Agility is important in sport and daily life to enhance body control, increase foot speed and prevent injury. Agility forces the trainers to quickly move their body. He/She can move forward, sideways and backwards directions. An agility training program focuses on the use of balance, strength, and power in multi-directional planes. Agility courses are created with obstacles which one should overcome or perform correctly.
Successful aging is more than the absence of disease and more than the maintenance of functional capabilities. Here are some ideas to help your maintain agility and mobility as you age. Try to perform one agility drill once or twice each week.
Lateral Agility Drill
Position two cones or props as chairs or books a few feet apart. Quickly step laterally to the outside of one cone and back to the outside of the other, touching down toward the floor, at each end. Try to go as fast you can. Continue for 30 seconds.
Sprint Drill
Place three cones in a straight lines about 50 feet apart. You can also use, telephone poles on a road, or driveways on your streets. Start the exercise by sprinting or walking fast to the first cone, then shuffle backwards to the starting point. Sprint all the way to third cone, then shuffle backwards to the starting point. Take a short break and then repeat this 5 or 10 times.
Rectangle Drill
Place four cones in the shape of a rectangle or square, with each cone about 30 feet from the next. Start at one corner and sprint, to the top of the square. Shuffle across the top of the square. Back- shuffle. Laterally shuffle back to the start. Do this 5 times in one directions. Take a break and go in the reverse direction. You can also use the lines on a tennis court to perform this drill.
An easy way to incorporate agility training into your exercise program is by participating in activities such as squash, tennis, racquetball, basketball, and in dance program such as salsa, or ballroom dancing, or in choreography based fitness classes such as, funk and hip hop. These types of activities will keep you agile and mobile in your later years and above all, they’re fun.
It ‘s important that your realize you do not need to implements all the suggestions today. You might choose to start by just committing to exercising three times per week. Once you have made this a habit, you can mix up the intensity zones by incorporating, one easy, one moderate and one hard workout into each week A few months later you can incorporate a different type of activity. Few months after that you can invest in a heart rate monitor and start seriously monitoring your zones.
The best part of this program is that you can design it, depending on your level of fitness. You are your own personal trainer and at any time you can modify, restructure or adjust, depending on your rate of success enjoyment and adherence.