"Some kids are just fast" is a myth that holds athletes back. Acceleration and first-step quickness are skills — and skills can be coached.
Walk into almost any youth or high school gym in the Charlotte area and you'll hear the same line: "He's just got natural speed," or worse, "She's just not that fast." Genetics are real and they set a ceiling. But the vast majority of athletes are nowhere near their own ceiling — which means there is enormous room to get faster. First-step quickness, the explosive acceleration that wins races to the ball, is one of the most trainable qualities in all of sport. You just have to train the right things.
To accelerate, you have to push the ground backward, hard. The faster and more forcefully you drive into the ground, the faster your body moves forward. That's the entire game in the first few steps. This is why two athletes with similar leg speed can have wildly different first steps — the one who applies more force in the right direction wins.
It also explains why getting stronger makes athletes faster. An athlete who can produce more force has more to put into the ground on every stride. Strength is not the opposite of speed; for young athletes, it's often the missing ingredient. You cannot drive hard into the ground with legs that can't produce much force.
This comes from the weight room. Squats, hinges, single-leg work, and loaded jumps build the raw force capacity that acceleration draws from. We pay special attention to the glutes, hamstrings, and quads working together, because that's the engine behind every powerful stride.
The first step happens in a fraction of a second, so it's not enough to be strong; you have to be strong quickly. This is where power training comes in. We use Keiser pneumatic equipment and contrast methods to teach the nervous system to fire fast, plus medicine-ball throws and resisted starts that train explosive output. It's the same approach collegiate programs use, scaled to the athlete's age and ability.
Force in the wrong direction is wasted. Many athletes are strong but inefficient — they pop straight up instead of driving forward, take choppy steps, or have arms that work against them. Good acceleration mechanics mean a forward lean, powerful arm action, and full leg extension into the ground with each drive step. These can be taught, drilled, and ingrained.
Here's where most "speed schools" go wrong. They run kids through ladders and cones for an hour and call it speed training. Ladders can build coordination and footwork, but they do almost nothing for the force production that actually drives acceleration. An athlete can be a wizard in the agility ladder and still be slow when the whistle blows.
Real first-step development needs all three pieces working together: strength to build the force, power work to apply it fast, and mechanics to aim it correctly. Drills are one ingredient, not the whole recipe. Cones without a weight room is like practicing your golf swing without ever building the strength to make it count.
Speed is a maximal-effort quality, which means it can only be developed when athletes are fresh. Sprinting at the end of an exhausting conditioning session doesn't build speed — it builds the ability to run slow while tired. We program true speed work early in sessions, with full recovery between reps, so every rep is performed at genuinely high quality. Quality over quantity is non-negotiable here.
We test acceleration with short sprints — the 10-yard dash is a great window into first-step ability — along with the broad jump as a measure of horizontal power. Retesting on a regular cadence tells us whether the program is working and where to push next. When parents see their athlete's 10-yard time drop over a training block, it stops being a debate about "natural speed." The numbers tell the story.
The bottom line: if your athlete has been told they're "just not fast," don't accept it. Build the force, train it to fire fast, clean up the mechanics, and measure the result. Speed is a skill — and at BBT in Charlotte and Huntersville, it's one we coach every day.
Book a free 60-minute assessment. We'll time your acceleration, check your mechanics, and build a plan to get faster.
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