Unlike traditional change of direction (COD) training, where athletes follow a set path, agility training challenges athletes to react to a cue. This forces them to perceive, decide, and act quickly — just like in a real game. George’s blog explains the connection between physical skills and mental demands, showing why agility training is more than just speed or technique. He breaks down concepts like dual-task cost and agility deficit, giving clear examples of how decision-making affects performance. Finally, he teaches you how to isolate cognitive factors by comparing standard COD with reactive agility tests, and shares examples how to adjust workouts for the unpredictable nature of sport, rather than test performance.
Change of direction training lends itself to over-complication: the more an athlete can remember or be cued to do, the more practitioners can add twists, turns, jumps, and dodges. Agility training, by contrast, has layers of complexity behind even the superficially simplest task demand.
COD vs agility
What is the difference between agility and COD?
The introduction of complexity is another way of thinking about the difference between agility and change of direction: agility requires the athlete to react. However, reacting is not equivalent to reflexive. Reacting entails working through several steps — perceive, decide, and act. That takes time.
Let me give you an example. An athlete covering the same distance and maneuvering through the same angles and body positions (for example, in a standard T-test) will take more time if he has to respond to cues within the task (e.g. firstly running left or right based on a surprise direction signalled by the coach) than if he was given instructions and had the ability to pre-plan the route beforehand.
Reacting is not equivalent to reflexive. Reacting entails several steps — perceive, decide, and act.
Two well-established concepts point the way to quantifying the complexity of a task and an athlete's cognitive abilities in such situation: dual task cost (DTC) and change of direction deficit (CODD). By combining these two, practitioners will be able to better profile and understand their athletes, allowing for more specific training at the group and individual levels.
Dual task cost (DTC) explained
Most actions in sport are dual tasks, and that layering almost always comes at a cost. A maximal sprint while dribbling a soccer ball or basketball will be slower than a maximal sprint without the ball. Part of that is due to the skill involved, and part is due to the characteristics of and constraints imposed by the ball.
Dual task cost accounts for the cognitive challenges of sport.
This phenomenon is well documented in sports science. For example, meta-analysis of dual task studies in sports found that adding a cognitive task to a "closed" sporting task impaired performance across an array of both cognitive and motor / physical tasks: stride length, jump height, reaction time, time to complete the task, and working memory, to name a few. The results came from a similarly broad range of sports, both males and females, and amateur to elite athletes (Moreira et al, 2021).
A meta-analysis of dual-task studies in various sports found that adding a cognitive task to a "closed" sporting task reduced both cognitive and physical performance.
A recent study compared elite ice hockey players to elite athletes from other open-skill (volleyball, basketball, handball, table tennis) and closed skill sports (trampoline gymnastics and modern pentathlon). The main output metric was a "fast feet" activity: how quickly could the athletes switch from one foot to the other and back while standing in place, with and without a cognitive task (Brinkbäumer et al, 2024). The three groups all experienced a drop in performance on the motor skill when it was part of the dual task. Open-skill sport athletes performed better on the dual task than closed-skill sport athletes, indicating the potential trainability of dual tasks (ibid). Along those lines, an interesting finding was that performance on the dual task was only weakly correlated with performance on the single task. The dual task might be more than the sum of its parts, which will further fuel conversations and debates about the sport specificity and transference of any given "isolated" physical or motor training activity (ibid).
Another study found that performance on the dual task showed little connection to single-task performance, suggesting dual tasks involve more than just combining skills.
Isolating the change of direction from the rest of the task
What is change of direction deficit (CODD)?
Change of direction deficit is the difference between the time it takes an athlete to complete a given change of direction task and the time it takes to run the same distance, but purely linearly. The reference test for CODD is 5-0-5, in which an athlete runs 5 m, executes a 180° turn, and then runs 5 m back (Nimphius et al, 2016).
Change of direction deficit is the difference between the time it takes an athlete to complete a change of direction task and the time it takes to run the same distance in a straight line.
What does change of direction deficit (CODD) really tell us?
CODD provides insights into an athlete's true change of direction ability, separate from their running speed. The CODD on a 5-0-5 reflects the athlete's ability to decelerate from their max speed to 0, turn 180°, and then re-accelerate back to max speed. But change of direction performance is not just a matter of speed and the turn. More skilled athletes will be able to coordinate their turn with the deceleration and acceleration. Two athletes with equal deceleration and acceleration abilities could still have different CODDs based on that coordination.
"Poor" test result could reflect misaligned testing or training, not the athlete's ability.
A sport science researcher might consider coordination a confounding variable in the attempt to quantify COD ability. But a sport performance practitioner could see it as two players deploying different strategies to accomplish the same task, each playing to their strengths.
A "poor" performance on this or any other test may reflect a misalignment between test and training, rather than an athlete's shortcoming. It may also be the result of the practitioner's approach to their programming, particularly if the test does not align with the demands of the sport.
