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Boost your fitness with our top 11 agility ladder drills designed to enhance speed, improve coordination, and burn calories quickly!
Are you looking for a fun and effective way to burn calories and stay in shape? Agility ladder drills aren’t just for the elite athlete. Ladder exercises can be the perfect way to get started with athletic style training, even for the non-athlete.
They improve three key fitness factors—speed, agility, and quickness—in addition to strengthening your joints, ligaments, and tendons. They are also a great way to get your heart pumping (and calories melting). Explore my full list of agility ladder exercise benefits.
Get started with agility ladder workouts following my instructions below using my full video workout or individual exercises below.
Agility Ladder Workout Instructions:
This workout is considered a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout because it requires you to expend all-out effort for short bursts of time and then rest.
- Perform each drill two times in a row.
- Move down the ladder, shuffle back to the beginning of the ladder again and do it one more time.
- Do that for each of the 11 ladder drills.
- Take a rest to catch your breath and then repeat all 11 again!
Watch the videos for a demonstration of each move and read the description of each drill to learn how to do each move.
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Table of Contents
1. Single Foot In Each Square
For the Single Foot In Each Square ladder exercise, place one foot in each square, alternating. Be sure to pick up your feet and move from the first box through the full length of the ladder.
The higher you can pick your knees up while running through the ladder, the more efficient and effective this exercise will be.
2. Two Feet In Each Square
For the Two Feet In Each Square ladder exercise, place two feet in each square before moving onto the next. You want to stay on the balls of your feet and move your feet quickly for this agility ladder drill.
Similar to the single leg in each square, the extra challenge to this move is to also pick up your knees. Think high knees down the ladder. This will push your heart rate further and uses a bigger range of motion.
3. Lateral Stepping
For this Lateral Stepping ladder drill, stand lateral in to the agility ladder with your right foot ready to lead. Start going down the agility ladder by placing two feet in each square. Stay on the balls of the feet and as you move laterally. You want to keep your toes and hips facing forward the entire time until you reach the end of the ladder.
Do this same thing on the other side, leading with the left foot and moving in the opposite direction.
Facing laterally and sprinting down the ladder forces us to move in a different plane of motion and challenges our minds as well.
4. Jumping Jack Feet
For the Jumping Jack Feet ladder exercise, jump two feet together inside a square, then jump out while moving down the ladder. Just as you would do regular jumping jacks, continue to use your arms in an overhead position to increase the heart rate.
Stay on the balls of the feet as you jack them out and in down the entire ladder.
5. In In Out Out
For this In In Out Out ladder drill, begin by placing the right foot in the square and then the left foot. Then you will step outside of the ladder with the right foot, then the left, leaving both feet on the outside of the ladder.
You will follow the pattern of in in, out out, leading with the same foot as you go down the entire ladder.
Once you come back, the challenge is to start with the opposite foot, making sure you are evening out your body and not always choosing the more dominant foot to lead.
6. Lateral Carioca
For this Lateral Carioca ladder drill, start by standing on the left side of the ladder, allowing your left foot to be the leading leg. Step sideways with your lead foot (left) into the first square, then cross-step your opposite foot over the lead foot as you move to the second box.
You will grapevine down the entire ladder with the “non-leading” foot either stepping in front or behind the lead leg.
Continue to move laterally across the ladder while focusing on quick footwork and stable hip movement. Repeat this pattern on the other side.
7. Cross-Overs
This is one of my favorite agility ladder drills! For this Cross-Overs ladder drill, begin by starting on one side of the ladder (doesn’t matter which side because you will do both sides), but for our sake, we are going to start on the right side.
Take a lateral step into the first square with the left foot, then immediately follow with the right foot.
Then you will step laterally to the left side of the ladder with the left foot. The right foot will then lead into the second box.
The left foot will meet the right in the second square, then take a step to the outside of the ladder on the right with the right foot. Continue down the entire ladder focusing on quickness and agility.
