Agility Ladder Training

I think I promised this post back in October. Well, I'm on Spring Break right now, so I've got time to catch up on things.

 Principles of Agility Ladder Training

Agility ladder drills serve three basic purposes:

• Conditioning
• Elastic response
• Agility & Quickness

From a conditioning standpoint the ladder serves the same basic role as a jump rope, it gets you moving in a basic bouncy activity. As such there's a good reason to keep your ladder drills going for a few minutes. Ladder drills are easier to learn than jump rope for many folks, plus they are more interesting. The basic pattern of a group ladder drill is alternating between waiting your turn and moving quickly through the ladder, which is the kind of energy usage we want to be training.

The conditioning aspect can also serve as a nice warm-up. 

Any kind of bouncy exercise will help develop the elastic properties of our musculature. This is the principle underlying big plyometric exercises like box jumps, hurdles, and depth jumps. However, the ladder drills are much lower intensity. This lower intensity means that they are suitable for just about everyone. This will also benefit quickness in the various smaller reactive actions involved in swordplay.

Agility is primarily change of direction and is determined by the ability to put force into the ground. Ladder drills have a limited ability to improve agility because they do not often use the large, intense actions that are the defining aspect of difficult changes of direction.

Instead agility ladder drills can be thought of as increasing quickness in the sense of reacting to the environment and performing many small changes of direction. The environment is fixed not random but there is tactile feedback from stepping on the ladder.

Overall, the ladder is not the best tool for any single component but serves as a multipurpose tool in the movement prep part of a training session. The body is made more ready for the various kinds of training by doing lower intensity exercises first.

I also like to use the ladder to instill and reinforce the idea of mindful practice. You can always mess up a ladder drill - step on the rungs, kick it out of position and so on. But I demand that my athletes pay attention and do the drill right. This brings me to one of the most common instructions I give in training, both basic physical training and fencing training:

"Correct is more important that fast or number of repetitions"

Alternately, you can call this quality over quantity.

What it Does Not Do

The agility ladder does not improve speed, though they are sometimes called speed ladders. Speed is distance divided by time. Putting a ladder in the way of your feet won't help with that. Only dedicated speed, strength and power training will. However, raw running speed is not directly related to swordfighting (unless you're losing), so it doesn't matter.

Also, ladder drills do not improve your dexterity. Coordination is not a general purpose trait that can be trained. The body and brain's ability to produce smooth, coordinated action requires specific practice, there is no way around this.

Permutational Analysis

One of the ways I conceptualize the value of ladder drills is with the idea of permutational analysis. This is an idea I got from Scott Brown a few years ago, which he applies to handwork drills. The basic idea is that if I get into a new situation I cannot produce a useful action in the moment - whatever I do will be uncoordinated and slow because it is untrained. As such it is useful to dedicate a part of training to a wide variety of arbitrary variations, specifically to make it less likely that your feet will end up in a truly novel position. This is also the reason to switch up the drills every few months.

Categories of Exercises

I will not attempt an exhaustive list of exercises here, nor even much in the way of specifics. Instead I want to look at broad categories to guide decisions about what to include and how to organize the workout.

Intensity 

Intensity levels are roughly as follows:

1. Stepping - one leg moves at a time and one leg is on the ground. This starts with simple exercises like Quickfeet and moves up through a wide variety of exercises like In-In-Out-Out. More complex patterns include Ickey Shuffle and Carioca. Also includes the fencing actions of Advance and Retreat, as well as Doubles etc.
2. Double-leg actions - both legs move at the same time. The prime example is Scissors. Hopscotch can be roughly put in this category as well.
3. Double-leg hop - basic is both feet in the same box. Alternatives can include Skiers and variations on direction of movement etc.
4. Single-leg hop - one leg bouncing from square to square, same leg throughout

Skipping squares - in general, exercises can be made more intense by skipping squares of the ladder. This is most useful for double-leg hops but can be applied to a wide variety of exercises. It would be a bit much for single-leg hops for all but the highest level athletes.

