3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD BE USING LADDER DRILLS…DAILY!

What’s Up Gronk Fitness!

So, agility ladders! What are they?

Well, an agility ladder is an inexpensive piece of exercise equipment that you can simply roll out on any flat surface; your gym floor, your living room, even the beach.

What are the main benefits agility ladder drills?

• Great way to warm-up your entire body and avoid injuries
• Great way to practice general footwork
• Excellent for directional and multi-planar movement training
• Interesting and fun way to build up your calves & cardiovascular endurance

If you don’t currently own an agility ladder, here’s the link for the Gronk Fitness Agility Ladder!

Alternatively, if you absolutely cannot afford it, you could also “draw” an agility ladder on your floor using tape.

“Agility Ladder drills are a MUST before all my workouts. They work to strengthen my joints, ligaments and tendons while improving my pre-workout coordination and focus. Plus, they’re just great as a heart workout and fun in a confided space.” – Rob Gronkowski

3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD BE USING LADDER DRILLS…DAILY!

    1. Most Effective Warm-Up Method

For most athletes, a warm-up has three functions; to increase heart rate, warm-up the muscles and ligaments and improve reaction time.

Ladder drills have the potential of achieving all three in just a few minutes. Let’s face it! Jumping rope or running laps is just too monotonous, old-fashioned and obsolete.

Ladder drills on the other hand, accomplish all the physiological needs of a typical warm-up, plus, they’re more fun and cover different aspects of improving athletic performance.

For example, athletes can work on their eccentric control, deceleration and acceleration, explosive movement patterns, proper landing mechanics and multi-planar stabilization.

    2. Extremely Effective Plyometrics Workout

When most people think of plyometrics, they think of hang cleans, box jumps or similar exercises. And while those are GREAT movements, you will find that they also carry a relatively high injury risk.

On the other hand, ladder drills can be performed FASTER and more EXPLOSIVELY without increasing the risk of injury or straining the athlete’s body.

If you think about it, the greatest exercises you can do in the gym are those that directly carry over to your sport. Ladder drills will help you work on your agility, balance, speed and quickness by training the most useful movement patterns of most sports including hopping, bouncing and running forward, backwards and sideways.

    3. Rehab, Pre-Hab & Avoid Potential Injuries

We cannot stress just how important ladder drills can be for injury prevention.

As a warm-up method, they will prepare all your muscles for the intense training to follow but they can actually also help with long-term injury prevention.

That’s because with ladder drills you can work on often weak and neglected muscle groups that most people are not even aware of. These muscles include various abductor and knee stabilization muscles, deep abdominal muscles and lower back muscle groups that never get the attention they need to stay injury-free.

FULL LOWER BODY GRONK-APPROVED, AGILITY LADDER WORKOUT:

• Two Feet In
• Two Feet Hop
• Lateral Shuffle
• Side Hops
• Hopscotch

Perform all exercises in the form of a circuit and complete as many rounds as needed to fully warm up your muscles and get your heart rate going.

Don’t forget to check out the video above if you are unsure about the right form for each individual exercise and as always…Get Your Mind Right!