It’s Time to Change Direction on Agility Research: a Call to Action

Abstract

Agility is an important skill for both attackers and defenders in invasion sports such as codes of football. On the sporting field, agility requires reacting to a stimulus, often presented by an opponent’s movement, before a change of direction or speed. There is a plethora of research that examines the movement component of agility in isolation, which is described as change-of-direction (COD) ability, and this is thought to underpin agility performance. This opinion article proposes that COD ability should not be researched as the only or primary outcome measure when the objective is to inform agility performance in invasion sports. It is argued that pre-planned COD movements and tests lack ecological validity because they lack perception-action coupling and involve movement out of context from the game. The movement techniques and strength qualities required for the performance of COD tests can be quite different to those required for agility. It is suggested that COD tests can be applied to sports that involve pre-planned COD movements, but researchers should endeavour to use agility tests when studying invasion sports. Some new methods for assessing one-on-one agility contests are reported as potentially valuable for future research, and examples of research questions are provided.

Determinants of Reactive Agility in Tests with Different Demands on Sensory and Motor Components in Handball Players

“…In addition to motor abilities, they should focus their training programs on both sensory-motor skills. This need is also indicated by the study of Young et al [1], in which the authors called for a focus on the coupling of perception and action in invasion sports.…”

“…Agility is an important skill for both attackers and defenders in invasion sports [1]. It is generally accepted that agility has both movement and reactive elements, whereas predetermined change of direction (COD) tasks without a requirement to react to a stimulus are described by COD ability [2].…”

Nationwide Subjective and Objective Assessments of Potential Talent Predictors in Elite Youth Soccer: An Investigation of Prognostic Validity in a Prospective Study

“…To address the inconsistency in the literature, we use both terms in the figures and tables of the present study [i.e., "Agility (CODS)"] to indicate that we refer to the physical dimension of agility but not to the more complex reactive agility. In a recent position paper, Young et al (2021) encourage researchers to study (reactive) agility in more ecologically valid settings that include a sport-specific stimulus (e.g., video simulations, 1 vs. 1 situations, small-sided games). This call is also true for the other objective motor diagnostics investigated in the present study because they do not represent the contextual constraints of soccer games (for a discussion of the representativeness and fidelity of predictors in talent identification research in soccer, see also Bergkamp et al, 2019).…”

Effects of Acute Fatigue on Cognitive Performance in Team Sport Players: Does It Change the Way They Perform? A Scoping Review

“…Adaptation to a highly variable environment (e.g., ball, opponent, teammates) is crucial in a variety of sports [1,2]. Cognitive functions such as attention, decision making, and working memory are essential for sports performance, especially in an unstable environment [3].…”

“…Cognitive functions such as attention, decision making, and working memory are essential for sports performance, especially in an unstable environment [3]. From the perspective of movement, the term reactive agility is widely discussed as an important aspect of individual performance in team sports [2,4]. In specific game conditions, players rapidly and effectively change their direction or velocity of movement in response to external stimuli.…”