Balanced Approach

Whether it be hockey, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse, etc., many sports require the ability to rapidly change directions. Training to develop better change of direction (COD) performance typically involves agility circuits and plyometrics. Beyond leg strength and not to be overlooked, COD ability demands balance and postural control to overcome inertia from the decelerations and braking. Ample evidence exists demonstrating improvements in COD ability after plyometric training (Manouras et al, 2016; Asadi et al., 2017). Newer research is revealing a combined training program including both balance and plyometrics may lead to greater gains than doing either one on their own (Boutteraa et al., 2020; Guo et al., 2021). These studies reported not just improvements on COD ability, but also on balance and reactive strength index (RSI) tests. RSI is an indicator of how efficiently an individual may perform the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). RSI is strongly related to COD speed and acceleration speed (Byrne et al., 2017).

 Training programs for athletes in sports that demand excellent postural control with rapid CODs with multiple accelerations and decelerations may be that much more effective by incorporating balance in addition to standard agility and plyometric training protocols. Perhaps this is a more balanced approach regardless!