How To Improve Your Agility

Power Up: Cardio keeps your heart healthy. Strength training builds muscle. But there’s another piece of the fitness puzzle that often gets passed over: agility, or your ability to move quickly, react fast, and stay balanced.

How to Do It: Experts recommend adding one explosive power workout each week, focusing on moving with speed. Beginners can try fast sit-to-stands from a chair or elevated plyo push-ups, standing up or pushing away as quickly as possible before lowering slowly. If you already strength train regularly, add exercises like squat jumps, jumping jacks, kettlebell swings, or medicine ball slams. To improve your coordination, you can’t go wrong with ladder and cone drills. And if you really want to have some fun while improving your agility, join a local beer league! Soccer, flag football, ultimate frisbee, and kickball will challenge your skills — and you might make a new friend. 

The Benefits: Power-based exercises engage fast-twitch muscle fibers, which naturally decline with age. Training them can improve balance, increase speed, help prevent falls, boost sports performance, and make everyday movements — from catching yourself after a stumble to playing with your kids in the yard — feel easier.