The Pro Agility Drill and the Three-Cone Drill: Technique and Training
The pro agility shuttle and the three-cone drill measure how well a player changes direction. Learn how each is run, the technique behind a fast time and how to train for both.
Straight-line speed gets the headlines, but football is played in a phone booth more often than on a track. A running back plants and cuts, a defensive back flips his hips to follow a receiver, a pass rusher bends around a tackle's shoulder. Two short drills have become the standard way to put a stopwatch on that skill: the pro agility drill, also called the 5-10-5 or short shuttle, and the three-cone drill, also called the L-drill.
Both drills are run at the NFL Scouting Combine and at many college and high school camps. Both look simple, and both are surprisingly technical. A player who runs them poorly often loses time through small things such as an upright turn, a step that is too long or a hand placed at the wrong spot, and these are fixable. This guide explains how each drill is set up, what a fast run looks like and how to train for it without wasting effort on tricks that do not carry over.
Why change of direction is its own skill
Running fast and changing direction are related but not identical. To change direction, an athlete has to decelerate, which means absorbing the body's momentum with the legs. Then the athlete has to re-accelerate in a new direction. Players who are fast in a straight line but cannot slow down quickly lose time at every cut. Players who can brake well, stay low and push off hard can beat faster runners in the shuttle.
Coaches often break a cut into pieces:
- Approach. The speed the athlete brings into the cut.
- Braking. The last steps before the plant, where the athlete lowers the hips and shortens the stride.
- Plant. The outside foot strikes the ground and pushes the body in the new direction.
- Re-acceleration. The first few steps out of the cut, with a forward lean like the start of a sprint.
A fast time comes from doing each piece cleanly rather than from frantic effort. This is why better technique usually improves the times of players who think they are already trying as hard as they can.
The pro agility drill (5-10-5)
Setup and rules
The drill uses three lines, each five yards apart, so the total span is ten yards. The athlete starts straddling the middle line, usually in a three-point stance, with one hand on the line. On the command, the athlete runs five yards to one side and touches the outside line with the hand on that side, runs ten yards across to the far line and touches it with the other hand, then runs five yards back through the middle line to finish. The total distance is 20 yards, and the drill is timed from the first movement to the finish.
Which direction the athlete goes first is often chosen by the athlete or the tester, and the basic layout is the same nearly everywhere. Some camps and school tests alter details, such as whether the athlete must touch the line with a hand or a foot. If a test matters to you, ask the tester for the exact rules in advance.
What a fast run looks like
- A low, quiet start. The athlete drives from the stance into the first five yards with a strong lean. The hand on the line should not be lifted early. Staying low for the first step helps avoid popping upright.
- Planting with the outside foot. To turn at the first line, the foot nearest the line plants, and the hips drop. Many fast runners touch the line with the outside hand while keeping the chest over the foot.
- Turning through a short arc. Turning with the hips open and the feet close to the line is faster than swinging wide.
- The long middle leg. The ten-yard stretch is the only part with room to reach a good speed. Stay low and drive, then prepare to brake in the last two steps.
- A strong finish. The final five yards are another acceleration. Players who slow down early or look back lose time.
Common errors
Touching the line with the wrong hand, failing to touch the line at all, and stepping over the line before the touch can all cause a retest or a disqualified attempt. Running too wide or standing up on a turn costs time. Leaning back at the finish, looking at the timer or slowing before the line wastes tenths that would have been free.
The three-cone drill (L-drill)
Setup and rules
The three-cone drill uses three cones placed in an L shape, with each cone five yards from the next. Cone one and cone two form one leg of the L, and cone three sits five yards to the side of cone two, forming the other leg. The athlete starts in a stance at cone one.
The run, as commonly taught, goes like this:
- Sprint to cone two and touch the line at it.
- Sprint back to cone one and touch the line there.
- Turn and run to cone two again, then circle it on the inside, turning toward cone three.
- Weave around cone three, running around its outside, and return around cone two.
- Finish by sprinting through cone one.
The specifics of which side to pass each cone on and whether the athlete touches the cone or the line differ slightly between testers. Because the path is important and easy to mistake, study the official diagram used by the test you will run and rehearse that path. The distances and the L-shaped layout are standard.
Why it is harder than it looks
The three-cone drill packs several different movements into a short space: two 180-degree reversals, a weave around a cone and a wide turn. It includes at least one tight, rounded curve where the athlete has to lean the body toward the inside of the turn while keeping the feet moving. Athletes with good hip flexibility and strong ankles and hips often do well. Athletes who run upright or take wide, looping paths tend to lose time.
What a fast run looks like
- Stay close to the cones. The shortest legal path is faster than a wider one. At the same time, knocking a cone over is a mistake that can lead to a penalty or a retest.
- Lean into the curves. Dropping the inside shoulder and hip toward the cone lets the feet stay under the body at speed.
- Sink the hips on the reversals. The turns at cones one and two are made by lowering the hips, planting hard and pushing off.
- Use the arms. Pumping the arms in rhythm keeps the legs moving and helps balance.
- Keep your eyes on the next cone. Looking where you are going helps the body anticipate and turn.
Comparing the two drills
| Pro agility (5-10-5) | Three-cone drill | |
|---|---|---|
| Layout | Three lines on a straight line, five yards apart | Three cones in an L, five yards apart |
| Total distance | 20 yards | Longer and more winding than the shuttle |
| Main demands | Two hard reversals, straight-line bursts | Reversals plus curved running and weaving |
| Direction changes | Mostly 180 degrees | 180 degrees plus gradual curves |
| Common mistakes | Standing up on turns, missing a line | Wrong path, wide curves, hitting a cone |
The total path in the three-cone drill is longer than in the pro agility drill, and it is more complicated, so times are normally higher. Don't compare the two directly; a good time in one tells you little about a good time in the other.