Direction of Movement

Ladder drills can also be characterized by direction of movement.

1. Linear - forwards and backwards. The amount of linear you need depends on the type fencing you train.
2. Lateral - side to side
3. Medial - this distinction only matter for single leg actions, lateral is to the outside of the leg but medial is towards the inside. That is, if I am standing on my right leg then medial is a jump to my left.
4. Diagonal - a mix of linear and lateral while facing down the ladder. For a lot of fencing training this is more relevant than lateral.
5. Rotational - changing the direction you face from one action to the next. Easiest is 90°, 180°+ can be done as well.
6. Crossover - one foot crosses over the other. Most often part of drills that are otherwise diagonal
7. Backwards - any of the above categories can also be done backwards; presenting a higher coordination requirement.

Some exercises don't fit well into any of these categories, so this is only a rough guide to get you started. For instance the Shuffle Wide and Stick goes: two feet in the box, one foot out - leaping as far as you can, stick that landing and leap back to two feet in the next box.

Designing the Workout

Start at low intensity and work up progressively. With athletes new to the drills do not incorporate the most intense drills to start with. In particular single-leg hops are very intense for anyone unused to such actions. Even double-leg hops may not be a good starting exercise depending on the population you are working with or what the rest of the day's training will be like.

Include all directions of movement in a given routine, with an emphasis on those most relevant to the style. This goes back to the permutational analysis idea from earlier.

The number of exercises to include will depend in part on the objective of the workout. As a quick warm-up before fighting, maybe just four exercises. As part of a conditioning routine, do 8 or 10. For general movement prep before a class I usually do 6.

Examples

	Beginner	Intermediate	Advanced
1	Quickfeet*	Double-leg Hop*	Single-leg Hop* (incl. Medial)
2	Double Advance-Retreat**	same with Sword	Command drill
3	In-In-Out-Out	Hopscotch	Carioca
4	Front Crossover	same with Reverse	Rear Crossover
5	Scissors	Skiers	Skiers with Rotation
6	Snake	same with Reverse	Snake Skipping boxes

* Forward, Backward and Lateral
** Each leg leading

Progression in Agility Ladder Training

There are two basic modes of progression in agility ladder training. First is intensity and the other is complexity.

Intensity is easy, and the intensity guide above directs that type of progression. Increases can also be made in the number of drills or the speed demands of the drills.

Complexity increases are part of making this more directly applicable to fencing training. First, insist that the athletes not look down. When they start they have to look just to avoid stepping on the ladder but they should be pushed to keep their eyes up early and often.

Another method of increasing complexity is to hold your sword while doing the drills, and specifically to hold the sword in a well-formed guard.

Additional complexity can also come in the form of actions after or in-between the ladders.

• Set-up two ladders in a row about 5m apart. Sprint from one ladder to the next with a smooth transition from the run into the ladder drill. 
• Set-up two ladders side-by-side at least 3m apart. Side shuffle from one ladder to the next while facing the same way and then do the next ladder backwards.
• Have a coach stand at the end of the ladder with a focus mitt or target and execute an attack at the end of the ladder.

The variations are endless - just make sure you understand how the exercise you design helps the people you are training.

Conclusion

Ladder drills are fun and serve a variety of purposes from warm-up to movement prep to footwork quickness. They are also cheap and easy to use. You can use them to reinforce mindful practice and hone proprioception and kinesthetic awareness.

Shopping Trip!

Who doesn't like going shopping?

I don't.

But that's not the point. Normally, when I run a one-off training session with a group they ask me for a shopping list of the equipment I brought with me. I bring a lot of toys to these sorts of training sessions.

None of the equipment I'm about to list replaces having a basic weightlifting set-up and program. And some of the material I present is best used and safest when done in conjunction with a complete strength training plan - it's not all basic material.

Also, feel free to shop around but keep in mind the reasons for why I recommend the products that I do.

