If you want to run faster, one of the first things I would look at is your acceleration.
The most explosive athletes get to 60% of their top speed within their first 3 steps. Which means athletes running 23+ mph are already above 12 mph in just 3 steps! This is especially important for football, baseball, soccer, basketball and other sports where you may only have 5–10 yards to create separation.
The big thing I want athletes to understand is that acceleration is something we can actually measure and improve.
Instead of just going out and trying to “be more explosive,” I like giving athletes specific positions and distances they can work toward.
One of my favorite ways to do this is incredibly simple:
Measure your first four steps.
For a more advanced athlete, I want those first four steps to get you somewhere around 5 yards while still maintaining quick ground contacts and effective forward lean.
That gives us something objective we can work toward.
In this article, I’ll show you:
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- How to measure your first four steps
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- What good acceleration mechanics should look like
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- How to improve distance per step
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- How your foot should strike the ground
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- Why forward body position matters
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- How your arms affect acceleration
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- Two of my favorite acceleration exercises
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- How to track whether you’re actually getting faster
Let’s get into it.
What Is Acceleration in Sprinting?
Acceleration is your ability to increase your running speed.
In sprinting, we’re typically talking about the beginning of the sprint when you are going from a stationary or relatively slow position toward your maximum velocity.
The exact length of the acceleration phase depends on the athlete and the event.
For this article, though, I want to make it much simpler.
We’re going to focus primarily on:
Your first four steps, first step quickness, and approximately your first five yards.
Why?
Because that’s something almost any athlete can measure.
You don’t need expensive timing equipment. You don’t need a track. You don’t need a complicated testing system.
You need some space to sprint, a measuring tape, a few cones and ideally your phone so you can record yourself.
Now we have a repeatable test.
How Far Should Your First 4 Steps Cover?
This is where I want to start because I think distance is one of the easiest acceleration variables for athletes to understand.
|
Step |
Approximate Distance |
|---|---|
|
Starting position |
0 yards |
|
Step 1 |
Around 1 yard |
|
Step 2 |
2 yards + 1 foot |
|
Step 3 |
3 2/3 yards |
|
Step 4 |
5 yards or more |
I’m not saying every athlete needs to artificially force their fourth step past five yards.
Height, leg length, strength, age and acceleration ability are all going to change exactly where an athlete lands.
What I like about this setup is that it gives us some targets.
If you’re currently covering substantially less distance over four steps, we can start asking:
Why?
Are you not producing enough force?
Are you not projecting yourself forward?
Are your steps too quick and short?
Are you standing up too early?
Is your leg cycling effectively?
That’s where coaching becomes much more useful and where we can make adjustments to your speed training.
Don’t Make the Mistake of Just Taking Bigger Steps
This is probably the most important distinction in the entire article.
If I tell an athlete:
“Cover more distance with your first four steps,”
Is take these giant steps landing on the heel with the spine straight up in the air.
You still need to be quick off the ground.
Acceleration requires a combination of:
Distance + Quick Ground Contact
You need to project your body down the field while still being able to efficiently strike the ground and move into your next step.
If you artificially reach farther and land in a poor position, you’re not necessarily improving your acceleration.
4 Things I Look for During Acceleration
When you’re recording your sprint and watching your first four steps, there are a few things I would pay close attention to.
1. Maintain Your Forward Lean
During your initial acceleration, you don’t want to immediately pop upright.
Your body should remain projected forward as you build speed.
One of the common mistakes I see is an athlete taking the first step or two and then immediately standing up.
When that happens, it becomes much harder to continue projecting horizontally down the field.
Think about gradually rising as your speed increases rather than immediately trying to get into an upright sprinting position.
2. Keep the Knee Forward at Ground Contact
One position I pay a lot of attention to is the relationship between the knee and the foot when the athlete contacts the ground.
During these early acceleration steps, I like seeing the athlete maintain a position where the knee is out in front of the toe.
This helps support the forward body position we’re trying to create.
As you accelerate and eventually transition toward top speed, these positions are going to change.
But during those first few steps, we’re trying to maintain that aggressive forward projection.
3. Keep the Heel Up
Another thing I look at is the heel.
I want athletes contacting the ground predominantly toward the front portion of the foot while maintaining a higher heel position.
What I don’t want to see is the athlete reaching and then collapsing backward onto the heel.
This becomes especially difficult when you start trying to increase distance per step.
You have to be able to:
Cover distance → contact the ground → stabilize → get off the ground quickly.
That’s one of the reasons acceleration requires more than simply having strong legs.
