.

We just need to be jumping in different squares.

You can play around and make up any combinations.

Pause the video, have a go at your jumps.

Okay, the next drill we're going to do is ski runs.

So in between each jump, we're going to change our feet bound.

So ski run is this we jump our feet backwards and forwards, but we're going to do that while we're moving.

We're going to move up and down the ladder.

So I'm going to face sideways.

So I'm ski jumping, ski running, changing my feet.

Try not to look down, work back up the ladder, pump your arms, doing that as you move up and down the ladder sideways.

Pause the video, have a go at some ski runs.

Okay, last drill.

We're going to do surfer movements.

I'm going to show you face on.

So the surfer like the ski run, but we're going to turn our whole body in a surfing position.

When we do it across this so if I was doing it statically here in the first box.

Change, change.

And we're going to go up and down.

So you can say in the same ones.

It's about turning feet quickly.

Sometimes I miss the cones, it doesn't matter.

It's about quick feet.

And you can go up and down nice and quickly.

Surfers.

Remember to concentrate hard on what we're doing.

Pause the video and join me back in for the theory.

So this is an example of a session plan that I've drawn out already for agility.

And as you can see in activity one, I've got the ladder drawn out there.

And I've just drawn in dots and the movement of my feet so this might be my first activity where I go forwards and across and then back and forwards, across then back.

Or activity two, when I go two feet in if we're moving forwards and then past the top of ladder and then come back down, move sideways and down.

And activity three where I've gone side to side, side to side.

So when you're planning ladder drills it really helps to draw these out and then just plan which movement pattern you're going to follow.

I'd like you to pause the video now and complete this task where you're going to design an SAQ training plan.

Then I would like you to complete it.

I want you to aim to improve your agility using the SAQ.

And so how do we get started? Try thinking your first exercise could be high knee runs straight down the ladder.

Okay, it's time to do our cool-down.

Well, I'm not going to show you how to do a cool-down today because you've done a plenty of cool-downs now and you should know what to do.

I'll give you some tips and then.

So why is it important to complete a cool-down? Well, it firstly reduces muscle soreness.

When you do exercise, the muscles are stretched and strained and it causes microscopic tears in your muscles which ultimately build back up and that's when these muscles get bigger.

But the process between that repair makes them sore.

And when you cool-down, it helps prevent that soreness.

It can gradually lower your heart rate.

When you stop exercising, if you just stop straight away your heart rate would drop quite quickly.

And because your heart pumps blood around your body you wouldn't be getting as much blood to the parts of your body that still need it for the nutrients and the repair.

And also your brain needs that blood supply as well.

And without it you would feel lightheaded and potentially could faint.

It also helps remove waste products.

One of the main waste products that your body produces when you exercise is carbon dioxide.

It's produced in the muscles and that carbon dioxide goes into the bloodstream and that can increase a chemical called lactic acid which creates a burning sensation in your muscles.

Doing a cool-down can help disperse that lactic acid and also get that carbon dioxide to the lungs to be breathed out.

So if you can remember from our previous lessons what does an effective cool-down look like? Well, we have our pulse lowering exercises and our stretching.

So you could start off with a gentle jog, walking around your living room, for example and then followed by some stretching.

And generally we'll look at some static stretching, this point where we hold the stretches to work on our flexibility and really loosen those muscles up.

So I want you to pause the video and go and complete your cool-down.

So what were some of the key words I just mentioned in your cool-down? Well, lactic acid was one of them.

A waste product that is produced in anaerobic respiration, which can lead to pain and decrease in performance.

Now anaerobic means we're exercising without the use of oxygen.

So we're holding our breath when we're exercising.

And that happens quite a bit.

You probably did it a bit in some of these agility drills.

And when you're doing that, you're slowly building up lactic acid and that creates a burning sensation in your muscles and ultimately stop you from working.

Which of these are not a benefit of a cool-down? Is it, gradually reducing the body temperature, removal of lactic acid, gradually reducing heart rate, or increasing heart rate? So which of those is not a benefit of a cool-down? If you said option four, fantastic work.

You're correct.

Well done.

So what is agility and how can we train it? Well, we've looked at agility today and we discussed the definition of agility, our ability to change our direction at speed while controlling our body.

And we looked at various methods of training focusing really on SAQ training and the ladder drills.

Now there are many, many versions of SAQ training but we just looked at ladder drills.

But the good thing with ladder drills is you can be as creative as you like, and you can create any combination of movement patterns you want to.

So in the future, what I want you to do is go away and keep practising definitely a lot of drills, might be inventive, be creative.

One thing you really need to do is just keep concentrating when you're doing it and focus on that coordination of your arm and leg movements.

Alright, I really hope you enjoyed today's lesson.

I know I did and I'll see you in the next lesson.