Power

Medicine Balls - I recommend these particular medicine balls because they bounce and the bounce is helpful for a variety of drills. For HEMA I suggest 4 or 6 pound balls. For smallsword and later period fencing, including modern fencing, a 2 pound ball is best. Our objective is for the ball to be no more than double the weight of the sword - this allows us to train velocity of action.

Sandbells - No one else makes a version that is as durable, though you can usually get a better price on Amazon than on their website. Great for a wide variety of throwing drills. The appropriate weight is going to be around 30-70% of bench press max. This is quite a wide range and so you have to get a number of different sizes to work best.

Sandbells only go up to 50 pounds but there are good reason to keep going higher. To do that I put multiple sandbells into these sandbag trainers. Again, the product I pick is based on our durability needs, we are going to be throwing these as hard as we can at the wall and floor etc. However, you can usually get a better price on Amazon for these as well.

Everyone starts at 10 pounds so that they can get the form right before they go up in weight.

At beginner levels these can be replaced with Dynamax balls.

Hurdles - Adjustable hurdles and other variations exist and each is a trade-off between flexibility, durability and cost. Individual choices are going to depend in large part on expected use. But start small, big hurdles are hard on the joints.

Plyo boxes - I'm not going to recommend a specific product here, because their are so many facility specific factors that go into a purchasing decision here - mostly space concerns. Plyo boxes are an important tool though. They are much safer on the joints than doing other jumping exercises.

Everyone should have plyo boxes.

Agility

Agility Ladders - basic tool, so basic that a lot of folks already have them. There are spiffy versions that do niftier things and cost more, but those are really only going to matter for high-end athletes and even then only after they have mastered all the lower intensity stuff. Probably not worth spending extra money on fancy ones.

Rings - another basic level tool. The advantage of items like ladders and rings is that they force the athlete to pay attention to their footwork - you can't just put your foot anywhere with these drills. Which is why I recommend rings, even though you could do the associated drills without anything special.

Dots - These are a minor tool that are all about forcing accuracy in footwork. 

Reflex ball - aka Z-ball (which is the brand I originally got). These are for proving to your athletes that you wish to torture them. It's fun. But not a lot of tools actually allow you to create random stimuli for training reflexes, so these are pretty unique in their utility.

Core Training

Heavy Bar - Functionally similar to various sledgehammer workouts except safer. Safer than swinging a hammer head past your legs at speed. Not only are they safer for the user, they are also safer for the floor and walls. These are also similar to Indian clubs in terms of the workouts that you can do, but they are cheaper and more versatile. I start adults off at 6 pounds.

Mini-bands - Primarily for hip strengthening exercises. Color coded for resistance level. Adults can usually start with the green bands and work their way up. Adolescents and smaller folks should start with yellow.

Sandbags - these are useful for a variety of core training exercises as well, which makes them a nice multi-purpose tool. Plus it means that you don't need to buy conventional weights as well.

Conclusion

Everything I've shown here is usually also available at Perform Better, with minor variations existing. Check their before purchasing to see if they have a better deal or suit your needs better. Or it's available in a prettier color.

My  start-up level kit would include the following as a minimum:

1. Medicine ball
2. Agility ladder
3. Mini-bands
4. Z-ball

The next most important component is plyo boxes, but they are expensive, heavy and take up a lot of space. Which makes them not easy for a lot of clubs. They really can't be beat for utility though. And they are still safer than the alternatives.

I would love for all the useful things to be free. However, a well designed program will have overload and progression, both of which are hard to do without tools. 

Balance Training & Agility

The approaches I commonly see for training 'balance' for HEMA are a problem. The problem is lack of specificity. Single-leg balance and yoga poses are encouraged. Long holds in various stances are recommended. Even things like wobble boards and BOSU's sometime are suggested.

Don't Do This!

(updated when this topic came up on the HEMA Alliance forum)

 

These all fail to be good choices for a simple reason: they are based on the idea that balance is a singular trait that you can improve. Like your Dexterity score in D&D. The human body just doesn't work that way. Our wires are not set-up that way.

