The best agility equipment for sports

“Where can I buy the best agility kit?”

I was coaching an agility workshop at the weekend which included some tips on how best to use equipment.

The idea of using equipment is to enhance or assist movements which translate to your sport.

Equipment use should do one of 2 things:
1- Help prevent injury (hard to be agile if you are injured).
2- Help you beat the opposition when playing.

Here are the top 5 pieces I use:

1. Skipping rope: cheap, portable, great for teaching hand eye co-ordination and a myriad of footwork patterns. Low level pliometric activity. Unable to use effectively on grass.
2. Chalk: great for marking out dots and lines on tarmac courts. Kids have been using this for years for hopscotch. I use it for the Gambetta Dot Drill.
3. Bullet belt: (pictured above). Adds some resistance which encourages players to project their hips correctly. Allows adjustable resistance, which can be released or continual. Takes some coaching on how to use, unsuitable for large groups unless you have big budget.
4. Heiden board: very good conditioning tool for groin area and therefore lateral agility work (see video below). Only allows one athlete at a time, difficult to transport.
5. Greaves’ boxes: Good for hip projection and adds target for players to hit. Only one player at a time, quite bulky.

Chalk is readily available, I had the Greaves Boxes and Heiden Board made, the bullet belts I got from Lane Gainer

Equipment use should not:
1- Be an object in itself.
2- Be a replacement for coaching proper techniques- landing patterns, side steps, jumps.
3- Be an anaerobic endurance session with high work rate and low recovery times.

One coach who was watching from the sidelines asked me where he could get the equipment from. The equipment is an aid to training – rather than the purpose of training.

It may look sexy, it may be an easy thing to set up, but if it fails to help your players get better at their sport- you are missing the point.

Getting the players into good movement patterns, applying that into drills with balls, then playing in unstructured environments to allow natural responses is effective.

Some players are brilliant at structured drills, but useless at playing in unstructured games when the opposition plays to their own plan! I have yet to see a ladder on a netball court during a match.

Still, it keeps the equipment manufacturers in business, and allows coaches to bluff the players into thinking they are improving.

Further reading:

• 4 steps to get more agile for sport 
• Top 8 tips on how to move like an athlete
• How to choose a skipping rope