You have to be able to apply that strength quickly and from the correct positions.
4. Use Your Arms Aggressively
Your arms are another part of acceleration that I think gets overlooked.
I want the arm action to be quick and deliberate.
What I don’t want is a bunch of wasted side-to-side movement.
If your arms are rotating excessively across your body, you’re creating movement that isn’t necessarily helping propel you forward.
During acceleration, think:
Forward and backward.
Be aggressive with the arms.
That arm action can help you maintain rhythm, projection and quickness as you work through those first few steps.
How to Film Your Acceleration
This is something I strongly recommend.
Use your phone.
Set it up from the side and record yourself accelerating through the cones.
Then slow the video down.
Now ask yourself:
How far did I travel in four steps?
Then look closer.
Is my torso staying forward?
Where is my foot contacting the ground?
Is my heel staying elevated?
Where is my knee relative to my toe?
Am I getting off the ground quickly?
What are my arms doing?
You don’t have to guess anymore.
That’s one of the biggest reasons I use video so much when coaching sprint mechanics.
What you feel like you’re doing and what you’re actually doing can be two completely different things.
Two of My Favorite Strength Training Exercises for Faster Acceleration
Once you’ve identified what needs improvement, we need exercises that can actually help you change it through explosive training, because the best results come from combining speed, power, and strength for optimal results. That means pairing strength training with power training to support power development.
There are two areas I focus on heavily:
1. Producing more distance
and
2. Improving the foot contact
Here are two of my favorite ways to train those qualities.
Exercise #1: Resisted Hip Flexor / Knee Drive
One of the first areas I like working on is the hip flexors.
You can do this several different ways.
If your gym has a cable pulley, attach an ankle strap and perform a resisted knee drive.
I want you driving the knee upward while maintaining control.
You can also perform a similar movement using resistance bands.
Another variation I really like combines the knee drive with pushing through the back leg, and you can add enough weight to challenge the pattern without slowing the action down too much.
You’re essentially working on two things simultaneously:
Push through the back leg + drive the opposite knee forward.
That’s much closer to what we’re trying to accomplish when accelerating.
I also like maintaining a slight forward lean during this variation.
This is one example of using explosive exercises to improve acceleration-specific positions.
Why I Like This Exercise for Explosive Movements
When your knee gets around hip height, you’re asking a lot from the muscles responsible for hip flexion.
The exercise might not look particularly difficult.
Try it.
When performed correctly with enough resistance, it can be very challenging.
For athletes who struggle to effectively drive the leg forward and create distance during acceleration, this is one of the areas I like strengthening.
Exercise #2: Wall Acceleration Drills
The second exercise is much more focused on your ground contact and body position.
Wall drills are simple, but I see them performed incorrectly all the time.
Start with your feet shoulder width apart, then get into a forward-leaning position against a wall. This setup can support plyometric training, but true plyometric work requires minimal ground contact and ground contact times under 0.3 seconds.
From there, I want:
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- A relatively straight line through the body
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- Hips pushed forward rather than sitting backward
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- The knee driven forward
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- Toes up before ground contact
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- Contact toward the front portion of the foot
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- Heel maintained in a higher position
On each exchange, push hard into the ground while keeping your positions clean.
One mistake I commonly see is athletes rounding their backs.
Don’t just bend forward from your upper body.
Create the position through your entire body.
Wall Drill Progression
You can progress the exercise several ways.
Single Exchange
Start with one knee forward and quickly switch the legs.
Focus on making the contact fast and clean.
Continuous Alternating Contacts
Alternate the legs while maintaining your body position, and land softly on each contact while keeping the wall angle and posture consistent.
Don’t allow yourself to gradually stand up or collapse backward.
Three Quick Exchanges
This is one of my favorites:
1–2–3.
Stop.
Reset.
End the set at the first point your speed, position, or intensity drops off, because neural fatigue can impair coordination and reaction time.
Then:
1–2–3.
Now we’re challenging you to maintain the correct position while increasing the speed of the movement. Prioritize movement speed instead of extending the set.
You can also add resistance bands once you’ve developed the basic mechanics. Keep rep ranges low enough that every exchange stays explosive and technically sound, since these fast efforts tax the nervous system and the set should stop before quality drops.
Distance Per Step vs. Foot Contact: You Need Both
This is really what the entire acceleration system comes down to.
One group of exercises is helping us develop explosive strength by improving force development, since that quality depends on the rate of force development, our ability to produce force and cover distance, and how quickly we recruit motor units.
