National Study Identifies Baseline for Agility

Agility is often defined as the ability to change direction without loss of speed or control. Whether it is a basketball player defending someone or a defensive back breaking on a receiver, the importance of agility is sometimes overlooked. Coaches will often concentrate their training efforts on improving their athlete's speed, but having good speed does not translate into having good agility.

Based on a study conducted by the National Athletic Testing Program (NATP) investigating improvements and trending results of high school students, the agility of athletes vs. non-athletes were examined. Those who participated in an organized sport program were classified as an athlete and those who only participated strictly in physical education were classified as non-athletes. To test the high school students, the pro agility drill was used. This test was performed having the participants start by straddling a middle line facing an electronic timer. First, the student would run to his/her right five yards and touch a line that is on the floor with his/her right hand. Second, they would have to run ten yards to their left and touch a line on the floor with his/her left hand. Finally, they would run to their right five yards, to finish the drill past the middle line (starting point). The times were recorded to the nearest hundredth of a second by the electronic timer. Each student was given two attempts with their fastest attempt recorded. A total of 52,945 students were used for this study.

NATP discovered that for males, the athletes and non-athletes improved their agility times at nearly the same rate from year to year. The percentage of overall improvement from 9th to 12th grade for male athletes was 5.61% while the improvement for the male non-athletes was 5.58%. Although the average weight for male athletes was higher than for male non-athletes, the athletes still had faster times.

For females, NATP found that the percentage of improvement was much less than males. The percentage of overall improvement from 9th to 12th grade for a female athlete was 3.31% while the female non-athlete improved 1.57%. The decreased rate of improvement from 9th to 12th grade when compared to the males for that same time period could be attributed to the lack of emphasis on a strength training program for females.

Two points should be taken into consideration:

1. Some of the improvements from year to year for both athletes and non-athletes can be attributed to physical and mental maturity.
2. Although the athletes and non-athletes improve at nearly the same rate from year to year, it is more difficult to improve the agility time as the score gets lower.