There are a number of instances in athletics where it is important to be able to take a tight turn while running at full speed. You may be running a route in football, rounding a base in baseball, or eluding a defender in soccer. Like a lot of agility movements, there are techniques to help with running curves and drills to help reinforce these techniques.
Drill #1:
You need four cones for this drill, set them up like they are pictured below. Stand at cone 1 and get in your ready position. Sprint to cone 2. As you reach cone 2, run around cone 2 to either the right or the left. Run past cone 3, which is the finish line. When rounding cone 2, drop your inside shoulder to help you stay tight to the cone.
Cone set up can be seen below:
Drill #2:
You need three cones for this drill, set them up like they are pictured below. Stand at cone 1 and get in your ready position. Sprint to cone 2. When you reach cone 2, turn around and sprint back to cone 1. When you reach cone 1, turn around and sprint back to cone 2. As you approach cone 2, turn around it and sprint towards cone 3. Run around cone 3, run back to cone 2, turn around cone 2 and run past cone 1 which is the finish line. As you round each cone, make sure to drop your inside shoulder to stay tight to the cone. For variety, place cone 3 to the left of cone 2 and run the drill in that direction.
Each of these drills should be done three to five times during agility training when this needs to be emphasized. The distances between the cones should be varied every time you do these drills to that you learn the skill as opposed to the drill.
The layout for this drill can be seen below:
You can also see examples of drills on these pages: http://youtu.be/ykvr26x6eeo , http://youtu.be/NFWTMlB2kdA , and http://youtu.be/GElMwnlPuoA
