Why Is Agility Important?

Agility is the ability to change direction rapidly and requires physical capacity and technical skill to execute. It is an essential component of many sports and therefore health and fitness professionals should look to assess this skill when rehabilitating patients or optimizing a client's performance.

How To Assess Agility?

The Agility T-Test is a test that is commonly used to assess athletes/individuals ability to move forwards, backward, and side to side.

To perform the Agility T-Test a client is asked to run from the start point 10 meters forward to point one, sidestep to point two before sidestepping to point three, side stepping back to point one and then running back to the finish. The process is then repeated side stepping in the other direction first. Each attempt is timed from start to finish and compared to established norms.

What Does The Research Say About The Agility T-Test?

Besides testing an individual's ability to move in all directions as quickly as possible it also tests a “combination of leg speed, leg power, and agility for performance” (Pauole. K et al 2000).

Males that achieve less than 9.5 seconds and Females that achieve less than 10.5 seconds are ranked as excellent showing that they can coordinate lower limb strength, power and speed whilst changing multiple directions.

Having the ability to produce a muscle contraction that is quick and powerful in a sporting situation and the stronger and more efficient this contraction is the lower the likelihood of injury (Hübscher M et al 2010). The T-Test is an important clinical test because as identified by Pauole et al (2000) but also because they found it to be very reliable as “a measure of leg speed, leg power, and agility”.

From the research, we know that leg power and strength are very important in reducing injury rates. The T-Test is an important clinical test that can provide this information. Along with this we also know that;

• “Less than 85% via the Limb Symmetry Index (LSI) in knee extension strength is considered poor and warrants further rehabilitation”. (Lepley, 2015).  
• Evidence for the effectiveness of proprioceptive/neuromuscular training in reducing the incidence of certain types of sports injuries among adolescent and young adult athletes during pivoting sports (Hübscher et al, 2010)

Are you using the Agility T-Test with your patients and clients?

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