Understanding the difference between speed, agility and quickness - The simple explanation

Speed, Agility & Quickness

In our field the shorthand for this is SAQ training.  As I talk to people that are not strength coaches I realize that most people don't even know what a strength and conditioning program encompasses, no less what SAQ training is.  I often get asked if we work on speed in our strength and conditioning program.  Well, that is what a strength and conditioning coach does, makes athletes faster, stronger, more explosive and durable.  It's funny, most people need to hear the word speed to think that the training is making an athlete faster.  The fact is, and taking a line from Tommy Boy, "I can crap in a box and mark it guaranteed, I got spare time, but we all know the guarantee is only as good as the person writing it".   The same is true with speed training, just because someone slaps the word speed on what they are doing does not mean that it will make an athlete faster.  Again, the program is only as good as the person writing it and if they are just haphazardly having kids run around cones and through ladders, we call that babysitting, not training.  So when we talk about training for sport, in order to truly build a better athlete a running program must address speed, agility and quickness.  The problem is when it comes to SAQ training I realized that people only really care about the word speed.  To most people speed encompasses all movement aspects of sport.  The fact is that this could not be further from the truth.  In this blog I will help everyone understand the difference between speed, agility and quickness in a very easy to understand way.

Speed - The ability to run 30 yards or longer in the shortest amount of time.

Agility - The ability to run back and forth or laterally from two points that are relatively close together in the shortest amount of time.

Quickness - The ability to explosively start which allows one to run for the first few yards in the shortest amount of time.

So how do I explain this in the easiest to understand format, easy, let's use your house for an example.  If you are standing in your living room by the couch (which happens to be right by your back door) and the TV is across the room, Speed is your ability to run out your back door to the end of your block in the shortest amount of time, Agility is your ability to run from the couch to the TV and back to the couch the in the shortest amount of time and Quickness is the ability to get from your couch to your TV in the shortest amount of time.

So there you have it, next time someone talks about an athlete having speed as they make a great cut, you will be able to say, they showed agility there, not speed.