Explosive speed and agility are huge game breaking performance skills that must be specifically trained.  In a team game the level of success on attack may well come down to the athletic ability of an attacker and the athletic ability of a defender.  Speed and agility will determine the attackers’ ability to evade or beat the defender to find space.  Conversely the defenders ability to react with speed and agility will determine how effective they are in closing down attacking space. In an individual court sport the level of success may be primarily determined by your ability to get the ball quickly and with balance.

It is often assumed that those who possess great speed or strength are born with a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibres and that no amount of speed work will turn a pack horse into a race horse.  However regardless of genetics athletic ability will predominantly depend on two factors:

1. Motor Learning Skills at an early age.

2. Training stimulus that we are exposed to throughout our lives.

Most coaches have adopted the “train the way we play” philosophy for skill development in terms of intensity, specific sports skills and technique.  However the same philosophy is rarely applied when considering speed and agility development.  A common mistake is to implement only conventional track and field straight line speed development techniques.  Unfortunately track and field as a sport has very little physical similarities to the requirements of team and ball sports and as such a sole focus on track sprinting techniques will limit the development of multidirectional movement skills.  Although straight line speed (linear speed) is a crucial skill, training only for linear speed does not fit with the “train the way we play” philosophy as for a number of reasons.

Multidirectional Speed can be broken up into 6 key components – all or which can effectively be taught as a skill or trained using a variety of techniques.  These 6 components collectively will make for F.A.S.T.E.R movement in all directions.

F – First Step Quickness

A – Agility and acceleration

S – Stopping and starting

T – Technique Efficiency

E – Explosive Power

R – Reaction Skills

And this is what XLR8 can provide!  XLR8 focuses on the most up to date and cutting edge methods of improving fast movement abilities, and is critical for any sporting code where speed and quickness is an advantage.