Angels, Astrology, destiny, reincarnation? Fug-ed-about-it; The universe is about one thing and that is “what pushes what into what else, and how hard”. It’s all about power, who has it, who wants it and who has to deal with the consequences; the “doers” and the “done to”. If you are out on the field, court or mat, which one do you want to be?
Physical power is not only about strength, that’s only part of it. Power is about how much force you can deliver in a very short time. Suppose you have two athletes, one who can squat 500# and another who can squat 300#, they are of similar weights themselves. Looks easy so far, right? Let’s complicate this. Suppose upon watching these two wrestling, it becomes clear that the 300#sq guy is just making a fool of the 500#sq guy. He’s quick and once he commits he hits and follows through before Mr. 500# sq even knows he’s in trouble. Mr. 500# sq needs seconds to develop enough force and by then it’s already too late. Mr. 300#sq develops it well before Mr. 500#sq even realizes he’s looking at the ceiling and Mom is not going to be fixing him “victory supper”.
As you can see from the example and probably in real life, power is a far from one dimensional thing. It is impossible to separate power from strength, skill, conditioning and just plain quickness. Toss in some psych stuff and it gets even muddier. However just for the sake of having a definition that we can use, lets call it the amount of force that can be delivered in a fixed amount of time.
Let’s say that you are training for a sport where there is not motion that lasts for more than a second. No matter what your maximum lifts are, if it takes longer than about half that to develop the force, what have you really got? Why work out to develop strength you cannot use? What use is a huge squat or deadlift if you will never in your sport have the opportunity to develop that kind of force? Why not work out in a way that will give you power you can use!
This is an all over whole body exercise that is all about power. It’s easy to do, very modifiable and highly effective. We call it “the cheerleader” here, but if you don’t like that name, make up your own.
I like this exercise because it is a “straight push”; your COG is right over your center. With pulls such as cleans and snatches your COG is forward. Olympic lifts are also difficult to teach and coach if you have a lot of guys in the room. I prefer to take something simple they can do, is effective and difficult to screw up really. I’d prefer to take that time I would use going around coaching and devote it to increasing power right away, after about five minutes of learning.
How to do it:
1.) Set the pins in the rack to the appropriate height. I like pushing it from rock bottom. Load the bar to a LIGHT weight to learn this.
2.) Get under with the bar high on your neck and your grip like you would use for a press behind the neck.
3.) Come up as fast and you can, very fast, so fast that the bar flies to arms length above your head.
4.) Let the bar back down cushioning it by lowering yourself back down at the same time for another rep.
(You can also do this with dumbbells or kettlebells if need be, it’s very similar and I’m sure you can figure it out)
This is the way I do it; Like a rack squat from “the hole” all the way down. I am interested in “general power”. However this is where it gets more versatile. You can alter the takeoff height to any level between my version and a simple “Jerk behind the neck”, based on the requirements of your sport and how close you may be to a competition.
Suppose you are a jumper, change your regular squats to these and as you get closer to a competition take the height up to your natural takeoff point, never work to fatigue and concentrate on one big “wham” of power and increasing the weight you can use while still being explosive. Power must be practiced!
If you are a wrestler or any sort of combat athlete, you need something different. Its good to have power but you must have it over and over. You must learn to work against fatigue and still be explosive. For this I would take some interval, say ten minutes, even twenty and do as many explosive reps all the way from the bottom as you can. Doing this in three minute intervals could be good too.
Suppose you are a “generalist” who just wants to be powerful and fit for just about anything, you can use something like:
Cheerleader 5x5
Plyo pushup or plyo bench 5x5
Explosive chin with top release ( I love this one!)
Dumbell swings 100reps (50 each hand) as many sets as it takes
Don’t like mine? It isn’t rocket science, come up with your own, but remember to have power, you must practice power, as often as you can. Whatever exercise you are doing make it quick, not careless but quick. One other piece of advice I can give is to not get obsessed with weight, if you are shaky at the top or slow, you are not working on “POWER” anymore. Lower the weight till its snappy and you hear those plates clanking again at the top!