TAC COMBINE - AGILITY TEST

The main TAC Combine is coming up this coming weekend (that I'm helping out with) so we're looking at each test and how to get the best result you can from it.

Even though there is a pre-draft combine, which most people are aware if, it's actually the results from this one that recruiters look at the most.

It's a mammoth day and with Rookie Me leading the way, we'll test 600 players over 5 tests throughout the day.

So far we've looked at the 20m Sprint and the Yo Yo Test and today is agility.

START LOW

As you can see in the image above, there's little distance between turns and you'll only get about 2 steps of actual acceleration from turn to turn so you'll want to stay "low".

Staying low ensures that your will be in a decent position to decelerate, change direction and re-accelerate, which is not something you can do well if you're standing up straight.

If you stand up tall during this drill then it will take more time to decelerate as you'll need to change position before any deceleration occurs, and in an 8sec drill any wasted time can have huge implications.

PRACTICE THE FIRST TURN

In straight line sprinting, coaches will always say that positioning is the most important aspect and once you lose positioning, especially in the first few steps, then you simply don't have time to make make whatever went wrong right.

I'll put the agility test right here as well.

You want to hit that first turn with a near perfect step count (for you) to minimise any shuffling steps which is essentially a lot of tiny steps that are taking you nowhere.

SHIN ANGLES

Shin angle refers to the direction of your shins upon acceleration.

A shin angle pointing towards the roof indicates a vertical vector which is what you want for jumping and max velocity sprinting.

For agility and acceleration, you want a shin angle angling towards the horizontal vector which in reality is something about 45 degrees or so.

During a turn in this particular drill it might be as low as 20 - 25 degrees.

As the drill requires 5 change of directions, your shin angle on each one is crucial.

STAY RELAXED

Last year there was a kid doing this test (I was manning this test last year), and he was trying to go so fast, he kept sliding out.

In this test you can only go as fast as you decelerate, and this kid had a huge eccentric deficit, even though he was moving concentrically faster then everyone else.

In the end he had 5 - 6 goes at the test where you normally only get 3, and his time suffered because he couldn't self organise his body to do what he wanted it to do.

If he'd have relaxed his mind and body, he wouldn't have been so "mechanic" in his movements and he could have recorded one of the best times of the day (I can't remember his time now but it wasn't in the 7's which all the tops cores were).

Like I said in the 20m sprint post, run fast, but don't try to run faster.