USING A TRAINING LADDER.

A ladder is an excellent piece of training equipment and is useful to enhance body control and agility and increase the foot speed.

You do not have to go out and purchase your own Ladder, it is just as easy to use throw-down lines and as far as juniors are concerned, they may be found to be better as there is no chance of their getting tangled up in the Ladder. The added advantage of lines is that the distance between them can be changed to suit various exercise patterns.

DEVELOPING A LADDER TRAINING PROGRAMME.

Using a building block system of skill development is very important to achieve success in training with a Ladder. You must start with general development upto advanced skill development, from a full range of motion to smaller, quicker movements.  Keeping in mind the principle of working from slow and controlled movements and moving onto fast, explosive movements as a teaching and learning progression, will have a greater amount of success.

There are 4 basic skills used when training with the Ladder. These are Runs, Skips, Shuffles and Jumps/Hops.

When setting up your training programme use the skills in this order, and then always come back and repeat the runs. Runs are generally the skill you are working to improve the most.

Begin the training programme using the full range of motions Runs and Skips. This will help to teach the body’s muscle memory system the basic skills. Once the basic skill is learned, then the athlete can work on improving the speed at which the skill can be performed. Always remember to learn the skills slowly, then add speed with control. Once control is lost, the athlete is no longer developing skill, but rather practicing for performance failure.

It is important to practice a;; 4 basic skills because athletes need the stimulus of variation. Each skill aids in different motor unit recruitment and is important to the learning process.

Breaking your workout routine into Sets and Reps is also important to maximizing athletinc development. Try not to train by whatever comes to mind at the time, but rather have a specific goal and a programme to follow.

It may take several times of going through the Ladder to get the general skill developed, the advantage in squad training is that athletes can follow one another through the ladder and it is also beneficial to place two side by side, so that they return via the second ladder.

Most often use one time through the ladder as 1 rep, with 2 – 4 reps per set. For each skill a minimum of 2 repetitions is recommended. This means that for lateral drills you would need to do 4 repetitions, because each side of the body needs equal training using 2 reps. Linear drills can use only 2 reps since they work the entire body equally.  You can plan your workout using as few or as many drills as you like, but typically you will want to do at least 2 drills from each of the 4 basic skills, and one set of each drill is usually sufficient.

However this id performed, work up to the required level gradually.

SPORT SPECIFIC APPLICATION.

For sport specific applications, try to match the skills simulated by the Ladder to those most frequently used in the sport.  Below are some examples, but be creative, the ladder is very versatile.

Track: 

Use a variety of linear drills, placing emphasis on Runs and Skips. Keep in mind whether you are building for speed or for long distance.

Court Sports:

Emphasis should be on lateral movement and agility drills. As a creative opportunity, try separating the ladder into two parts. Many court sports have very short bursts of intense speed. Do quick drills through one half  of the ladder, breaking and slowing when hitting the end, then resuming the super-gast drills through the second half.

For tennis training, the athlete should practice so that they are looking up all the time as they would need to when playing the ball and the opponent.

Football/Soccer: