Jem Yeh: Power Development: Part 1 - Sprinting and Jumping

This is for those who want to improve explosiveness, specifically for vertical (jumping) and horizontal (sprinting) power. I will cover rotationals/swinging power exercises and programming another day.

For explosiveness, firing posterier chain muscles (ham, glute, low back) in the correct sequence is the key to improve power for sports performance. Especially for sports that involves overcoming bodyweight (inertia) to jump higher, spring faster, push harder, and be ahead of the opponent.

Developing power for sprinting may vary in exercise selection and programming compare to jumping since it involves stride cycling mechanics and horizontal acceleration. Here's a few drills for sprint mechanics you can work on.

Jumping up and down once or twice at a time engages unilateral or bilateral arm swings and hip hinge, simultaneous. This is qualified as a vertical movement.

Advanced sprinters typically reach peak speed at 40 yards in a linear fashion, after that, they more or less maintain thge speed by executing the correct stride mechanics in a upright position - and uses hip extension more. Basically, pass 40yards, they stop pushing forward (as much) but push up instead to catch and balance their steps at top speed.

This movement pattern differs greatly from sprinting horizontally when we're talking about sprint distance less than 40yards at a time (most sports that's not track and field), where athletes perform more accerational sprints than upright falling/catching/maintaining sprints - before they have to slow down or change direction.

Jumping and sprinting differs greatly in body mechanics but the principle of power production remains the same. You have to exert force against the ground as hard as possible to propell yourself forward or up or somewhere in between. The direction you want to go dictates the type of exercises you want to do to improve that power.

Pushing forword uses more quads (knee extension like in a front squat) whlie pushing up inovlves more of the backside (hip extension like in a reverse hyper). You can say that those who needs to sometimes sprint further than 40 yards (football reciever, soccer attacking forwards...) would benefit training their posterior chains like a basketball or volleyball player as well.

Since power is what drives the body against the ground to move from one position to another (or to your arms/legs if you're doing a punch/throw/kick), training to increase power production will help athletes move more meaningfully when applied correctly.

Just by improving power production, your endurance, strength, and speed performance will all go up across the board, too. This is why every athlete of any sport should learn how to lift with speed and jump with good form.

We know that power = strength x speed. This means a strength training program rich in developing the muscles involved in knee and hip flexion and extension should already be in place. I will detail those lifts in a sec.

In terms of developing the 'speed' component of the 'power', we have to train our body to fire motor neurons (or signals from the brain) needed to activate specific groups/types of muscle invovled in those movements, FAST.

The more and faster these muscles are recruited, and continously firing, the faster one can resist a load. The load being your bodyweight, the ground, the wall, a ball, someone's face, barbells, couch, or your oppenents in contact sports... This is call the rate of force delivery. The faster you can deliver these neurons, the faster you can summon the muscles to (and continously) engage.

read more about muscle motor unit recruitment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_unit_recruitment

If you're a powerlifter/strongman and your goal is to move as much load as possible for just one time without a limitation on how long you take to do it, you don't need to train this "rate of force delivery" (as much) since you have plenty time to deliver the neurons needed to recruit the msucle. This is a test of "absolute strength", not "speed strength". Not saying that max effort training are uesless, it just means that this purely works on peak strength instead of the rate of force production - speed strength.

read more about max effort training
http://www.westside-barbell.com/westside-articles/PDF.Files/04PDF/Training%20Methods%20Part-2.pdf

For a performance athlete who needs to execute a movement fast while overcoming resistance, learning how to improve this rate of force delivery is the key to build explosiveness. You may not able to move a challenging load quickly, but with practice and progressive loading, you can.

This is the progression for developing power - Use a load that you can't move as quickly as you can and train at that speed. Once you adapt to that load and are moving it quickly, you can add more load while your speed slows down. Then work up to the speed again and repeat.

Selecting the right exercise for the job can be tricky. While explosive movments can vary in technique from basic jumping exercises to as technical as bounding, power cleans, or depth jumps. Executing each and every rep explosively is the key to train that motor pathway needed to deliver force fast.

