20+ Agility drills for kids: An Extensive Guide

To explain the word agility in simple terms, it involves kids moving with quick and nimble movements 🏃🏽‍♀️, which is an essential factor to excel in sports.

Agility drills help our kids to develop themselves athletically. Apart from being fit and active, I also believe that our kids must practice a few agility drills to improve their fitness levels.

Agility drills for kids

I believe that practicing agility drills is essential for your kids to experience success in sports ⚽️ while ensuring they are safe and have a lower risk of injuries and strains. 

Agility drills contribute to making kids develop their balance, coordination, concentration, and response times as they play a particular sport or for daily life movements.

These agility-based drills can get kids to become quick and agile on their feet while dealing with changing environments and directions 🧭.

In this blog post, I have included a list of agility drills for your kids to practice. 

Ladder Drills

Practicing drills with ladders 🪜 is a popular agility practice that your kids can try as a cross-training to improve their speed, burn calories, and allow them to be quick on their feet.

A few examples of ladder drills that your kids can do are –

• Place one foot in each square
• Place two feet in each square
• Move in and out of the squares
• Laterally, step into the squares 

I must point out that the end goal of this exercise is to let your kids work on their footwork and their ability to move quickly. 

Pro Tip:

You can invest in a good quality agility ladder that you can use many times. Another alternative is that you can make the squares of the ladder manually using masking tape or chalk pieces.

Agility Balls

Agility drills with balls 🎾 are simple and can be done with just the balls and a wall at home. 

Some agility ball drills that your kids can do are –

• Kids can hold the ball next to the ear and drop it from that height. Then, they can squat on the floor and try to catch the ball before it hits the ground.
• Kids can toss a ball toward a wall and catch it with one hand, repeating it with both hands.
• Kids can hold one ball in each hand and bounce each ball as fast as possible, taking turns between each hand.

You can make your kids do each drill divided into sets and repeat the routine. 

Practicing with agility balls can help our kids improve their concentration and focus and work on their coordination skills.

Shuttle Runs

Shuttle runs 🏃🏽‍♀️ are one of my son’s preferred agility drills that he does often.

Steps to do:

• Make your kids stand at the starting line and also mark a finish line.
• Now, get your kids to sprint as fast as they can from the starting line to the finish line and back a few times, maybe 5-6 times. 
• Kids can rest for 5 minutes and then resume this drill again. 

Shuttle runs help kids increase their speed and pace and the ability to take quick turns. 

Side Shuffle

Side shuffles are an agility drill that helps boost your kids’ metabolism due to lateral movement. 

Steps to do:

• Make your kids stand in one place with their feet a bit wider apart than hip distance.
• Then, get them to bend their knees a little and bend forward with their hips.
• Now, they can move to the right or left with quick and small shuffles until a certain marked point or distance and repeat the same shuffles in the other direction.

Linear Run

Linear runs 🏃🏽 are a simple agility drill that your kids can do to improve their speed and reaction time.

Make your kids stand at the starting line and run as fast as they can in a straight line. Now, randomly ask them to stop for them to halt running. 

You basically decide where the finish point will be, and this helps your kids work on the time they take to respond and stop running.

High Knees

High knees are an effective agility drill that kids will benefit from.

Steps to do:

• Make your kids stand at the starting line.
• Then, get them to run forward on their toes and raise their knees high up as they run.
• You can mark a start and finish point for kids to follow.

The main goal of this drill is for kids to raise their knees higher as they run forward rather than the length of their steps, which improves their balance and helps increase their speed.

Balloon Drill

Most kids love playing with balloons 🎈, which come in handy as an agility drill that kids will enjoy.

Steps to do:

• You can choose two colors of balloons and fill them with air.
• Now, make your kids choose an order of the colors and toss them in the air,
• Your kids can hit the balloons based on the order of the colors, making sure they stay in the air without touching the ground.
• For example – if they choose blue first and red second, kids can first hit the blue balloon in the air, followed by the red, then blue, and repeat, making sure they don’t hit the floor.

Practicing agility drills can help kids improve their concentration and response and develop their coordination abilities.

Cone Drills

Cone dribbles can help our kids learn to accelerate, decelerate, and adapt to a change in direction. 

To do this agility drill, you can place a few cones in a straight line and make your kids do a combination of runs between the equally spaced cones in straight and zig-zag motions.

You can also place a series of cones in a straight line and get your kids to touch each cone, come back to the first cone, and then run forward to touch the next cone. 

For example – kids can start at Cone 1, touch Cone 2, come back to Cone 1, and then move to Cone 3, come back to Cone 1, and repeat. 

Pro Tip:

I recommend you also include a basketball and a football for kids to work with while passing each cone.

Benefits of Agility Drills for Kids

Better Athletic Performance

As I mentioned before, agility drills and training play a major part in helping kids develop their athletic performance, which can make them excel at sports.

The quick and agile movements, response times, balance, coordination, and stability ultimately are factors that can help kids play a sport of their choice with better athletic performance, like football ⚽️, basketball 🏀, cricket 🏏, badminton 🏸, and so on.

Thus, I would say that agility drills are invaluable for track and field sports that your kids play.

Prevents Injuries

As our kids practice agility drills, they develop a scenario in which they can avoid a lot of possible injuries.  

I would say that these agility drills can help kids improve their balance and stability, develop their flexibility, and have more control over their movements. 

Improves Balance and Coordination

Practicing agility drills helps kids develop their ability to balance ⚖️ their bodies and their hand-eye coordination efficiently. 

The ability to balance is also needed for a better response time and for making quick and abrupt stops in the middle of physical activities.

As kids consistently do these agility drills, they can help kids improve their balancing skills, which can help them excel in many sports. The ability to balance also plays a major role in kids reducing the risk of injuries.

Shows Results in Less Time

I found that we can notice the outcomes of doing agility drills in a short time 🕰️ as the exercises are highly intensive in nature.

In short, we can find noticeable results within a short span of time, which can help motivate kids to do better and improve their agility even more.

Shortens Recovery Time

Sometimes, when our kids suffer from strains and pulls after exercises, it might take them a considerable amount of time before they begin to function normally. 

The best part about these agility exercises is that they lessen the time needed for kids to recover 🤕 from any strain or pull. 

When kids engage in ability training drills consistently, they build their musculoskeletal system strength, which lessens the recovery time.

Improves Speed

Agility drills can help kids become quicker on their feet and develop their agility to become faster and agile in performing actions and physical movements.

Being agile and quick on the feet is beneficial for kids in all sports and activities.

Build a Mind-Body Connection

I would say that these agility drills are essential for the mind 🧠 as much as they are for the body. 

As our kids practice these agility-based drills, a connection is established in the brain, which builds pathways in the brain to reach faster to various stimuli it receives from the body.

Conclusion

I’m happy to report that these agility drills have helped my son a lot while he plays sports 🏏. 

They help our kids move their bodies more efficiently and quickly, and I hope your kids benefit from the agility-based drills like my son did. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this list of agility drills and found some ideas for your kids to try.

Please leave a comment if you have any more agility drill ideas to share or any questions for me to answer – I would love to hear from you. 😊