Balance is always task specific. The best programs for preventing falls in the elderly aren't yoga and single-leg standing. They are obstacle courses. Walk and deal with obstacles - 6 inch high hurdles and the like in this situation - and that makes a person less likely to fall while walking.

Avoiding falling is also about power. When you are off-balance it does not take a 30 second sustained low-intensity contraction to right yourself. It takes a brief high-intensity action. And this is another way that strength training benefits HEMA and long-term human health and wellness.

And in HEMA the kinds of situations that lead to falls are when you are almost always when you are moving and moving fast.

So really, balance for HEMA is agility training.

I write this now because of a recent post over at the HEMAists. But I'm not picking on them. There is good stuff there too, just scroll down to see the part I liked. I've encountered similar suggestions in many places.

One guy on the Alliance forum FB page suggested holding a lunge position with arms extended out to the side for 60 seconds. He said I should try it to see how hard it is. But how hard that would be is irrelevant. In fencing I will never hold the end of a lunge that long. And the difference is an order of magnitude. And I'll never hold my arms out to the side that long either.

So the fact that it is hard tells us nothing about whether or not it is relevant to fighting. These are separate characteristics being measured.

How do we train 'balance' for HEMA?

We do it with agility drills. Exercises like ladder (or sword) drills, dots, cones, rings and hurdles. (Nah, I don't get any money from these folks. I just like their products (however their are frequently cheaper options available.))

I'll be talking about agility drills some more in the next few weeks. And I've talked about it a bit before.

Balance v. Stability

Balance and stability don't mean the same thing. This is me being pedantic because I'm professionally a nerd on this topic. But I think the difference is relevant and I'll provide an example in a moment.

In exercise science we use the terms to mean:

• Balance -  keeping the whole body upright or in position
• Stability - a characteristic of an individual joint being capable of holding a position

I'm not thrilled with the balance exercises from that HEMAists article. But I do like the stability exercises at the bottom. The exercise is a plank with a punch out, then rotate to a side plank and punch up. This exercise doesn't train balance. It trains maintaining a stable spine while moving around it. It's another way to do dynamic core work. I'm starting my guys on this exercise tomorrow.

I would make one addition about the exercise as described. An easier version is to start with the down arm on the elbow. A lot of people will need to start there.

Conclusion

Think hard about what specificity means before adding in new, neat  exercises.

P.S. I've got a sale going on right now for in-person training.

Class at Iron Gate Exhibition

Recently, I ran a class at Iron Gate Exhibition (IGX) on the topic of Speed & Agility. I co-taught the class with Dakao Do of Schwert am Schwert of Houston, Texas. Below is the class description and the outline of the class. 

I'm going to flesh out the outline a bit, but I actually ran the class with just a sketch. Not only that but the first time that Dakao and I got to talk in-person about the material was just Thursday night, for a Saturday morning class. And in-between we were both very busy with running IGX. We had talked on the phone about a month before, but this is all movement related stuff, so there's a limit to what you can make clear over the phone.

Additionally, there was some stuff that I'd planned to discuss but did not get to (there's never enough time).

Suffice it to say it was a bit of an adventure. But the whole weekend was, so that's par for the course.

Structure and Motion

Fast, maneuverable footwork is an essential component of historical fencing and martial arts. Correct skeletal alignment is the structural foundation on which safe, strong, fast fencing and fighting are based. Structure is present in all guard stances, movements, and strikes. This class will teach some fundamental principles of leverage for control, power, and safety in the fight. Building on that foundation, we will cover a variety of drills designed to improve footwork through the principles of overload, permutational analysis, and body awareness (proprioception). Simple (and cheap) tools such as ladders and cones will be demonstrated to provide drills to bring home to your club. High-intensity interval training for speed and cardio conditioning will also be covered.

