In Part-1 of "How to Play Drums Faster," we tackled hand speed, which is the first wall every drummer hits when trying to play faster. Now it’s time to deal with the other half of the equation: your feet. Because if your hands can blaze but your kicks drag, the whole groove collapses.

Double bass speed isn’t just for metalheads. It’s the difference between sounding powerful or powerless in any high-energy style. The challenge? Most beginners quickly find their legs give out way before their hands do. The fix? Smarter foot technique—heel-up, ankle motion, swivel, and beyond. Master these, and suddenly the “weak link” in your playing becomes the engine that drives it.

Foot Speed Strategies (Heel-Up, Ankle Motion, Swivel Technique & More)

Fast double bass or kick drum patterns can be a make-or-break factor in modern drumming, especially for metal, punk, and other high-energy styles. 

The good news is that foot speed can be developed just like hand speed, with the right techniques and consistent practice. Here are key foot techniques I emphasize in my drum lessons (Los Angeles sessions) for intermediate players:

Heel-Up Technique

Most drummers naturally use a “heel-up” approach for power and volume on the kick. This means your heel lifts off the pedal, and you drive the beater with your whole leg and a bit of ankle. 

Heel-up playing allows you to use your body weight to hit harder – think of bouncing someone on your knee; that up-and-down motion from the leg generates force. 

For speeds up to moderate tempos (say, up to 120–150 BPM for steady 8th-note kicks), full leg motion with heel-up works great and gives strong, consistent strokes. 

It’s like the equivalent of using full strokes on the snare for power. However, as tempos climb higher, full leg motion becomes too slow and tiring. 

Lifting your entire leg for each stroke has a large range of motion, and there’s a practical speed limit to how fast your thigh muscles can fire. Many drummers hit a wall around 160–180 BPM on double kick when relying only on leg motion.

Ankle Technique (Heel-Down/Ankles for Speed)

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To break that speed barrier, you need to minimize motion. This is where ankle technique comes in. Instead of hinging at the hip and moving your whole leg, you keep your leg relatively still and pivot at the ankle (often still in a heel-up position, but using ankle flexion rather than knee lift). 

Because the movement of the foot is much smaller, you can execute notes far quicker – it’s a shorter distance for your muscles to cover, allowing higher BPMs. Some drummers practice “heel-down” (keeping the heel on the pedal) at slow speeds to develop finesse, but at fast tempos you’ll likely still keep the heel slightly up while using mainly ankle motion.

A lot of the world’s fastest double bass players switch to ankle-dominant strokes once the tempo goes above a certain point (e.g. beyond 170 BPM). 

ractice tip: Work on bursts of quick ankle strokes – for example, try playing 16th notes with just your right foot for 10 seconds, focusing on moving only your ankle joint. You’ll feel the lower calf muscles working. Start slow and gradually increase the metronome. Over time, your ankles will strengthen and you’ll be able to maintain this motion for longer periods.

Swivel Technique

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Swivel is an advanced variation of ankle technique used by extreme metal drummers to achieve insane speeds (200+ BPM). It involves a heel-up posture but adds a slight horizontal “swivel” of the foot. 

Essentially, you keep the ball of your foot on the pedal and twist your heel left and right like wiping your feet on a mat. Each inward and outward swivel produces a stroke, because you’re shifting pressure on the pedal in a subtle way. 

The result: a rapid double action without lifting the foot off the pedal at all. Drummers like Eloy Casagrande use swivel technique to blast extremely fast double kicks (220 BPM and beyond) with surprisingly little fatigue. 

To try it, start with a continuous single-foot roll: press down with your toes (foot angled slightly to the right), then quickly twist your foot so your heel moves right and then back left. 

You should feel two strokes for one back-and-forth heel motion. It’s tricky at first, but when it clicks, you can flutter your feet and maintain a rapid-fire kick drum roll. 

Always start practicing swivel slowly to ensure each stroke is clean and the technique doesn’t feel awkward. 

You might practice it first on one foot at a time, while holding the other foot up or off to the side.

Consistency and Contact

No matter the technique, one fundamental principle for foot control is maintaining contact with the pedal. A common mistake I’ve seen (and made myself) is letting your foot come completely off the pedal board between strokes, especially when trying to go fast. 

This is like lifting your finger entirely off a piano key before pressing it again – it introduces extra distance and a loss of control, which can make your timing inconsistent. Instead, strive to feel the pedal under your foot at all times. 

For example, if you’re playing heel-up, don’t let the beater bounce back so far that your foot loses touch with the pedal. Keep the ball of your foot planted and hinge from there, even during quick double strokes. 

This constant contact reduces wasted motion and lets you play fast patterns more evenly – it’s a “simple hack” that yields much more control once you get used to it.