A 180° turn will be the most challenging and will test the limits of an athlete's COD ability. But these are not particularly common, and even less so at max speed (Barrera-Domínguez et al, 2024).
Training COD for sport, not for the test
Why to train 180° turns?
Training 180° turns is valuable for both performance and injury prevention because they are at the extremes of turn angle and, potentially, speed (Dos'Santos et al, 2018). Two activities help ensure that the players I coach have some exposure to these demands, and you can read about them in the expander below.
>> How to train 180° turns — fun activities for youth athletes
Game 1: Simulate a rundown in baseball
The first simulates a rundown in baseball. Three players line up between two cones. The player in the middle tries to reach either cone without being tagged with a ball that the other two players throw back and forth. The player in the middle tries to "outrun the ball" being thrown to the teammate standing between her and a base. If the ball reaches the player she's running toward, she has to hit the brakes and go back to avoid the tag.
This game incorporates a lot of reactivity, coordination, and deceptiveness, along with many high angle turns in small spaces. But the player rarely gets more than a few steps before having to start her next deceleration. If she gets to full speed, she's probably going to reach the cone, which means she'll never execute a turn at full speed.
Game 2: Down-and-back relay race
The second are down-and-back relay races. However, I rarely have players simply run, turn, and run back. When the players reach the turnaround point, I'll have them touch their head to a cone, lay on the ground and perform a pencil roll, or perform some kind of jump. This makes the activity more fun and engaging, and gets them out of the grind mentality of doing shuttle runs or wind sprints. It also stimulates their overall movement repertoire, creativity, and ability to accelerate from a variety of positions: all things that are more applicable to a game of soccer (or any sport) than a max velocity 180° turn.
Limitations of CODD testing
Activities that incorporate reactivity, acceleration and creativity are more applicable to a game of soccer (or any sport) than a max velocity 180° turn. But all of which confound any COD or CODD test. All the components are there, but the change of direction flow is interrupted by the additional task. This leads me to the conclude that the specificity of the 5-0-5 CODD test becomes its shortcoming. It isolates one component among many in an edge case context. But even when we emphasize one element or another in an activity, session, or block of training, it is always within a full context of athleticism. If they happen to hit a max velocity 180° turn in training, it's simply a by-product.
The 5-0-5 CODD test is limited as it focuses only on 180° turns as a by-product of training, while in-game athletic performance is always more complex.
What is agility deficit?
Agility deficit measures the dual task cost of reacting to a stimulus
Partly because there are so many motor and metabolic factors to parse apart, and partly because there have not been sufficient technology and protocols, the change of direction deficit has not made the leap to being the agility deficit. The agility deficit quantifies the dual task cost of a cognitive component, the very thing that separates a COD task from a nearly identical agility task.
Agility deficit, unlike CODD, measures the cognitive load of reacting to a stimulus, which distinguishes agility tasks from simple COD tasks.
Assessing agility deficit with new technology
The T-test is one of the simplest, most frequently used, and well validated change of direction tests. Athletes run from a start line to a cone 10 m away, turn 90° and run to touch a cone another 5 m away, turn 180° and run to touch a cone 10 m away, turn 180° again to return to the middle cone, and then turn 90° to run back through the timing gates at the start / finish line (Gabbett, 2008).
In standard protocols, the practitioner will, beforehand, instruct the athlete whether to turn left or right when approaching the first cone.
New technology such as Sportreact device puts a reaction task between the athlete and the first turn. Sportreact combines reaction lights with timing gates, replacing the preplanned element of the test with a cognitive component.
The time difference between pre-planned agility test and reactive agility test measures the agility deficit.
How to perform a true agility T-test?
For a true agility test on the model of the T-test, place Sportreact's reaction lights behind the first cone. The player will take off from the start light not knowing which way he will have to turn, which means he will not be able to pre-program his turn — he will have to allocate some attention and working memory during his acceleration to the Sportreact lights. At some point after the start, the lights will indicate which direction he is to go. The difference between his time when pre-planning the initial turn and his time when having to respond to a stimulus telling him to go in the same direction will be his agility deficit for the T-test.
The player will start without knowing which way to turn, requiring focus and working memory to react to the Sportreact lights during acceleration.
Potential bias — the psychological aspect of a failed task
One potential confound of this test is whether there is some effect of the cognitive task that persists for the remainder of the test. Even though the remainder of the test is the same as always, and becomes "scripted" once he knows where to go on the first turn, there may be a continuing performance decrement. For example, if he feels he did a poor job responding to the light, his intent and focus to produce a maximal effort for the remainder of the test may drop. While this may reflect what actually happens in a game, e.g., if the player slips or commits a mistake that allows an opponent to get past him, it doesn't reflect his agility.
