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Mike
Mike is a currently a coach at DeFranco’s Gym in Wyckoff, NJ. He studied under Buddy Morris and James Smith while at the University of Pittsburgh and has also studied at various physical therapy practices. He has coached levels of athletes from Pro-Bowl, MLB, to pre-pubescent athletes and has also consulted for high caliber athletes worldwide.
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Mike has also written articles for various websites and is the founder of a website that provides free information in hopes of properly educating a mass of coaches and athletes around the world.
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Sprinting: How to get a Quicker First Step (Part II)

by: Mike Guadango

Unfortunately, there is more to your first step than just speed. This is where everyone says, “Yeah I know, it’s strength.” Yes, if you increase the athlete’s strength, to an extent, it will increase their first step.
One very overlooked aspect of the first step is your ability to observe and react to stimuli. In some instances, you’re only as fast as your reaction time. On the field, it doesn’t matter what your 40 time is, if you can’t read the defense quickly, judge the fly ball properly, react to an opposing player, etc., then the slowest guy on the field can make the fastest look pretty slow, pretty quick! A guy who can anticipate where the play is going, and be there before the opposition, is going to look blazing fast compared to a guy who is always reacting as it happens.

Unfortunately, much like anything else, if you walk into a room of people and pick a skill, someone’s going to be the best and someone is going to be the worst, that’s all there is to it. Just like someone is going to have the highest testosterone and someone is going to have the lowest, these are facts. Some people are obviously going to be more inclined to respond to stimuli quicker than others. So, naturally they’re at an advantage.

That being said, one of the best ways to improve your ability to react (to an extent) is to increase your exposure to that specific stimulus. Want to read the ball better off the bat? Start shagging some more fly balls during batting practice or play in more games. But, the fungo will only get you so far.

Reasoning: Though it’s similar in concept, in actuality it’s completely different. Not only is the ball not being delivered in the same fashion (self-served) and because of this, trajectory, rotation, force, bat speed, etc. are not being appropriately accounted for to properly simulate the situation, but shagging flies off a Fungo is relaxed, anxiety free, and the ball is hit with a lighter, longer lever. So, not only will the ball come off differently, but the necessary stimuli will not be there to increase exposure to facilitate acclimation of the specific situation to improve your first step. This exercise is appropriate for those that have trouble with the concept of catching the ball off the bat, but for much else, it’s somewhat of a waste of time and energy.

Not to mention, when shagging fly balls in practice situations the entirely wrong energy system is being utilized. Baseball players (accompanied by all other athletes) will commonly revert back to performing skill work in a glycolytic state and refer to it as: hard work. I can understand where sports like football, rugby, basketball, ya know, sports that actually require the athlete to do work when they’re tired, to get confused. But baseball? How on Earth did they mess this up? There is NEVER EVER a need to perform any aspect of baseball in a glycolytic state, EVER! Anyone that has any argument against this, I have 2 words for you: David Wells.

Another example is having a Defensive Back doing typical drills, drop back, follow the ball, all that jazz. It’s good for guys that don’t know the movement and don’t understand how to move, but to improve actual game speed, they need to be in the situation where all stresses are identical otherwise any attempts to improve the slow first step will be futile.

Even ladder drills, for enhancing base levels of coordination, they’re decent, but to have the gall to suggest that looking down at a ladder while shuffling your feet in patterns that of which have nothing to do with enhancing your respective sport is complete and utter hogwash. Anyone that believes ladder drills enhance sport performance and agility should be stripped of their literacy so they cannot read about any other shitty drills like this ever again!

In order for the DB or anyone else to improve their first step, they need to be placed in a game situation where they can read the offence, read the quarterback and feel the pressure of the scrutiny from the fans and coaches. They need to be constantly exposed to this stimulus to where they become accustomed to it. Unless the stimulus is able to be accounted for, they will not hasten that first step.





CATEGORY: Training