Multidirectional Speed in Sport

During field and court-based sports, players are continually required to perceive their environment within a match and select and perform the most appropriate action to achieve their immediate goal within that match instance. This ability is commonly known as agility, considered a vital quality in such sports and may incorporate a variety of locomotion and instantaneous actions.

Multidirectional speed is a global term to describe the competency and capacity to perform such actions, to accelerate, decelerate, change direction and ultimately maintain speed in multiple directions and movements within the context of sports specific scenarios, encompassing many of these agility, speed, and related qualities. Multidirectional speed in sport depends on a multitude of factors including perceptual-cognitive abilities, physical qualities, and the technical ability to perform the abovementioned actions.

Multidirectional Speed in Sport: Research to Application reviews the science of multidirectional speed and translates this information into real-world application in order to provide a resource for practitioners to develop multidirectional speed with athletes, bringing together knowledge from a wealth of world-leading researchers and applied practitioners in the area of 'speed and agility' to provide a complete resource to assist practitioners in designing effective multidirectional speed development programmes.

This text is critical reading for undergraduate and graduate sports science students, all individuals involved in training athletes (e.g., coaches, physiotherapists, athletic trainers) along with researchers in the field of sports science and sports medicine.