Championship Productions Blog

Two Lacrosse-Specific Conditioning Drills to Improve Agility

When developing agility, it’s about the ability to change directions quickly and efficiently. A lacrosse player equipped with excellent agility will certainly have a leg up on the competition. Check out the following drills below and see how you can improve your agility and make strides out on the lacrosse field.

Agility Overview

There are some key components athletes should think about when involved in agility drills: “Drop and push”, and always use your arms (particularly on cuts). We’ll talk more about this later on in the article.

Here are some tips to keep in mind about accelerating. First, we are always looking to go from low to high. When you start out, you will start low with your body when accelerating and then go to high with your body. Start with your feet wide and then eventually move them to narrow. We also want to move to the balls of our feet as fast as we can. Then we need to drive our arms real hard to also help with the acceleration.

As for deceleration, we are looking to go high to low and drop the butt down. This time, it’s about going narrow to wide and using our heels.

Sprint Cuts

Goals for Agility: To accelerate and decelerate properly, to always be pushing, and always be using our arms.

With sprint cuts, we’ll go through four main sets. Always finish off that last cone with a five-yard sprint. As for equipment, we’ll need five cones spread out five yards apart and five yards up (in a zigzag).

Set 1: Sprint and Stop in Ready Position

We will start in ready position and then hold in our ready position before gradually moving up to full game speed. Here’s how it works. Start in ready position at a cone and facing forward. Then sprint to the next cone on a slant and then immediately get back into ready position. Then again, accelerate and decelerate to the next cone on a slant (all zigzags here). Keep repeating until all cones are used.

Set 2: Rapid Fire

This is the same idea as before, but this time we are using “quick steps” or “hot feet” at each cone.

Set 3: Exaggerated Cuts

Now look to lean into all of your cuts. Always pick up that inside foot when leaning into the cut. Then push off hard on your outside foot.

Set 4: Full Speed

Go with a full sprint in this set. Drive hard out of each cut and push hard each time.

Watch the video below to also see how these sets can be accomplished using lacrosse sticks. With a lacrosse stick in hand, players can really practice game-like situations and work on switching their stick from hand to hand when making specific cuts.

Sprint Backpedal

Equipment: Six cones and create a “W” pattern. Adjacent cones should be five yards apart.

Set 1: Sprint with Backpedal

Here we’ll sprint up to the cone and backpedal right back.

Set 2: Sprint with Forward Shuffle

Sprint up to the cone, touch the cone, push off with your right leg, and then lean into the direction of your cut. Next, push off with your outside foot, step with your inside foot, and give an elbow snap to help turn the hips. Be sure to always get a good arm drive going as well.

Set 3: Sprint with Backward Shuffle

Turn and shuffle back the same way that you just came from.

Set 4: Full Sprint

Now sprint to each cone, going hard each time. This is a perfect drill for lacrosse players.

The following workouts – and many other lacrosse-specific drills – can be seen on Championship Productions’ DVD “100 Conditioning Drills & Exercises for Lacrosse.” Check out similar videos in our lacrosse library by clicking here.