Ladder Drills ARE NOT Speed or Agility Drills

-September 29th, 2017-

Some people call it a Speed Ladder. Some an Agility Ladder.

Both are wrong. It’s a Ladder, plain and simple. Because it doesn’t help you improve either of those skills. And if you are a lacrosse player using it as such, you are using it wrong.

I bring this up as I was talking to one of the Toronto Rock players and he was asking about Agility drills and said he’s been using the ladder. I said we are in 2 different conversations right now.

Let me explain.

Take a look at the video below. This guy has the (I believe self proclaimed) Fastest Feet in the World. I have people ask me all the time to improve footspeed. This guys footspeed is off the charts.

Fast feet? Definitely. But what is the difference between his feet and the guy’s feet who also has tremendous footspeed in the video below (start at 1:35)?

I don’t see much of a difference personally. Both of their feet move really, really fast. If footspeed translated to speed or agility both these guys should be in the NFL.

I see similarity too: Neither of them cover any distance, they basically stay in one spot!

Footspeed is NOT Speed. Footspeed is NOT Agility. Are you a good lacrosse player if your feet are really fast but you stand in one spot?

To move fast you must apply force into the ground. Neither of these guys do that, and Ladder drills do not train your body how to do it either.

Are Ladders useless? No, not at all. In fact we use it quite regularly, but only in warmups. It’s great to get the body moving, to increase the temperature of the muscles, and to get the Nervous System firing.

But after our Ladder warmup we then do Speed and Agility drills where we train the body to apply force into the ground.

Agree/Disagree? Feel free to let me know in the comments.

Tags: acceleration, agility, agility ladder, change of direction, lacrosse training, ladder drills, speed, Speed Training