The Weak Side Myth: You’re Only as Fast as Your Worst Limb

Here’s the harsh truth: your dominant hand/foot isn’t the problem. Your weak side is. Speed is capped by the laggard limb. That left hand that drags, or that left foot that gets sloppy? That’s the governor on your engine.

The fix is brutal but effective: isolate your weak side. Play accents, doubles, and rolls with just your left hand until it stops whining. 

Same with the left foot. Set a timer and blast steady strokes for a minute, then switch. Endurance will build, and suddenly your whole body catches up.

Rudiments and Pattern Memorization

Speed isn’t only physical, it’s mental. If your brain hasn’t truly memorized a sticking pattern, your body won’t spit it out fast. That’s why drummers who only practice singles end up one-trick ponies.

Work on a rudiment ladder: paradiddles, doubles, flams, hybrid rudiments — chained together. When your hands can shift gears without hesitation, your speed will jump. It’s like upgrading from “hunt and peck” typing to touch typing. More patterns in the memory bank = more options at speed.

For some of my students, this was the game-changer. Once they stopped obsessing over raw BPM and started broadening their rudiment vocabulary, everything else sped up naturally.

Alternate Your Lead (Symmetry in Limbs)

A more advanced concept is ensuring you can lead with either hand (and either foot in double bass) for various patterns. Many drummers can blast fast as long as the pattern starts with their dominant hand, but if you flip it, they fall apart. 

I experienced this when practicing triplet fills – if I started with my right hand (R-L-R, etc.), I was fine, but starting with my left (L-R-L...) felt like a tongue twister. 

The remedy is to practice patterns “open-handed” or reversed. For example, if you play a fill that goes RLRL KK (hands then two kicks), also practice it LRLR KK. 

This alternation prevents one limb from doing 50% more work than the other in a repeating pattern, which is crucial at high speeds. 

The same logic goes for double bass: if you always start double-kick patterns with your right foot, that foot will be playing more notes in certain groupings, which can cause fatigue and a speed limit. 

Practicing alternating patterns ensures both feet share the load evenly. 

Endurance Runs

Just as runners do sprint training and distance runs, drummers should train both burst speed and long-term endurance. 

Burst speed drills might be things like playing as fast as possible for a measure or two (to push your maximum), whereas endurance drills involve sustaining a fast tempo for an extended time (e.g., keeping 16th notes on the snare for 2 minutes). Both are important. 

For endurance, I often tell students to use a metronome and play a continuous single-stroke roll (or double-stroke roll) at a challenging tempo for as long as they can, maintaining even volume. Each week, try to increase either the tempo or the duration. 

If you can only blast fast for 5 seconds, it won’t do much good in a 3-minute piece. So dedicate some practice time to “time trials” on the kit or pad.

Diagnose Your Biggest Bottleneck

Be honest with yourself and find the weakest link. Ask questions: “Is my foot technique limiting my double kick speed more than my endurance?” or “Do fast fills fall apart because I’m not coordinating my hands and feet well?” 

A quick way to test is to isolate each element:

  • Coordination test: Can you maintain a basic groove and add simple patterns without flamming? 
  • Control test: Can you play a roll very quietly and then very loudly? If you only sound clean at medium volumes, you might need work on dynamic control (which affects speed since control = precision).
  • Timing test: Practice with a “gap click” (metronome that mutes for a bar and comes back) – can you keep steady during the silence? If not, work with a metronome more to strengthen your internal clock.
  • Technique test: Are there strokes or methods (finger technique, Moeller, heel-up, etc.) that you haven’t learned properly? For instance, can you play using just finger control on the sticks or just ankle motion on the pedals? If not, slow down and practice those techniques in isolation.
  • Pattern memorization test: How many drum rudiments or bass drum patterns can you play confidently? If you find yourself using the same fill or lick every time, expand your pattern repertoire.

Once you’ve identified the #1 thing holding you back, devote the majority of your practice time to it. It might not be as fun as jamming to songs, but this targeted approach yields the fastest results. 

I often cite the 80/20 rule: spend 80% of your practice attacking your weakest area, and 20% maintaining other skills. 

I’ve seen students make explosive progress when they zero in on one goal like “improve double-stroke roll speed” or “strengthen left foot independence” for a solid month or two, rather than hopping between dozens of things each practice session.

The L.I.C.K.S. Method: How to Actually Fix Problem Spots

When you hit a wall with a song or exercise, looping the whole thing isn’t practice — it’s punishment. Instead, use L.I.C.K.S.:

  • Loop it. Take the 2 bars that suck and loop only that.
  • Isolate limbs. Pull out the limb causing chaos and drill it solo.
  • Cut it down. Break one bar into a half, or even a single beat.
  • Keep at it. Knit the pieces back together slowly.
  • Slow it down. Play at “painfully slow” speed until it’s perfect, then inch up.

This is surgical practice. It’s not as fun as just jamming, but it’s how you actually get faster without learning bad habits.