Reading your own results
Imagine a hypothetical player, a safety, who runs the pro agility drill and then asks a coach why the time felt slow. The coach films the run from the side and looks at three things.
First, the start. If the first five yards look like a stand-up jog, the hips are rising too early and the athlete is not driving. The fix is posture: stay low and push the first step back and out.
Second, the turns. If the athlete takes an extra step at each line, or the feet land well outside the body, the plant is too wide. Drills that work on a single plant, with the athlete landing on the outside foot and driving off it, address this.
Third, the finish. If the athlete decelerates in the last two yards, the problem is mental rather than physical: run through the line, not to it.
This kind of simple diagnosis is more useful than another round of repeated runs. A stopwatch tells you how long the whole drill took, and video tells you where the time went. You can also time the split to the first line, the ten-yard middle and the final five. If one split is much worse than the others, that is the place to work.
For the three-cone drill, the same approach applies. A coach can watch the first reversal, the curve around the second cone and the weave around the third as separate segments. Many athletes find that one of the three accounts for most of the lost time, and that fixing it helps more than getting faster at everything.
Training the skill
Build the base: strength and stability
Braking and cutting are demanding on the legs. Strong glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and calves help an athlete absorb force, and a stable trunk keeps the body from collapsing during a turn. Single-leg exercises such as split squats, step-ups and single-leg Romanian deadlifts build the kind of strength used in a plant. Hip mobility and ankle mobility help the athlete get low. Our guide on agility drills for football players covers general movement work.
Learn to decelerate
Teaching an athlete to slow down is the most overlooked part of agility. Common practices include:
- Stop-and-stick drills. Sprint a few yards, then stop in a balanced athletic position and hold. Increase the speed gradually.
- Deceleration shuffles and backpedals. Controlled slowing from a moderate speed.
- Lateral bounds with a stick. Hop sideways from one leg to the other and hold the landing for a second, to build control.
Slowing quickly puts big forces on the knees. Learn the position first, at modest speed, with the knees tracking over the toes and the weight over the whole foot.
Practice the cuts
Cone drills that match the test, such as 5-10-5 repetitions and L-drill repetitions, are specific practice. Break them into pieces. Run only the first 5 yards and the turn. Run only the weave. Then put the pieces together. Video from the side and from above is very useful because athletes rarely feel their mistakes in real time.
Work on straight-line acceleration too
Because each leg of the shuttle begins with a sprint, acceleration training pays off in these drills. The ideas in our guide to speed training and sprint mechanics and in the companion on training for the 40-yard dash carry over directly.
Keep sessions short and sharp
Agility drills should be fast and fresh. Do a small number of quality reps with rest between them, not a long sequence that turns into conditioning. Fatigue leads to sloppy cuts, and sloppy cuts at speed raise the chance of an ankle or knee injury.
A sample session
This is an example, not a prescription. Adjust it with a coach.
| Block | Content |
|---|---|
| Warm-up | Jog, dynamic stretches, skips, lateral shuffles and a few gradual accelerations |
| Technique | Plant-and-turn drills at half speed, then three-quarter speed |
| Test practice | Three or four reps of the drill, with several minutes of rest between |
| Strength finish | A single-leg exercise and a trunk exercise |
| Cooldown | Walk and light stretching |
Run no more than two or three agility-focused sessions per week for most athletes, and leave at least a day between them when sessions are intense. Include rest weeks. Young athletes who are growing quickly should favor lower speeds and good form.
Testing day tips
- Learn the rules in advance. Know which line you touch and with which hand, and know which direction the tester wants.
- Warm up thoroughly. Plant-and-cut drills strain the groin, hamstrings and ankles, and a cold body is more prone to injury.
- Wear the right shoes. Many athletes wear cleats on grass and turf shoes on artificial surfaces. Check surface and footwear ahead of time.
- Pay attention to the surface. A damp or loose surface changes how your plant feels. Test a few cuts before your timed run.
- Run the path, not the time. Think about the next cone or line, not about the stopwatch.
- Accept a retest. Testers sometimes ask for a second attempt. The best of two or three attempts is usually recorded, though practices differ among events.
If you are preparing for a combine or showcase, see our overview of combine preparation for college prospects for how these tests fit with the rest of the day.
What scouts do with the numbers
In evaluations, these drills are usually read together with a player's position. Shuttle numbers are a favorite for players who change direction constantly, such as defensive backs, linebackers, running backs and edge rushers, and they are given less weight for positions where the demands are different. Even for those positions, scouts say the drills are not a substitute for game film, where a player cuts in response to an opponent rather than a cone. A player who tests well but plays stiffly will not impress; a player who tests modestly but is instinctive and quick-thinking may play faster than the time suggests.
To see how the pro game uses these players, browse the draft section, and for the college and high school paths, our college and high school pages list programs you can research.
The short version
- The pro agility drill is a 5-10-5 shuttle across three lines; the three-cone drill is an L-shaped path with reversals and a weave.
- A fast time comes from braking well, staying low, planting hard and re-accelerating with a forward lean.
- Learn the exact path and rules of the test you will run; testers differ in small details.
- Build single-leg strength, ankle and hip mobility and deceleration skills.
- Keep sessions short and rested, and break the drill into parts when practicing.
- Treat the numbers as one piece of information, not a verdict on a player.