The Pro Agility Drill is a test that measures change of direction speed. It is best known for its use in the NFL Scouting Combine. But when you look closely, it’s a simply an agility drill and can be used as such. There’s no reason why it should be used exclusively as a test.

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We often use it to improve the agility of athletes whose sports are played on a field or court. However, there are some limitations that we need to address.

With the standard Pro Agiltiy Drill, you simply sprint and change directions. That’s great because both are essential skills in sports. But there are many different movements that athletes transition between in various directions. So to help build complete agility skillsets, we integrate different movements—such as Sprints, Carioca, Backpedals and Shuffles—into each leg of the Pro Agility drill.

I’ve listed our favorite options below, but first you need to learn how to set up the drill.

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Pro Agility Drill Set-Up & Instructions

• Place three cones 5 yards apart in a straight line (especially easy to do on a football field).
• Start at the middle cone in your ready position.
• Sprint either to the left or right for 5 yards.
• Stop at the cone, change directions and sprint 10 yards to the far cone.
• Stop, change directions and sprint past the middle cone.

Pro Agility Drill Variations

• Sprint/Sprint/Sprint
• Start on Stomach: Sprint/Sprint/Sprint
• Start Half-Kneeling: Sprint/Sprint/Sprint
• Shuffle/Sprint/Shuffle
• Shuffle All
• Carioca/Sprint/Carioca
• Carioca All
• Crossover Run/Sprint/Crossover Run
• Crossover Run all
• Sprint/Backpedal/Sprint
• Backpedal/Sprint/Backpedal

To make it even more challenging, you can combine different movements into a single rep of the drill.

• Shuffle/Carioca/Sprint
• Carioca/Sprint/Backpedal
• Sprint/Carioca/Sprint
• Crossover Run/Sprint/Carioca
• Backpedal/Sprint/Carioca

As you get better with the movement skills, you can change the variations of the drill.

Takeaways

• There are many ways to perform the Pro Agility Drill.
• Combining different movements changes the difficulty of the drill and allows you move in more than one plane.

We like to perform this drill for 4-5 reps in each direction, resting for 60-90 seconds between reps. This ensures that athletes train in both directions equally, and are fully recovered between reps so they can perform the drill as explosively as possible.

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