The pattern will always be two feet into the square, one foot on the outside, but each time you will lead with the opposite leg.
8. Icky Shuffle
Begin by starting on one side of the ladder (doesn’t matter which side because you will do both sides), but for our sake, we are going to start on the right side.
Take a lateral step into the first square with the left foot, then immediately follow with the right foot.
Then you will step laterally to the left side of the ladder with the left foot. The right foot will then lead into the second box.
The left foot will meet the right in the second square, then take a step to the outside of the ladder on the right with the right foot. Continue down the entire ladder focusing on quickness and agility.
The pattern will always be two feet into the square, one foot on the outside, but each time you will lead with the opposite leg.
9. Single Foot Hops
Begin by standing on the left foot. Hop through the ladder on the left foot the entire way down the ladder.
Once you reach the end of the ladder and you make your way back to the starting position, you will stand on the right foot and complete the same pattern on the opposite foot.
10. Side Shuffle Speed
Start on the right side of the ladder. The right foot will always step inside each square and the left, outside foot will always be on the outside of the ladder.
Begin by leading with the inside foot stepping into the first square. The opposite foot (left) will step on the outside of the ladder following in the footsteps.
You will repeat this pattern all the way down the ladder. Once returning to the start position, start on the opposite side of the ladder leading with the opposite foot.
The key to quickness is staying light on the balls of your feet and a soft bend through the knees the entire way down the ladder.
11. Walking Push-ups
This Walking Push-ups ladder drill is a full-body move. Start in a high plank position, shoulders stacked directly over the wrists and legs long behind you. Walk the lead arm into the first square of the ladder, squeeze your core and drop down to the bottom of a push-up.
When you come to the top of the push-up you will walk your hands into the next two squares.
Move laterally down the agility ladder, doing a push-up in each square. Make sure you take this one slow at first so you can get your form right.
Repeat on both sides of the ladder switching the leading arm. Walking push-ups are a good way to incorporate strength movements with the agility ladder.
Where To Find an Agility Ladder
Ready to get started with an agility workout? First, you need a ladder. There are several different options if you want to do agility ladder drills right.
You can choose a ladder that is a roll-out mat, one with plastic slats, or simply draw your own with chalk.
Ladders will range in price according to which variety you choose, but as you can see from the video above, I like the roll-out kind.
They stay in place and in my opinion are better quality.
If you want to make your own agility ladder using chalk or duct tape, create boxes that are roughly 16 x 13, and make the whole ladder roughly 15 ft long.
Of course, if the dimensions of the squares aren’t precisely the same as the ones you’d buy online, it’s not a huge deal. Just get outdoors and move those feet to the end of the ladder!
Give just one of these ladder exercises a try as part of your next workout. Don’t expect to be an expert the first time, just have fun and repeat!
how much sets and reps tho?
Whatever you’re comfortable with. I would do 3 or 4 reps for each move.
I’m in my 70’s, have been an athlete my entire life–did many of these back when I played tennis in high school and college; but now I have Parkinson’s Disease and am having a heck of a time even remembering how to do many of the reps, let alone with speed. It’s been quite a challenge, but doing the ladder exerciseds have helped to improve both my physical and cognitive ability. I actually had to relearn how to walk correctly several years ago. Ladder exercises, daily tai chi chu’an, and using the TRX machine I purchased (along with interval training) is helping me to grow younger. As a surfer, tennis player and martial arts master, I never enjoyed nor believed in exercising, but as I move into the latter stage of my life, I’ve become a believer in fitness exercises such as daily use of the agility ladder as a necessary part of my daily health maintenance routine.
I’ve never tried an agility ladder before but I see that it seems like a real killer cardio! You convinced me to try. It should be a perfect workout after Christmas break, to burn all the extra calories 🙂
So happy we convinced you to try! It is truly a fun and different way to do cardio! Switch up the patterns and you’ll have a blast. Plus it keeps your brain in the game as well!
it’s very interesting!