Agility is the ability to accelerate, decelerate, stabilize, and quickly change directions with proper posture. Quickness is the ability to react and change body position with a maximum rate of force production (1).

Agility refers to short bursts of movement that involve a change in direction, cadence, or speed. Quickness refers to the ability to react to stimulus and appropriately change the motion of the body.

Agility is the ability to sprint in multiple directions, or what we’d call running and cutting, while still maintaining postural control. And quickness refers to the ability to react to a stimulus and appropriately change the motion of the body in response to that stimulus.

Quickness: This is the ability of a person to react without hesitating. Agility: This demands a high level of neuromuscular efficiency to keep one’s center of gravity. Whereas speed focuses on one’s movement in one single plane, agility focuses on multiple planes. Requires constant deceleration and acceleration.

Think of the back leg in a sprint. Agility: the power of moving quickly and easily; in all directions with efficiency. Quickness: the ability to react to a environmental stimulus requiring movement.