Nathanael: Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be
the absolute best video on agility work for basketball players that you have ever seen
in your life. So if you want footwork like Kyrie, if you want defense like Kawhi, in
this video, not only am I going to give you an agility workout for basketball, I'm going
to give you two agility workouts for basketball players, one using an agility ladder and cones
and one using no equipment at all. I'm going to show you how to create your own agility
ladder at home, out of nothing but duct tape. I'll tell you how often you should be doing
these workouts. And as a bonus at the end of the video, I'm going to give you an extra
handful of agility workouts for basketball players in case you didn't like the two that
I gave you originally. And at the very end, I'm going to have bloopers again. So make
sure that you laugh with me or laugh at me, but watch until the end and let's roll the
intro and let's increase our agility. Nathanael:
Alright, so the first workout requires an agility ladder and cones, and will improve
your proprioception, which is simply your body control, your body awareness and your
coordination, which you're going to need for optimal footwork in all aspects of the game
of basketball. I personally got this agility ladder and the cones off of Amazon, they come
as a bundle and they also come with pegs in case you wanted to do your agility workouts
in the grass. The link for this agility ladder and the cones will be in the description below.
Nathanael: But just in case you didn't want to spend
any money or you want it to create your own agility ladder, all that you need is a roll
of duct tape. You can get paint sticks, which are optional, but they do make the ladder
more sturdy and you can get them for free from a Home Depot or a Lowe's here in America,
which is a hardware store. You're going to need 14 total paint sticks, and they need
to be 16 inches long, and you can use them as well to measure the spaces between the
rungs of your ladder. Just place your duct tape, sticky side up and measure your ladder
to be 15 feet long and 16 inches apart. Then place your paint sticks 16 inches apart all
the way down your ladder and place the top layer of duct tape, sticky side down, to hold
the rungs in place. Lastly, go over the rungs of your ladder with one more layer of duct
tape, to keep them safe when they accidentally get stepped on. And ladies and gentlemen,
you have your very own agility ladder. Nathanael:
For this agility workout we have three different pieces to the puzzle. The goal is to get quicker
feet and improve your body control and your coordination. And in order to do this properly,
you need to practice slow to get fast. Most people do this wrong. They get in the ladder
and just go as fast as possible. You need to solidify the motor patterns in your brain.
If you go fast and you practice wrong, then you're just developing a bad motor pattern
in your brain. Start slow at 25% speed and do it perfect, then do it at 50% speed and
do it perfect, then 75% speed, do it perfect, then you go to 100% speed and you do it perfect.
But if you can't get the footwork right at 25% speed, then do not go faster. Make sure
that you get your footwork right and then increase how fast you go through these drills.
Nathanael: The three parts of this agility ladder workout
are, two feet to the front and sprint, two feet to the side and slide, and then the Ickey
shuffle cone touch. So for the first part, two feet to the front and sprint, you're just
putting two feet in each box. Remember starting with 25% speed and then getting faster after
you have the movement pattern down properly. So two feet each box, once you get to the
end of the ladder and you step out of the ladder, you sprint as fast as you can for
40 yards. If you don't have 40 yards, what I like to do is 25 ankle bounces once I get
done with the end of the ladder. Nathanael:
The second part of this workout is two feet to the side and slide. So you're doing the
same exact thing. You're doing 25% first, then getting the movement pattern right, then
going 50%, then 75% and then 100% max effort as fast as you can. And I want you to time
yourself on these as well, because each time that you do this agility ladder workout, you
want to be getting faster and improving your agility and improving your speed. But you
just stand sideways, two feet each box till you get to the end of the ladder and then
you're going to do a 20 yard side shuffle. Then you're going to go around rest about
30 to 60 seconds and you're going to do it again the other direction, because we don't
want to just slide one direction. We want to slide both directions to stay even on both
sides of our body. Nathanael:
And the last one is an Ickey shuffle cone touch. So what you're going to do is a three
step Ickey shuffle, three times. So you do three reps of the three step Ickey shuffle,
and then you slide and touch the cone, come back to the ladder and do three more reps
of the three step Ickey shuffle. Then you slide to the next cone, you continue, slide
to the next cone, continue, slide to the last cone, and when you come back, you do three
reps of the three step Ickey shuffle, and then you sprint 40 yards to finish it off.
Nathanael: And I want you to do the three parts of this
workout two to three times through. There's no need to go through more than that. I don't
want you to progressive overload by going through these drills over and over and over.
I want you to try to get faster and faster and faster, starting slow, and then speeding
up getting the correct motor pattern. And you're going to do this two to three times
per week. No more than that is necessary. Let's take a quick intermission and then let's
move to the second agility workout, which uses no equipment.
