Speed training with bands. A post from the Band Man.

Changing direction really comes down to 2 things:

1.  Making sure your shoulders do not go too far outside your center of gravity

2.  Making sure your plant foot is outside the box (Lee Taft’s term for the foot being outside shoulders)

First let’s briefly talk about #1

When the shoulders get outside your center of gravity (COG) what happens is it places incredible lateral and rotational torque at the knee joint.  Why the knee joint??  Well the knee joint does not have a great deal of frontal or lateral abduction and adduction range of motion.  As a result once frontal plane movement gets used up at the hip and trunk the next available joint is the knee.  As a result the lateral momentum of the body will force the body to decelerate in the frontal plane and if stabilization is not effective at the trunk and hip, the knee will become impacted.

How to prevent this

The key is to teach the trunk how to react in the front plane and effective control the upper body.  One of the most important drills I work on speed training with bands is lateral trunk reaction training.  These simple drills teach the trunk how to stabilize on the move and control momentum that is created by the body movement and enhanced by the band.  I will perform this band training technique in several ways but typically it is with a band over my head while I do simple lateral step or hop towards the band attachment

Second aspect of lateral speed

Placing the foot outside the box allows you to create optimal leverage through the lower chain by using ground reaction forces or in other words by pushing into the ground.   When the foot contacts the ground it immediately activates the lateral hip stabilizers.  However if the foot is too far inside the shoulders or inside the COG, it cannot create the ground reaction counter force contraction needed and therefore the hip is not able to do its job.

This simple concept is often poorly demonstrated by athletes and yet is such an easy concept to train using bands.

I typically start by attaching a band to the hips and have the athlete do simple lateral one step drills towards the band attachment like they are doing a plant step.  From there I will have them perform a release step which now applies all the ground reaction counter force to one leg.  This in turn allows the free swinging leg to simultaneously reposition into the new planned direction of movement.

From there we can create many different driving vectors with the arms, eyes, head or repositioning the band to teach the body what will happen on the field.

In both scenarios, speed training with bands creates an increased momentum that internally the athlete has to account for and instinctively deal with.   I promise you, by doing these two simple drills, your athletes will automatically start to engage the correct stabilizing muscles and perform the correct foot work.  They have to; otherwise they cannot be successful at changing direction quickly.

It’s why I always say, “Resistance band training is about training your body to react not just contract”.

Getting BETTER with BANDS!!

Dave Schmitz

PS…  The above drills are just 2 of 100 that will be teaching the first Saturday of May at the second annual React to the Ball coach’s clinic.  If you’re a coach or a trainer, I guarantee you will leave with not just exercises, but you will leave with a proven step by step system to follow.

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