Archive for May 10th, 2009
Monday
Alexander Artemev
Agility or nimbleness refers to the ability to move one’s body through space. More specifically, agility is the ability to transition from one movement or direction to another more fluidly and rapidly. Agility is improved through practice.
By practicing movement patterns that require the changing of direction of the body or limbs in direction and through space we become more agile. The classic example of this is gymnastics. Most gymnastics moves require the movement of the body quickly and rapidly from one direction to another. I can’t think of one form of gymnastics apparatus that doesn’t require this agility in its use. I can think of several though that we are exposed to in CrossFit.
One of the major components of CrossFit is gymnastics. The rings are a great way to develop agility exercises such as skin the cat, pass throughs on low rings and even muscle ups require quick movement of the body and rapid fluid changes of direction of the body. Paralettes are also another example and there as many or even more agility exercises we can use these for. The importance once again though is constant practice.
While agility requires strength, balance, speed and power, it is more than the sum of these things. It is the synergy of these qualities that results in true agility. An athlete can have all of these qualities but with practice they may stay segregated and the athlete may never reach the full potential of their agility. It may be practising things as simple as agility runs like zigzags or more complex running patterns were you are required to change your direction of travel while on the move to more complex exercises such a pommel horse routine. Good luck with that! So remember while we can train and build our strength, balance and power this doesn’t necessarily make us agile. It may all begin with exercises as simple as the push up moving our bodies through space and changing direction and we can build from there. Train agility specifically. If you’d like some more ideas about agility training for yourself or for a specific sport feel free to ask.