Nathanael: Alright, here we go. This second workout
literally requires zero equipment and zero space and is going to improve your proprioception,
your body awareness, your body control, your coordination and give you quick feet so that
you can move like Kyrie and play defense like Kawhi. What you're going to do is use a square
on the floor and you're going to do two sets of line steps to the front, two sets of line
steps to the side, and then two sets of lines steps to the front and to the side for 30
seconds each. Make sure that you rest one to two minutes in between and go as fast as
you can with good technique when you are doing these. So once again, start with 25%, get
it perfect. Then go to 50%, get it perfect. 75%, get it perfect, then go 100% max effort
and get it perfect. Nathanael:
The good thing about these once again is that they don't require any equipment. You can
literally do these in a jail cell, if you plan on getting incarcerated anytime soon.
But the negative thing about this drill is that you are not working on your side slide,
or your defensive shuffle, you're not working on moving forwards quickly, you're not working
or moving backwards quickly. All of which you need for quick feet and agility in the
game of basketball. Sometimes you got a two on one coming at you, you got to guard the
hoop, you're shuffling backwards, you're doing a backpedal. Sometimes your defensive sliding
to the sides, a lot of times you're sprinting forward. So if you are just simply doing this
drill, you don't have any equipment, I think that you should go to a basketball court and
make sure that you do some extra work on your lateral shuffles, your backwards drills, you're
backpedaling drills, and your forward running. Nathanael:
Anyways, we're going to end this video off with me giving you a handful of other agility
workouts that you can do in case you didn't like the two that I just gave you, or in case
you want to do some extra agility work to get extra shifty on the court. Here we go.
Nathanael: Alright guys, let's go through a few extra
drills. This first drill is an arc running drill and will increase your agility when
moving around on the court, when coming off of screens and when following your defender
off of screens. What I like to do is start in a defensive position and then just explode
as fast as possible, like the person that I'm guarding is going around a screen. I like
to start slow with this one, doing 25% speed at first, then 50% speed, then 75%, and then
I finish off with five sets of 100% speed on each side. So make sure that you do both
directions, make sure that you start right and then run the arc left and then start to
the left and run the arc right. Five sets of each of these at 100% speed. They really
don't take that long, so you can do 10 sets, total five sets each side. It's also good
to mark where you start with this drill and where you finish because you want to continually
try to beat your best time. And if you do not have cones, you can just use rocks, you
can use chalk on the ground, you can use another item and it works just the same.
Nathanael: Next, we have some agility ladder drills which
I like to add onto the first agility ladder workout that I gave you when I have the time
to add them. The first one is called the in in out out drill, and I like to do a defensive
slide at the end of this drill, just to work on my defensive sliding. I like to do three
sets of this, make sure that you start slow and do it correctly first, and also make sure
that you do both sides. Nathanael:
After that we have skiers. These are called skiers because it looks like someone's skiing
down the side of a mountain slope. I usually only one set of these, but you could do more
if you wanted and these are going to improve your body control, your body awareness and
your coordination. Nathanael:
After that, we have the Ali shuffle, because you look like Muhammad Ali about to float
like a butterfly, sting like a bee. I usually only do one set of these as well, each direction,
but you can do more if you want. And these are also going to improve your body control,
your body awareness and your coordination. Nathanael:
The Ickey shuffle is next and comes from an old football player named Ickey Woods in his
celebratory touchdown dances when he would score in the end zone. For this, you are tapping
two feet in the box in two feet out of the box while you are moving forward. This is
more of an advanced exercise, so remember to start slow and only speed up when you can
do it perfectly. Once again, I only do these for one set, but you can add more if you want
to. And these also are going to improve your body control, your body awareness, your coordination,
but they will also help you to get quick feet. Nathanael:
The last agility workout is twist hops and just like all the others they're going to
improve your body control, your body awareness, your coordination. And I would do this for
only one set, but if you want to do more and you feel motivated, by all means do more than
one set. Nathanael:
And last but not least, we only have two drills left and these are called the six cone W-drill
because you end up making a W shape by the end of it. And then the three cone shuffle
drill. I like these a lot because they work all of the same aspects that you use when
playing basketball. It's a lot of changing directions, a lot of defensive sliding, a
lot of backpedaling and some running forward. And remember that you can use rocks, you can
use another item, if you don't have cones for these drills. And I would do these two
times per week for three sets each. Nathanael:
And that's all we have guys make sure that you leave your questions and your comments
down below in the comment section, make sure that you like the video, subscribe to the
channel and hit the bell if you have not already. And there actually weren't that many bloopers
for this video, but let me go ahead and show them to you anyway, so that you can laugh
with me or laugh at me, but either way, I appreciate you. And if you watch the video
this long, you, my friend are a real one. Nathanael:
Can you guys please stop fighting. But let's increase our agility and let's cross people
up on the court. We will get our agility up so that we can cross everybody. So nobody
has an excuse not to do this agility ladder workout, you can get some duct tape. Bro,
don't say that. You stay over there. Stay.