Power describes your ability to express strength in minimum time and is an important attribute to develop, particularly for athletes. Greater power means you can produce more force in less time which translates to greater speed, superior acceleration, harder hits, quicker deceleration, higher jumps etc. Even if you are not an athlete, training for power will help you to maintain/build muscle and enhance your longevity (we lose power before we lose muscle mass) so don’t discount this form of training if your athletic days are behind you.
Power = Work/Time
Using the above equation you can quickly see that power output is increased if either work goes up or time goes down. Obviously an even better outcome would be for both to occur simultaneously!
To successfully train for power it helps to first of all get strong. It is all very well being able to express a decent % of your maximum strength in minimum time, but as the above equation demonstrates if your maximum strength is pitiful then your maximal power output is always going to be limited.
Once you have built up a decent
level of strength you must learn to express that strength in the
shortest time possible....enter power training. In power training the basic aim is to produce as much force as possible in the shortest time possible.
Olympic Weight Lifting is probably the most obvious example of a sport/activity where power is king. Perform a lift too slowly and you will miss it. Perform a lift quickly but with a light weight and you will rank poorly at the end of a competition. Here is a great example of an athlete producing awesome levels of power.
Whilst Olympic Lifting is undeniably a tremendous activity to help you generate power, mobility and co-ordination it does have a steep learning curve and would not be a suitable fit for those amongst us who through choice or circumstance do not have access to olympic barbells, heavy weight plates and lifting platforms!
Two bodyweight exercises stand out for me as ideal gymless alternatives for power training.
1. Box Jumps
Simple and effective this great exercise will help you to develop lower body power and with simple tweaks can be tailored to almost anyone. To make the move harder you can use any combination of the following factors:
- Increase the target height of the jump
- Add extra resistance in the form of a weighted vest
- Work with one leg instead of two
2. Explosive Push Ups
The
explosive push up is the calisthenic equivalent to the box
jump for the upper body. Great for developing explosive pushing power.
It is not quite as easy to manipulate the variables of this exercise when compared to the box jump but certainly not impossible. Of course you can still add resistance in the form of a weighted vest, alternatively if you wanted to make the exercise easier you could change the angle of your body so your hands are pushing off a fixed object above the height of your feet just like in an incline push up.
Whilst one arm explosive push ups are certainly possible I don’t feel they offer a great trade-off between performance gains and risk of injury. Better to keep adding weight to the two handed version or focus on getting higher and higher with your reps. In addition you should be a bit more mindful of the impact forces the explosive push up has on your joints...it may not be the perfect fit for everyone!
Of course these are not the only bodyweight exercises you can use to train for power, just two that jump out at me as being particularly effective. If you feel you are not quite ready for either exercise, fear not...by simply performing the concentric phase of an exercise at a faster tempo you will be increasing power production so the options are pretty limitless. Get creative and make the attainment of greater power a part of your training!
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