Class Outline

Key Principles

• Overload
• Specificity
• Progression
• Intensity
• Task complexity

• Training Power - appropriate reps and rest are required to train power
• Permutational Analysis - underlying theory for highly varied footwork training
• Proprioception - many training tools and methods described here are intended to provide proprioceptive feedback

Tools

• Space - sometimes that's all you need
• Ladders
• Rings
• Dots/Cones - I prefer dots over cones for many drills since you can step on dots, and thereby use them to require precise footwork and this is a mechanism of proprioceptive feedback

The class was organized like an extended training session.

1. Warm-up
1. Lateral lunge
2. T-spine spiderman
3. Lateral shuffle
4. Grapevine
2. Ladder - Ladder drills should include 5-6 activities
   

   More on ladder drills will be included in later posts
3. Lateral & Diagonal
1. Explosive
1. The hip, knee and ankle should be in a straight line for efficient transmission plus joint safety
2. Dinosaur Walk
3. Lateral Bound
2. Agility Rings
1. 1-2 Stick
2. 1-2 Bound
1. Increase distance
2. Assisted/Resisted
3. Diagonal
3. Change of Direction (cones/dots)
1. Forward W
2. Lateral W
3. Lateral W and Sprint
4. L and +
4. longsword circle drill, with 10 variables
5. Z-ball
4. Speed & Acceleration
1. 30-yard shuttle
1. Simple
2. Varied
3. Alternatives
2. Split-squat start
3. Lean-fall-run
4. 60m suicide sprint
5. Conditioning
1. Metabolic power
2. Recovery
   
   This is just a taste of what was in the full-class and many of these topics will be filled out later.

April Link Round-up

Since I've done several Link posts I should start labeling them better. So, I'll do about one a month - and this is the April installment.

Agility Cone Drills for SAQ
This video comes from the maker of various SAQ related sports equipment: SKLZ. It describes 5 agility drills

1. Pro Agility (AKA 5-10-5) - Emphasizes lateral change of direction.
2. 3-Cone - Emphasizes the agility and balance needed to stay on your feet while leaning laterally.
3. Linear W Sprint - Emphasizes forward-backward change of direction with a diagonal component.
4. Lateral W Slide - Combines lateral movement with change of direction
1. Lateral W Sprint - Adds complexity by changing from lateral slide to sprinting and back
5. Figure 8 - Challenges lateral movement with inside and outside curves

Your first question is going to be: what do these have to do with martial arts and combat sports? So let me explain my philosophy regarding agility training for our purposes.

1) Overload -  The first drill there illustrates this component well. If I just drill in class by doing my agile footwork I never train above the level of what I'm trying to achieve - I don't get overload. But by sprinting a few yards from one change of direction to the next I make the change more difficult - I do get overload. The deceleration component is more challenging because I sprinted into it. And the acceleration is more challenging as well since I'm trying to power into a sprint. (Although from an injury prevention standpoint the deceleration part is more important)

2) Permutational Analysis - This is a term that Scott Brown uses to explain a set of drills he uses for swordwork. He has developed a large library of drills that train every possible combination of actions with the sword. This means that at whatever point in a fight you need to go from one action to another it's not something new - you have trained it already. Agility training does the same thing for foot actions.

Building a Superhuman Core
by the appropriately named Tony Gentilcore
Does a good job of providing a variety of anti-motion exercises for the core. These are exercises to prevent motion of the trunk - and very important to martial arts. Think of how much instructors will harp on keeping your shoulders and hips aligned. Well the reason for this is that a stable core like that will transfer power from the hips/legs to the upper body.

There are a few basic categories of such exercises.

• Anti-extension - preventing the torso from curling forwards, these exercises engage the spinal erectors, glutes and hamstrings
• Ant-flexion - preventing excessive arch in the back, these exercises engage the abs
• Anti-rotation - preventing the torso from turning, these exercises primarily use the obliques
• Anti-lateral flexion - preventing side bending, these exercises also target the obliques but in a different patter of activation

That's it for this month.