The other is helping us become better at contacting the ground and getting off of it quickly.
Neither one works particularly well by itself.
Imagine an athlete who covers huge amounts of distance but spends forever on the ground, because heavy loads can build force but do not always improve fast contacts.
That’s not going to be fast.
Now imagine an athlete whose feet move incredibly quickly but every step barely takes them anywhere.
That’s not going to be particularly fast either.
We need the combination.
In gym-based power work, improving power output often means using loads around 50-70% of one-rep max rather than chasing maximum force alone; heavy resistance and heavy resistance training can raise force capacity, but acceleration work still needs high speed intent and explosive execution.
Cover ground + get off the ground quickly.
That’s what I want you thinking about.
A Simple Acceleration Workout You Can Try
Here’s how I would put everything together as a simple speed training session you can perform 2-3 times per week, generally speaking, with the session structure matched to the athlete’s ability level and training age, and with each training element focused on improving athletic performance.
Part 1 — Acceleration Testing
Set up your four-step cone system.
Perform 3–5 acceleration reps.
Record at least two from the side.
Don’t change your mechanics just to hit the cones.
Run naturally and see where you are.
Part 2 — Resisted Knee Drive
Perform:
3 sets × 8–12 reps each leg
Focus on control, knee drive and maintaining the correct body position.
Part 3 — Wall Drills
Perform:
Single exchanges: 2 × 5 each side
Alternating exchanges: 2 × 5
1–2–3 exchanges: 2–3 × 3 repetitions
Focus on the quality of every ground contact.
Part 4 — Retest
Go back to your acceleration.
Perform another 2–3 quality reps.
Don’t chase fatigue.
We’re trying to improve sprint mechanics and speed—not turn this into conditioning.
How Quickly Can You Improve Acceleration?
This is another reason I like giving athletes measurable targets.
Give yourself 7–14 days of consistently working on these positions and exercises and then retest, but remember that bigger sprint-speed changes from plyometric training usually take several weeks and often show up within 10 weeks or less.
Look at the video again.
Maybe you’re not suddenly running dramatically faster.
That’s okay.
Look for smaller improvements first.
Are you covering slightly more distance?
Are you maintaining your forward lean longer?
Are you contacting the ground better?
Are you getting off the ground quicker?
Does the movement look smoother?
Those are all signs you’re moving in the right direction.
Then continue building from there.
For advanced athletes, heavy lifting and heavy strength training can also boost performance when used in phases and paired with sprint-focused work instead of relied on year-round.
Overdoing heavy resistance can stiffen the nervous system and reduce movement quality for explosive work.
How to Accelerate Faster for Improved Athletic Performance: The Big Takeaway
If you only remember a few things from this article, remember these:
Measure your first four steps.
Work toward being able to efficiently cover approximately the first five yards.
But don’t sacrifice quickness just to cover more distance.
Maintain your forward projection.
Pay attention to where your foot contacts the ground.
Keep the heel from collapsing.
Use your arms aggressively.
And then use exercises that address the specific areas that are limiting you.
The biggest thing is having a system.
Don’t just go out every week and say:
“I’m going to try to run faster today.”
Measure something.
Film something.
Work on it.
Then measure it again.
That’s how you actually know whether your acceleration is improving.
Want Help Improving Your Sprint Mechanics?
If you’re having trouble figuring out exactly what’s limiting your acceleration, that’s where having another set of eyes can make a huge difference.
At Performance Lab of California, we use video analysis and measurable sprinting metrics to identify where an athlete is losing speed, whether the issue is joint mobility or force production, and what they can do to improve it; restricted ankle range can cut explosive power, and quality mobility work makes high velocity training more effective.
Whether the issue is your start, acceleration, transition, top speed, foot strike, distance per step or another part of your mechanics, the goal is to isolate the problem instead of just throwing more drills at you. Field and court athletes also deal with curved running, where centripetal acceleration occurs as the body follows a curved path. Tangential acceleration refers to changes in speed along that curved path. As a technical note for movement analysis, circular motion uses a_c = v²/r. Targeted plyometrics, including a jump squat, can improve sprint speed through ballistic movements that build rapid force. Fatigue can also change how muscle fibers are recruited during repeated explosive efforts. Olympic lifts are another advanced option for developing rapid full-body force when coached well. Ballistic resistance training can also improve vertical jump performance, often more than traditional lifting, and this has been shown even in elite athletes.
Get Your Sprint Mechanics Analyzed →https://www.onlinespeedprogram.com/21day
