The ABC's of Fitness

While following through with your workout plan trying to reach the goals you have set in place, you should always remember the ABC's of fitness. Agility, Balance, and Coordination. Whether you are working out for a sport or to enhance everyday living these will carry over to either area. Let us start with the A, Agility is a person's ability to change their body's position (lateral, forward, or backward). A good way to increase you agility is working with a speed and agility ladder. Here are a few speed and agility ladder exercises you can begin with.

-Buzz Saw (lateral)
-Muhammad Ali (lateral)
-One foot in each box
-One foot in every other box
-Two feet in each box
-Three feet in each box
-Icky Shuffle
-Trail Whip
-Single Leg Hop-each box
-Hop both feet each box
-Hopscotch
-Slalom
-180 degree hop each box
-High Knees (forward-lateral)
-Hip Poppers

Moving on to the B, balance is the ability to distribute your weight, these exercises will also help work with your stabilizing muscles. (BODY CONTROL)

-Flamingos - Single leg RDL Combo



-Single Leg Hurdle Jumps
-Side Plank
-Split Leg Squat
-Backhand/Forehand Med. Ball Drill



Following Balance, comes C, Coordination- coordination can work in many various aspects, hand eye- hand feet- left leg right arm- coordination is the body working together to produce effective results. The following exercises are some sport specific coordination exercises.

Basketball:
-Get Backs
-2 Ball Dance
-1 Ball Roll Out
-2 Ball Roll Out
-Tennis Ball Reaction

Baseball:
-Med. Ball Forehand/Backhand Drill
-Tennis Ball Reaction
-2 Ball Skill Ball work

Form Running:
-T-Drill
-Sprint "X" (Forward-Backward-Laterally)

Mini Hurdles:
-2 Hurdle Shuffle




-Lateral Shuffle



These exercises will all overlap each other somehow and you will see improvement in all areas whether you are working on agility which will carry over to balance, and in turn will carry over to coordination. In the end they will all help improve performance (with speed, body control, and coordination) and everyday living (with posture-stronger core and body control).