This means you cannot do these movements in a fatigue state nor have musculoskeletal issues happening going in. Power movements should not work you up to a sweat. This is why crossfit will never produce a good, explosive athlete :)

Every rep has to be high quality. Even if this means taking 1-5min breaks between sets or a few deep breathes between reps.

Here's are some sample workout routines you can do.

Do this on days you're not lifting hard or do it beforehands.
Don't do this before a big game.
Make sure jumping surface is hard.
Running or Tennis shoes are fine.
For vertical, your goal is to maximize air time by keeping/throwing your center of mass above you for as long as you can. Imagine winning a 50/50 in soccer or skipping as high as you can. swing your arms at the direction you're jumping towards.
SL = Single Leg. Lateral = to the side. Ea = each side.
Give yourself at least 30sec rest between sets and 1 min rest between exercises.
look up the movements on google if you never done them before.

Understand the difference between just jumping and true plyo jumps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plyometrics

Vertical/Jump Power

Warmup

2x40 jumping jacks

2x10 Plank Jumps

1x10 forward and lateral leg swings for ea leg (standing)

Jumping and Plyometric Workouts

3x6 Runnning Vertical Jump/Reach (Approach)

3x6 Standing Vertical Jump/Reach (Block)

2x6 Depth Jump

2x6 Tuck Jumps

2x6 Broad Jumps

2x6 Pop Ups

2x6 Continious Tuck Jumps

2x6 Bound

2x6 Power Skips ea (focus on height)

*This should not take you more than 45mins to do

If you're older than 40years old, you should consider breaking up the workout above into 2 sessions.

Supplemental Lifts to train the posterier chain

Clean/Push Press/Snatch

KB Swing

RDL/Rack Pull/Sumo

Hip Thrust/Bridge

Reverse Hyper/Back Extention/Good Morning

- If your sport involves pushing or pulling something or someone, you should add some upper body movements, too.
- Consult a strength coach for more detailed programming.

Horizontal/Sprint Power

Warm up

2x20 Mountain Climb

2x10 High Knee Butt Kicks

Jumping and Plyometric Workout

3x6 Scissor Jumps ea

3x6 Single Leg Bound ea

2x6 Power Skips ea

2x10 Split Lunge Jumps

2x10 Squat Jump
- Consult a sprint coach for more sprint mechanic techniques

Sprints & Intervals

6x40yd Sprints

4x60yd Sprints

2x100yd Sprints

Have at least 1min rest between sprints. All sprints can be done uphill if you want to blast your quads. This should not take you longer than 1hr to do.

Supplemental Lifts

Front Squat or Goblet Squat

Back Squat

Leg Press/Extension/Curl

Quad Blast
Calf Raises

SL Bridge
SL Hip Thrust

Lunges

Box Step Ups.

Injury Prevention, Lateral, Muscular Endurance and Fun Exercsies to Play Around With.

Grapevine & Side Shuffles

SL Bound: Lateral/Back/Alternating or same leg.

Hops: Slalam, Side to side, Clockwise and Counter and hop in place. SL and Both.

SL Squat Jumps

Star Jumps

Pistol Squat & Bulgarian Squat

SL Deadlift & Side Lunges

Reverse Sled Push

Wallsit

Want more vertical? need more speed? want to move like you were 20 years younger?

email me at Jem_yeh@Yahoo.com and we'll get you started on a progressive, easy to understand training routine to follow through. Tell me a little about your training experience, sport you play, schedule, and current fitness level and I'll write up a program for you.

Some great articles on Power Development

Get Strong First with max sets to Increase Speed with Squat/Dead and O-lifts
http://www.sprintstrong.com/2010/01/barry-ross-interview.html

Rationale behind Depth jump

http://www.verticaljumping.com/depth_jumps_a_closer_look.html

Indepth look at various speed and power training principles (chapter 7)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/102775902/Jamie-Hale-Maxcondition-2004