Can Speed, Agility & Mobility Decrease Injury?

It's Thursday and that means I get my weekly fix of Ports Illustrated thanks to my good friend and training client Tommy C. (thanks Tom).

Anyway, After training my clients this morning I got a chance to sit down and read through the upcoming issue.

Inside this edition there was a little blurb about a NFL Players poll. Here was the question that was voted on -

Who is the least mobile quarterback in the NFL?

It then listed the top five who were voted on the most. Do you know who # 1 was?

Peyton Manning (shocker huh). Tom Brady, Kurt Warner, Byron Leftwich, and Phillip Rivers then followed in that order. What was most shocking to me was that Peyton Manning got 41% of the vote, and the others were all around 5%-9%.

Pretty interesting. These guys are all top rated quarterbacks, but are also not perceived as being very mobile or agile. Is it necessary to be fast, mobile , and agile in order to excel as a quarterback? It doesn't appear to be so. Heck - there are 3 MVP players on that list above.

But here's the catch - even though these guys are great athletes and have obviously proven themselves as elite performers, does their inability to move efficiently put them at risk of injury?

I think it does... The most interesting part of this little poll I just read says it all. "All of the Top 5 quarterback listed above (voted for being the least mobile), have suffered a knee or ankle injury resulting in surgery, except Kurt Warner.

So the moral of the story is what? Maybe it pays to put the time and effort into Speed, Agility, And quickness training, even if you are an athlete that doesn't always need to be lightning fast. Think about it. Tom Brady's recent injury was contact related remember...

But what if he was a bit more mobile in the pocket. Could he have prevented the hit by putting himself in better position?

Not I realize that there are cases where contact injuries will occur, but if you have any mobility issues can't that predispose you to injury?

makes you think....