Developing an Explosive First Step using Resistance Bands

By: Dave Schmitz PT, LAT, CSCS, PES

What should come first "Quickness or Speed?"

Today’s athletes are focused on getting faster and faster. However, would it be more beneficial to get quicker and quicker? Speed is defined in many ways. Top end speed, acceleration, quickness, first step speed, closing speed and field fast are all terms often thrown out when speed is discussed. When evaluating functional speed, it usually begins with developing an explosive, quick first step. Obviously if the body can not get moving and create a forward, lateral or rotational momentum nothing else really matters.

Speed in most ground base sports is determined by how quickly an athlete can get his or her body in motion. Acceleration and top end speed only come into play once the athlete gets the body moving. Therefore it could be argued that developing a quick first step must occur before running speed takes over.

Functional quickness is when an athlete can create an integrated or total body reaction that propels them into motion. In other words, the upper and lower extremities react simultaneously in a synchronized, powerful series of actions brought together because the trunk created an optimal communication link.

So how do I develop quickness?

Developing quickness requires you to be able to “load” quickly and efficiently. This loading can best occur when the body reflexively assumes the optimal dynamic posture right at the point of transformation. Transformation is where the athlete goes from a decelerated mode to an accelerated force production mode.

Incorporating the optimal dynamic posture insures that an athlete will load the appropriate muscles at the right time and in the right sequence. Remember, you can’t go unless you “load” the system first. Therefore training to load quicker and quicker, with deceased ground contact and maintaining the same distance should be an athlete’s focus.

How do I know my postures are optimal?

This is not an easy answer since there are many variables that can influence posture. For instance trunk loading strength, dynamic hip and shoulder flexibility, spatial awareness, the type of weight bearing surface and your overall lower extremity and core strength.

Ultimately it would be the best if we had a training tool that automatically told our body what to do. As an example if I attempt to push you over by placing my hands on your shoulders, you would reflexively lean forward to set yourself to optimally absorb my pressure. No thinking, just reacting.

Getting an athlete to go into the posture and perform the movement I want, without them knowing they are doing it should be the goal.

Let’s start with simple Step downs and lunges

A Resistance Band Lunge matrix or Step down matrix drill is a great series of drills to teach your body how to load quickly and efficiently. These drills require you to train against gravity and momentum using body weight and a band that you can easily control. These drills are very safe and allow you or your athletes to program in well balanced movement.




With lunges or step downs, Athletes should challenge themselves to get out as far as they can but still be able to get back “Home” to the starting position quickly and well balance. Getting “back home” is the key to any deceleration drill like lunges or step downs. Getting “back home” means you controlled the ground reaction forces, momentum of the band and the speed of gravity at the point of transformation and ultimately loaded well . For coaches this is easy to monitor and correct.

Once the lunge movement is mastered both from a lower movement pattern sequence, place a mark on the floor and set a stop watch at 15 seconds. Now athletes can begin to challenge their reaction speed by seeing how many times they can get to the mark and back in 15 seconds.

They will quickly realize that if they do not maintain a good athletic posture when landing, they will not be able to load efficiently and thus will return home poorly. Remember landing is the loading phase and as stated you must load quickly and efficiently if you want to accelerate quickly.

Once the feet, ankles, knees and hips are working together, incorporating a simple reach with the lunge or step down will now bring in the trunk and start to coordinate the upper extremities into the movement. Reaches can be performed in the following ways:



1. Double arm low reach

2. Single arm low reach

3. Double arm overhead reach

4. Double or single arm lateral rotational reach

Now that you have the reach and the lunge going well, you have prepared yourself for the next step.

Dave Schmitz is an Orthopedic Physical Therapist, CSCS, LAT and a Performance Enhancement Specialist with an emphasis on movement training and retraining. Dave recently created the only website exclusively devoted to functional resistance band training at www.functionaltrainingwithresistancebands.com.

He has written several articles, created 2 E-books and several DVDs on how to implement a Functionally Integrated Training (FIT) approach using resistance band.

Want to learn more about Resistance Band Training? Take a peek at Dave's video



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