Fall 2025
The importance of speed, agility, and change of direction in police training
Speed, agility, and change of direction (COD) are some of the most critical skills that law enforcement officers (LEOs) need to exhibit daily.
The ability to confidently move in all three planes of anatomical human movement (sagittal, frontal, and transverse) will aid LEOs in increasing their confidence to preemptively avoid dangerous situations and also in reacting more efficiently to stressors and mitigating musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries. The physical adaptations of strength, power, and muscular endurance and cardiovascular capacity are critical for our nation’s LEOs, but often, speed, agility, and COD are overlooked components in the LEOs’ toolbox. Developing the physical stature or aesthetics for an LEO is important and aids in their respective command presence. However, speed, agility, and COD training can provide that small amount of additive training that can reap huge benefits in their overall job performance.
These multi-directional maneuvering patterns will enhance optimal human tactical performance attributes and aid in career longevity. Without a fundamental basis in agility, an officer may struggle to perform preemptive or reactive movements when most needed, both for themselves and to assist their colleagues in times of need. Starting a training program will better equip officers to perform optimally during their shifts, enabling them to make physiological adaptations at a moment’s notice.
What are speed, agility, and COD drills, and why are they critically necessary in an LEO’s daily job?
Speed, agility, and COD share physical and cognitive characteristics, yet differ from one another. Agility is the ability to move and react quickly, involving both physical and perceptual-cognitive components. Agility couples acceleration and deceleration, which contribute to one’s overall velocity and speed, thereby producing power at a higher output. Agility helps strengthen bones, ligaments and tendons, and stabilizes muscles. A lack of agility results in slower movements, reduced reaction time, velocity and speed. On an elementary basis, agility strengthens our Achilles tendon, which gives the LEO the ability to explode with power, to leap/jump, and maneuver with precision during an altercation. A healthy tendon is a stiff tendon, and a stiff Achilles tendon is a pliable tendon. A stiff tendon is similar to a rubber band and can absorb stretching before being snapped, and then subsequently reacts with a significant amount of force for optimal performance. The role of the tendon provides the absorption of an eccentric load before it contracts concentrically.
Whether an officer is idly stationary in a patrol car or suddenly pursuing or apprehending a suspect, the LEO needs elements of reaction, speed and power. To deploy from their vehicle quickly and efficiently, an officer requires speed, agility and COD to perform tasks such as arrests, foot pursuits, or tactical entries into residences while carrying the external load that can weigh between 20 and 40 pounds. Furthermore, SWAT operators carry even more, including breaching tools based on their individual team roles.
Change of direction is the ability to move in a new direction or pattern while decelerating, only to readjust and then reaccelerate. This involves physical capacity and proficiency in technique. Lastly, agility and change of direction training benefit LEOs by creating distance from suspects, as reaction time is critical in dynamic situations.
Examples of an LEO’s training for speed, agility and change of direction
Although speed, agility, and change of direction training are often overlooked, starting a well-devised training program in these areas will better equip officers to perform optimally during shifts, enabling physiological adaptations to be called upon at a moment’s notice and reducing the onset of MSK injuries.
In the Domex Strength & Fitness training curriculum, we generally begin with these drills at a low intensity and then make a linear and ascending progression depending upon the LEOs’ training experience in these different modes, and additionally, their goals and objectives. What we emphasize is that as youth athletes or even college athletes, we train in all these adaptations for performance in our chosen sport, a few months out of the year, and realize the importance and the direct transfer to the respective sport. However, we tend to overlook and dismiss this type of training for more traditional modes of training or the latest fads/trends, yet our lives are daily on the line in which speed, agility and change of direction are required depending on the assignment or until eventual retirement. This type of training should be implemented with every uniformed officer, detective, SWAT team, and for those in administrative/managerial positions to create “buy-in” with the rank and file and to illustrate realistic leadership. At a minimum, this real-life-based training supports and builds healthy ligaments, tendons, and bones, and thus meets the criteria for any LEO assignments.
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Some basic exercises to start on this program design would be to include: agility ladders, hops, skips and jumps, jumping rope, broad jumps, band-assisted jumps, box jumps, shuffles, sprints, uphill sprints, and weight-bearing/tactical vest sprints.
In closing, speed, agility and change of direction for the LEO are essential components of the true tactical athlete’s arsenal and should be programmed effectively for optimal human tactical performance. If overlooked, many of the positive attributes outlined in this article may become obstacles to you and/or your department’s officers.
