SAM Gilbert has commenced agility running as his recovery from a knee injury progresses.

Gilbert has not played since the round six loss to Collingwood where he jarred his left knee as he was being tackled.

After he was cleared of major damage to his anterior cruciate ligament, Gilbert has been steadily increasing his workload in his path to recovery.

In the second of a series of webisodes on his rehabilitation, Gilbert reveals to saints.com.au that he has begun working on his agility as well as increasing his running pace after he commenced running two weeks ago.

“Today I did my first agility work. It is still fairly light but it is nice to change direction,” Gilbert said.

“The biggest improvement for me since the last time we spoke has been that I have been able to increase my running speed. I’ve run 150s at a fairly quick pace so that’s been my biggest improvement.”

As part of his training program, Gilbert has also been working on the exercise bike in St Kilda’s high-altitude room which simulates conditions the club had on its training camp in Colorado last December.

“For me it has been great – it has been beneficial for my rehab program. I get in there and get on the bike a couple of times a week and I think I am noticing a difference,” he said

“Every session in there is a little bit harder than in the gym. I did feel that little bit of burn.”

St Kilda’s exercise physiologist Luke Vella has been working closely with Gilbert in his recovery and said he has been impressed by what he has seen.

“Sam’s managed to tick every box we’ve put in front of him so far. He’s started out with more steady state type running to get some volume into his legs,” Vella said.

“As he has become more comfortable with his running he is starting to progress into some higher intensity running. We will continue to develop that in the next couple of weeks and start to introduce some change of direction and some more football-specific running and that will lead him back into training with the boys.”

Vella said it was important to closely manage Gilbert’s recovery to ensure that he wasn’t too rushed.

“It is very slow and steady with him at the moment,” he said.

“It was his first agility session back today and that will be very controlled for the first couple of sessions back and then we’ll start to introduce a reactive component where Sam is required to react to the stimulus. That will lead him into his footy specific running patterns.”