A famous example I share is how I prepared for an audition by identifying 10-second trouble spots in songs and drilling just those, rather than playing the whole songs repeatedly. 

I improved much faster by isolating the weak spots. You can do the same with any pattern that’s slowing you down.

Why Stakes Make You Faster

Here’s a weird one: pressure = speed. The fastest progress I’ve seen is when drummers have something on the line. An audition. A show. Even just a promise to post a video on Instagram by Friday.

When you set a deadline and someone’s going to see it, you practice differently. Harder. Smarter. And faster. If you’re just noodling with no goal, you’ll stall. Give yourself stakes. They can be small, but let them force urgency.

For Beginner Drummers: Learning Drums Faster with Strong Fundamentals

People love to ask, are drums hard to learn? They’re not “hard” — they’re just physical. You’re training four limbs to cooperate like roommates who don’t talk to each other. Awkward at first, but with patience, they eventually start sharing the fridge.

If you think you’re “bad at coordination,” good news: drumming literally builds it. Every frustrating attempt at keeping hi-hat, snare, and bass together is rewiring your brain. Stick with it, and the wiring gets permanent.

For more perspective on learning curves and realistic progress, read our beginner's guide on how to play drums. 

Grip, Posture, and the Free Stroke: Your First Superpowers

Speedy drummers aren’t born. They just started with proper technique.

Stick Grip

Don’t strangle the sticks. Pinch lightly between thumb and index, let the other fingers wrap around, and keep a little gap so the stick can rebound. If your hand looks like it’s trying to squeeze juice from a lemon, you’re doing it wrong.

Posture & Setup

Sit straight, keep your throne high enough that your thighs are flat, and angle the drums so you don’t look like you’re reaching for a shelf. A bad kit setup is like wearing shoes two sizes too small; you can walk, but you’ll hate every second.

The Free Stroke

This is drumming’s version of dribbling a basketball. Hit the drum, let the stick bounce back, and catch it at the same height you started. It teaches rebound, which later becomes your best friend when speed shows up at the party.

We have covered this more deeply in our guide on drum sets. 

Timing and Coordination: Start Simple, Get It Right

Forget 32nd-note fills. Beginners who want to play on drums faster should nail coordination first.

One Limb at a Time

Before combining hands and feet, isolate them. Play 8th notes on the hi-hat alone. Then try just bass + snare. Only when both are steady do you Frankenstein them together. It feels slow, but trust me. This makes you learn beats quicker than bashing through full patterns sloppily.

Counting Out Loud

Yes, it feels awkward. Do it anyway. Saying “1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &” as you play forces your brain to lock rhythms in place. Think of it as karaoke for your inner metronome.

Metronome Love-Hate Relationship

Your first best friend, and sometimes your worst enemy. Start slow (50–60 BPM). Match the click. Don’t speed up, don’t drag. Over time, try “gap clicks” (where the metronome drops out for a bar and returns). If you’re still in sync when it comes back, congratulations — your timing is rock solid.

Practice Habits That Actually Work

Speed and skill don’t come from random noodling. They come from consistent, focused practice.

Keep It Short and Daily

Fifteen minutes a day beats two hours once a week. Your brain learns drumming through repetition, not binge sessions.

Structure Your Sessions

Try this 30-minute routine:

  • 5 minutes of warm-up (singles, doubles, paradiddles)
  • 10 minutes on one new skill (a beat, a fill, a coordination drill)
  • 10 minutes applying it to a song
  • 5 minutes of “play whatever you want” — end on fun

Isolate Weaknesses

Hate how your left hand drags? Spend a few minutes every day making it do the heavy lifting. Weak spots are the speed bumps. Smooth them out early, and you’ll fly.

Record Yourself

Your brain lies; recordings don’t. Play back your practice and you’ll hear the flams, rushing, or uneven volumes you didn’t notice. Nothing accelerates improvement like hearing your flaws in HD. You can also remove drum track from songs with applications like Moises.ai, LALAL.AI, or Audio Cleaner AI, and practice/record over that. 

Wrap-Up: The Fastest Way to Learn Drums Is the Slow Way

Here’s the big reveal: the answer to “how to play drums faster” is often… go slower. Practice deliberately. Stay consistent. Focus on weak spots. Build strong fundamentals.

For intermediates, speed is about refining technique and pushing endurance. For beginners, it’s about planting good habits so you don’t have to unlearn garbage later. Do both, and soon you’ll be wondering why you ever thought drumming was hard.

So next time someone asks you, “are drums hard to learn?”, you’ll have the best answer:
“Not if you practice smart, and definitely not if you enjoy the ride.”

Start your drum lessons in Los Angeles today with Angeles Academy of Music and see how much quicker drumming can feel when you’ve got expert guidance.

Contributed by: Jonathan B., Senior Percussion Instructor at Angeles Academy of Music (Bachelors of Music, Musicians Institute; Associate of Arts, Suffolk College.)