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Developing Foot Speed and Agility
By Michael Boyle

A couple of threads on the StrengthCoach.com forum got me thinking about the question of foot speed and athletes. I can’t tell you how often I hear a parent or a coach ask, “How can I improve my son’s/daughter’s/ athlete’s foot speed or agility?” It seems everyone always wants the shortcut and the quick fix. The better question might be “Do you think you can improve foot speed?” or maybe even the larger question, “Does foot speed even matter?”

That begs the larger question, “Does foot speed have anything to do with agility?” I know coaches or parents reading this are asking, “Is this guy crazy?” How many times have we heard that speed kills? I think the problem is that coaches and parents equate fast feet with speed and agility. However, fast feet don’t equal speed any more than quick feet equal agile. In some cases, fast feet might actually make an athlete slow–often I see fast feet as a detriment to speed. In fact, some of our quick turnover guys, those who would be described as having fast feet, are very slow off the start.

The problem is fast feet don’t use the ground well to produce force. Fast feet might be good on hot coals, but not on hard ground. Think of the ground as the well from which we draw speed. It is not how fast the feet move, but rather how much force goes into the ground. This is basic action-reaction physics. Force into the ground equals forward motion. This is why the athletes with the best vertical jumps are most often the fastest. It comes down to force production. Often coaches will argue the vertical vs. horizontal argument and say the vertical jump doesn’t correspond to horizontal speed, but years of data from the NFL Combine begs to differ. Force into the ground is force into the ground. In spite of what Brett Contreras may say, vectors don’t seem to matter here. The truth is parents should be asking about vertical jump improvement, not about fast feet. My standard line is “Michael Flatley has fast feet, but he doesn’t really go anywhere. If you move your feet fast and don’t go anywhere, does it matter? It’s the old “tree falling in the woods” thing.

The best solution to slow feet is to get stronger legs. Feet don’t matter. Legs matter. Think about it this way: If you stand at the starting line and take a quick first step but fail to push with the back leg, you don’t go anywhere. The reality is that a quick first step is actually the result of a powerful first push. We should change the buzzwords and start to say “that kid has a great first push.” Lower body strength is the real cure for slow feet and the real key to speed and to agility. The essence of developing quick feet lies in single-leg strength and single-leg stability work… landing skills. If you cannot decelerate, you cannot accelerate, at least not more than once.

One of the things I love is the magic drill idea. This is the theory that developing foot speed and agility is not a process of gaining strength and power, but rather the lack of a specific drill. I tell everyone I know that if I believed there was a magic drill we would do it every day. The reality is it comes down to horsepower and the nervous system, two areas that change slowly over time.

How do we develop speed, quickness and agility? Unfortunately, we need to do it the slow, old-fashioned way. You can play with ladders and bungee cords all you want, but that is like putting mag wheels on an Escort. The key is to increase the horsepower, the brakes and the accelerator. I think the answer for me is always the same. I wrote an article last year called “Is ACL Prevention Just Good Training?” In much the same way, development of speed, agility and quickness simply comes down to good training. We need to work on lower body strength and lower body power and we need to do it on one leg.
I love ladder drills. They provide excellent multi-planar dynamic warm-up. They develop brain-to-muscle connection and are excellent for eccentric strength and stability. We do less than five minutes of ladder drills, one or two times a week. I don’t believe for a minute that the ladder is a magic tool that will make anyone faster or more agile, however I do believe it is a piece of the puzzle from the neural perspective. People waste more than five minutes on biceps curls, but we have long debates about ladder drills.

These are also a great tool to show to coaches who want “foot speed.” Sometime it’s easier to “yes” them than to argue with them. Give a guy with “bad feet” a jump rope and you get a guy with bad feet and patella tendonitis.

PSS- I have never used the term “speed ladder.” We always call it an agility ladder if we call it more than the ladder.

I also do sprints as my cardio, rather then doing a long cardio session.  I find this gets my heart rate up and keeps it high for my whole workout.  Because I’m trying to burn fat I do cardio first but if you want to build muscle you should do it after weights (if you’re not to tired).

Here’s my workout:

Day 1:
Weighted squats
Sumo squat
Walking lunges
Leg extensions
Step ups
Leg press
Toe press
Seated calf raises

Day 2: Chest & Tris
Bench Press
Incline press
Incline DB flys
Tri push downs
Tri cable extensions
Bench Dips with weight (med ball)

Day 3: Hams, Butt & Shoulders (My fav day!)
Cable kickbacks
Bridge with weight (med ball)
Stiff leg dead lifts
leg curls
weighted hip extensions
Alt side lat raises
Alt front lat raises
DB shoulder press
Reverse cable flys

Day 4: Back & Bi
lat pull down
seated rows
single arm row
dumbbell alternating curls
incline hammer curls
cable curls

Jaime Ward at the 2010 Winter Sugoi shoot running on a very sprained foot

My physio once said to me “It isn’t the best athletes that make it to all these big competitions, like the Olympics. It’s the athlete’s who aren’t injured.” Well man, am I ever hearing that! I’ve always thought of myself as a walking accident, but for some reason I can pull it off in the ring and manage not to get hurt or do something stupid that will lead to injury. Unfortunately out of the ring is a different story.

