Agility Drills for Kids

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and certainly none of us would like to hang around with a dull Jack, overfed and over-sized with no opportunity to allow burning the extra calories. Fast food has added to our woes with junk food making the issue even more complex. Fast-moving world and even faster moving technological race are proving to be a proposition difficult to cope with, especially, so with children rapidly falling into Dull Jack category. Investing time in children is fairly on the decline for working parents who have a job to look after. Interestingly, some outfits including schools have designed certain amount of drills and practices wherein the agility amongst kids is being well addressed.

A dedicated course of drills has been introduced which ensures physical fitness and retention of agility and speed. These agility drills for kids have also been included with recreational values, elements of a healthy competition and designed to prevent injuries to children. Some of these exercises have been explained below.

Agility and Strength Training

Warming-up Drills
Before beginning these drills, it's pertinent that your child warms up the body to avoid muscle cramps. Therefore, short sprints, gradually increasing the distance with each practice, in the form of red/green light, chase the thief and a flying airplane would make it interesting as well enjoyable. Innovation of more such games is entirely your business depending on what interests your kid most.

Touching the Markers
Imagine two markers, maybe two sides of your lawn or two hedge linings in the neighboring park, at a distance not exceeding 15 to 20 feet, lest it becomes exhaustive and uninteresting for the kid. Instruct the children to run in between these two markers and touch their bases on the ground as many times as possible in a specified time depending upon the age group of kids. Place an incentive for them to do better each time. These drills have tremendous potential in toning the limb muscles as also the waist and hips. Sweating is one part which cuts down the extra calories not wanted by the body.

Skipping Rope Drills
Without an iota of doubt, skipping rope is one such agility training which helps in toning up almost each and every muscle of the body. In addition to strengthening the body as a whole skipping makes the joints strong, supple and improves the anatomical functions of various vital organs of the body. But watch out to be sure your child adopts skipping only after wearing comfortable sports shoes to avoid injury to feet and nails.

Agility and Speed Training

Musical Chair
Musical Chair is a world-wide popular game amongst young as well as the older lot. But very few of us are aware of the fact that speed and agility drills imparts great degree of exercise to the various parts of our body. Swinging of the body to-and-fro in a bid to secure a chair, besides developing agility, also helps in sharpening the mind by keeping the brain alert. This is achieved by sheer concentration on music thereby, quickly responding as and when it plays and pauses. Musical chair can be organized both indoors and outdoors and can be great fun.

Hip Hop Hopscotch
A very simple and popular sport, especially, with school going kids, hopscotch demands equally simple accessories like a piece of chalk and a small marker. Rectangular numerically arranged boxes are designed on the ground or floor. The marker is thrown in the boxes as per pre-decided rules of the game and the participants hop on to the desired box on one leg. As these drills are gradually progresses, the distance for hopping increases and so does the speed and stress on the muscles making them stronger and agile.

Outdoor games by and large are the best avenues where a child besides exercising the body, learns far too many things from his friends and peers. These agility drills also contribute towards building of confidence and sportsmanship in a child. Important for his overall development of personality, outdoor games cannot be substituted. A well maintained body and balanced diet are the two tips which go a long way in keeping the body fit and healthy even when old age catches up.