Today’s episode features Nick DiMarco, director of sports performance at Elon University.

With a thorough understanding of training loads, and the components behind transferable agility training, Nick has a unique array of insights he brings to the coaching table.  As a former professional athlete (NY Jets and Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker in 2014), Nick is well versed in the intuitive aspects of what it takes to be a high achieving athlete.  Nick is on track to finish his PhD in Health and Human Performance at Concordia University of Chicago by early 2020.

When it comes to agility and change of direction training, there are a lot of questions on the context and integration of perception/reaction work.  At the end of the day, the more elements of sport we as coaches can engage and overload, the better, and this area of the field has exciting possibilities for transfer to athletes.

This concept follows up to the last show with Mike Guadango on the evolution of the strength coach and the sports skill industry as a whole:  Where does the role of the strength coach in terms of reactive agility training fit in the grand scheme of things?  How do we intermix the different layers of the Bondarchuk pyramid in terms of training transfer?  Does “basic agility technique” outside of reactive stimuli need to be trained or considered?

Nick covers many of these concepts and more in today’s show, as well as describing his system of categorization of perception and reaction work.   He also shares ideas on assessing the results of such a training system, which is a question that many coaches have when considering implementing the work and gauging their progress.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.



View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.



Key Points

Nick’s background in perception/reaction style work
The categorization of perception/reaction elements in programming
Nick’s take on the hard skill vs. soft skill argument in agility training for sport
How Nick integrates the perception/reaction work into a training day and week
What is Nick trying to overload in the perception reaction space that athletes are not getting in their specific sport practice
How Nick’s perception reaction work fits in the grand scheme of sport coaching
Assessing the results of a perception/reaction based program




“We had guys who were great at a 5-10-5 or 3-cone drill, and then they would get on the field and were terrible football players”

“What are you trying to do in any field sport: you are either trying to evade a defender, or stay in front of an offensive guy and try to score or not let them score”

“(In regards to perception/reaction) We have a mirror category, we have a dodge category, we have a chaser category and we have a score category”

“You are never going to use that exact technique (of canned agility) no matter how engrained it is in you, when you are reacting to the environment versus a drill”

“(Regarding implementation of agility work in the week) With Tuesdays we’ll do a mirror category and chaser category, and then on Friday we’ll do a mirror or chaser category, and a score category.”

“The options in perception/reaction are limitless”

“In every sport the 1 on 1 situations are pretty critical so we’ll focus on that a lot”

“For basketball with your guards and forwards playing on the perimeter, if they can get more blow-by’s and prevent more blow-by’s as a defender, then that is a huge deal for them, so for them focusing on the mirror drills, and tight spaces (is important)…

“(In terms of training transfer, you are) trying to make the scenarios as close to the sport as you can, you’re not the sport coach, but at close as you can where it’s going to have some carryover”

“In the grand scheme of things,