You see the problem with boxing is that most of the time you’re on your tows, moving left to right and doing lots of skipping. There are also alot of plyometrics and calisthenics involved in boxing cross-training, not to mention the fact that I run almost every day anywhere from 7 -18km! So foot problems are almost unavoidable. In the last six years I have had two knee surgeries and steadily suffered stress fractures, overly tight calf muscles and just recently suffered a very bad stint of shin splints (which is the worse, I’d rather have knee surgery a third time). This summer has been particular bad for injury as I had these shin splints for about six week – which inconveniently showed right at the seasons start. So what to do? Well everyone had their suggestion, rest, ice, new shoes… Ya, ya, heard all that, NOT WORKING! So finally I sucked it up and went to see my physio. We did a series of treatment that involved ultrasound, laser, message, acupuncture, massage and finally taping (which was the saving grace!) He had me up and running within a week! Thank God, I though…

Then, last week I was working as a fitness model for Sugoi. It was the first day of the shoot I was suppose to be riding a mountain bike down a trail on Seymore Mountain. Now, before I decided to box I did actually downhill mountain bike but I always road on flats. The Canondale bikes we were using had clip-less pedals on them (your feet clip to the pedal). So, smart me, when I had finished my decent I went to put my foot down, forgetting that I was clipped in and over I went spraining my ankle. All I could think was “my coach is gonna kill me!” then “Good God! I still have 6 more days left in this shoot and I have to be able to run… at a speed of 15 – 20km/hr behind a car!!! So I hit my physio again. “I have to be able to run in two day” I said.

On a side note, last year I sprined my other ankle 6 weeks before Canadian Nationals. It was a high ankle 2nd degree sprain – really bad. My physio had me running by the weeks end of treatment. I saw him every day for three weeks. I ended up going to Nationals and placed 4th.

Again, it all comes back to taping. Due to the tapping techniques I was taught I was able to reduce the swelling and give my ankle the support in order to compete. I was also able to run behind that car on the 2nd day of that photo shoot. I did a 13km run on Sunday and yesterday sparred 6 rounds and also did my plyo’s, cals and a 7km run.

I’m not trying to toot my own horn. I mean all this injury stuff can wear a girl down. In fact I’ve gotten so depressed I’ve thought about tossing in the towel… But my love for the sport and my sick determination somehow helps me fight through the pain.

Most people find it much easier to be accountable to someone else rather then themselves. This is because when you’re accountable to yourself you can justify almost anything. “Oh, it’s okay if I have a WHOLE box of cookies because today is my cheat day and really I did an extra 3km on my run and I’m going to be sparring tomorrow so it’ll make up for it”. And then what do you go and do? Eat a BOX OF COOKIES!! (yes I’ve done this… and I had to go run on my day off and I felt really guilty). When you’re accountable to someone else you don’t have as much room to screw up of justify things because you have to answer to them – and I guarantee they will NOT buy your cookie story.

So I bit the bullet and hired a personal trainer. Not just a personal trainer, but a champion body builder and fitness competitor (Dawn Allison). She was recomended by a friend of mine who competes in figure competitions and I figured she was the best when it came to knowing how it felt having to make weight and be in top shape, etc. And she really is the best. When I first met Dawn, all I could think was “Dear god! This women could eat me alive!” But after meeting her, flipping through her portfolio and seeing all her amazing success stories I decided that she was indeed the one for me.

My first meeting with her consisted of a full body composition analysis, a diet analysis and a workout analysis. We discussed my goals, my diet (which needed help – I was totally surprised), what I wanted my end result to look like (fitness model Jackie Warner), my likes and my dislikes in my workout routine (I HATE weights), and she fed it to me straight: “you may not like lifting weights, Jaime, but if you want to look like this and be this weight you’re gonna have to learn to LOVE it.” – Thank you Dawn.

My second session we spent an hour and a half going over my own personal diet plan Dawn created for me. She also taught me alot about nutrition! I always thought I knew alot, I mean I have people coming to me all the time asking about diet, but man did she ever fill me in! So now I’m eating more food then I ever thought I could and am enjoying foods that I totally thought I couldn’t (hello peanut butter)!

My third session we’ll be going over my training (weights), and I’m seriously excited to see what she comes up with for me!

The best thing about having someone to be accountable to is that I can contact her whenever I need to to ask questions, get support or have her wag her finger at me (unlike some people in my life “have a beer, Jaime. Have a Big-Mac, Jaime.”). And if I had drive to make myself proud now I have twice the drive to make her proud too.