How to perform a true agility L-test?
Practitioners can reduce fatigue, decrease testing time (essential for group testing), and further isolate the cognitive aspect by placing timing gates at the start line, and on the far side of each cone. The set up of the cones and the Sportreact system would be the same T shape, but the athlete would only run an L shape, with the direction of the L coming in response to the Sportreact lights.
Agility deficit: How to measure the difference between reactive and standard test results?
Like with the T-test, and with any other test you modify, the athlete's agility deficit is the difference between their performance when you tell them which direction to turn and when they respond to the cue provided by the Sportreact lights. Understanding an athlete's agility deficit will allow practitioners to better target the athlete's training, emphasizing the motor or cognitive / reactive components of the task, or perhaps on integrating the two.
Adding complex tasks into agility drills - pros and cons?
Experienced athletes - including those who train with the Sportreact system for a while, may reduce their agility deficit on reactive T-agility or L-agility drill to its ultimate minimum. To continue providing new stimuli, practitioners can increase the difficulty of the cognitive task.
Beginners may be responding to a simple left or right arrow presented on a single light. We could progress that by having athletes respond to a left or right arrow that is shown amongst several Sportreact lights that show distractor stimuli, like numbers or colors. That introduces an element of scanning and a wider visual awareness during the acceleration to max velocity. Going even further, we could direct their turn via a conditioned cue: instead of an arrow, a red light means left and a green light means right, for example.
The Stroop effect in agility drills
Maybe the most advanced combination would exploit the Stroop effect. Instruct the athlete to turn right if the Sportreact system is blue, and turn left if it is green. Then give them a blue left arrow. That introduces a significant level of confusion because moving left on a left arrow is ingrained and intuitive, and they have to override that in order to satisfy the task (Scarpina and Tangini, 2017).
The Stroop effect drills challenge athletes to override their natural instincts by turning right on a blue left arrow, testing their cognitive flexibility.
We would expect to see performance decline — that is, the agility deficit increase — with each level of difficulty we add to the task. We also hope to see agility deficit decrease for a given level with continued training on the Sportreact.
As with any training and testing stimuli, every time we add something we can tell ourselves that we are making it more sport specific. Athletes in games are responding to endless cues, external and internal, often conflicting, at every moment in a game.
However, its good to keep in mind that trying to approximate in-game demands will come at the cost of what started us down this road: the desire to isolate a player's cognitive performance from their motor performance via a true agility test. We don't do our athletes nor ourselves any favours by piling gratuitous complications on top of the necessary complexity.
Addressing those latter concerns in training will not only give them a potentially overdue deloading in their strength & conditioning work, but by enhancing their cognitive / reactive abilities they may be able to break through their plateau both on the agility task and on the physical aspects.
GEORGE M. PERRY
George M. Perry is a sport performance and track & field coach in Houston, Texas, working mainly with youth athletes. In addition to helping athletes build a foundation for success across sports, he also applies his principle of "You can't move fast if you can't move well" to prepare clients for the physical demands of the military and law enforcement.
When not coaching, George is a widely published writer across all facets of the sports industry, from human performance to policy and law.
References:
Moreira, P.E.D.; Dieguez, G.T.d.O.; Bredt, S.d.G.T.; Praça, G.M. The Acute and Chronic Effects of Dual-Task on the Motor and Cognitive Performances in Athletes: A Systematic Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 1732. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph18041732
Brinkbäumer M, Kupper C, Reichert L and Zentgraf K (2024) Dual-task costs in speed tasks: a comparison between elite ice hockey, open-skill and closed-skill sports athletes. Front. Psychol. 15:1357312. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1357312
Nimphius, Sophia1,4; Callaghan, Samuel J.1; Spiteri, Tania2; Lockie, Robert G.3. Change of Direction Deficit: A More Isolated Measure of Change of Direction Performance Than Total 505 Time. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 30(11):p 3024-3032, November 2016. | DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001421
Barrera-Domínguez, Francisco & Jones, Paul & Almagro, Bartolomé & Molina-López, Jorge. (2024). Determination of change of direction deficit thresholds across a spectrum of angles in basketball players. Journal of Sports Sciences. 42. 1-8. 10.1080/02640414.2024.2354624.
Dos'Santos T, Thomas C, Comfort P, Jones PA. The Effect of Angle and Velocity on Change of Direction Biomechanics: An Angle-Velocity Trade-Off. Sports Med. 2018 Oct;48(10):2235-2253. doi: 10.1007/s40279-018-0968-3. PMID: 30094799; PMCID: PMC6132493.
Gabbett TJ, Kelly JN, Sheppard JM. Speed, change of direction speed, and reactive agility of rugby league players. J Strength Cond Res. 2008 Jan;22(1):174-81. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e31815ef700. PMID: 18296972.
