If you want to be a good athlete, being powerful can be a huge asset. Athletes with great power can absolutely dominate their sports and rise to the highest level their sports have to offer.
Think about some of the greatest athletes of all time. Mike Tyson punched with serious power. Babe Ruth swung the bat with power, Jim Brown ran over guys with power, and Lebron James uses his power to explode through the lane and dunk the ball.
While having large amounts of power is not the end all be all when it comes to athletics, it is undoubtedly a tremendous help, and it can take your game to the next level.
This article will go over what power is, why you need power as an athlete, and what exercises you should be doing to build power.
What is power?
A common misconception is that strength and power are the same thing. This is not true, though. While they are a bit similar, they are not the same.
The term strength refers to how much weight you can lift, while power refers to how fast you can lift a weight. So basically, power is a combination of strength and speed, two things that are of the utmost importance to athletes.
Weaklings aren’t going to have the strength to generate much power, and similarly, slow pokes won’t be able to produce much power, even if they are strong. This is why many bodybuilders are not good athletes. While they are strong, they usually lack speed, which means they also lack power. Both speed and strength are a must to generate power.
Why Athletes Need Power
Virtually every athlete out there needs power to do some aspect of their sport. Some good examples of power in sports would be a basketball player dunking a basketball, a football player firing off the line, a baseball player swinging a bat, a wrestler throwing his opponent, and a volleyball player spiking the ball. Even golfers need power to drive the ball for distance off the tee.
There isn’t a sport out there where you don’t need some form of power, even long-distance runners need to be able to sprint to the finish line, and that requires power. I guess you could say race car drivers don’t need power but are they really athletes, to begin with?
Here is a more in-depth list of power movements in athletics:
Throwing
Jumping
Exploding off a line
Punching
Kicking
Swinging (bat, golf club, hammer throw)
Sprinting
Cutting
Lifting an opponent (wrestling and MMA)
Hopping
Slamming
Bounding
As you can see power can be very useful no matter what sport you are in.
Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers and Explosive Power
In your body, you have two types of muscle fibers. There is the slow-twitch that are used for endurance type of exercises. These muscles are used when running, biking, or swimming longer distances.
When it comes to the fast-twitch muscle fibers, these are the ones that generate the power you need. In fact, fast-twitch muscles are only used during high power outputs. This is why athletes should train for power so the body can learn to recruit these muscle fibers quickly.
When the fast-twitch fibers are trained and enhanced, you can become a powerful, athletic machine. That’s what these exercises we are about to discuss are all about.
10 Power Building Exercises
We have covered what power is and why athletes need to have a lot of power. Now let’s get to 10 of the best exercises for building power.
It should be noted that you should have a decent base of strength before you start training for power. If you are new to training, you should build up your strength first, then add in your power training later when your strength is established.
This is an exercise you can do off the floor or from the blocks, many people are able to do the power clean with better form when using the blocks so that is one thing to consider.
You may also want to have a knowledgeable coach check on your form on this exercise because a lot of people get this one wrong. Making sure you are doing it right will help you get the most out of it and help prevent injury.
Heavy kettlebell swings alone are a great power-building exercise, some would say even better than doing Olympic lifts. The problem is many people don’t have access to a heavy enough kettlebell (100lbs or more). Instead of using a heavy kettlebell, you can use bands with your kettlebell and you have a great exercise for building power.
Sprints
Sprints are one of the mandatory athlete exercises for athletes. You can read more about why in our article on why you should be doing sprints. Sprints have many benefits. These benefits include fat burning, building quads and hamstrings, building athleticism, and power. There isn’t a good reason not to do sprints so long as you are physically able.
Medicine Ball Throws
Throwing in itself is a great power builder, one of the best throwing exercises out there for increasing power is med ball throws. There are a wide variety of throws out there, and you would be best served to use more than one style.
Side throws against a wall are great for rotational power in the upper body; wrap-around tosses and chest passes are also really good. Mix up your tosses and even work on tossing the medicine ball overhead. As long as you are throwing the med ball, you can’t go wrong. Slamming the ball is excellent too. Just be sure you have a tough ball to take a pounding.
Sled Sprints
Sled pushes and pulls are a great and underrated exercise, combine them with sprints which we have already covered and you have a serious power-building exercise. By loading the sled with weight and pushing the sled as fast as possible you can develop great leg power.
Mix in using heavier and lighter weights in your sled sprints and only perform the sprints for 10-20 yards. Do 4-8 sets of these sprints and reap the benefits.
We mentioned before that banded exercises Fwork your entire body and are great for power building. Combine bands and deadlifts, and you have a badass power-building exercise. We prefer the trap bar on this, but that will also work if all you can use is the straight bar.
These can also be done with chains instead of bands if you like. We all know doing deadlifts with chains looks totally badass and makes you feel like a beast. Now is your chance to shine and build some tremendous overall power.
Snatches
When you talk about the Olympic lifts, basically all of them are good power development exercises, and the snatch is no different, particularly the hang snatch. This is another exercise that you should have someone check your technique on.
If you just wing it, there is a good chance you aren’t doing it correctly.
Doing the snatch from the floor requires a lot of mobility, which many athletes also need, which is a bonus. Mix in regular snatches and hang snatches for some serious power building.
But the fact is the broad jump improves the reaction of fast-twitch muscle fibers throughout the body, and as we mentioned earlier, the fast-twitch muscles are of utmost importance when it comes to building explosive power.
It is also an exercise they do at the NFL combine, and they don’t do it just out of curiosity. It is a good measuring stick for many things, including power and it can be done using just your body weight.
Lunge jumps are another excellent power-building jumping exercise. These are great exercises for people who don’t have much room and may be working out at home, in a hotel, or a confined area.
No matter where you are, anyone can do this exercise to build power and work your legs and buns in the process. You will definitely feel them the next day if you haven’t done these, especially in the glutes. Hit these up as a part of your butt workout and you will likely be happy with the results.
Split Jerk
Here we have another Olympic lift. As we said before, Olympic lifts are all great for increasing power. You could say top Olympic lifters are some of the most powerful people out there, and you would be right.
If you haven’t noticed, Olympic lifts are a big part of training for all high-level athletes. That is because strength and conditioning coaches know the benefits of these moves when building power and strength in athletes and activities that require power.
The jerk is all about power, you need strength and speed and some good technique to perform a good jerk. Training this movement with the split stance takes it to the next level helping you have fast feet and an explosive upper body.
Let’s wrap it up
These ten exercises can help build some explosive power and improve your performance in your sport of choice. Perform 3-5 sets of around 4-8 reps and when you do these exercises, perform them with explosive anger, go postal on these exercises, so to speak.
It would be best to hit the exercises at the start of your workout when you are fresh to get the most out of them, and be sure to do it before your strength training. Also, be sure to take more time in between sets. Power exercises are not meant to be done when fatigued.
Some of these exercises are pretty technical, so you should probably get a good strength coach to make sure you are doing them correctly to get the most out of them and protect yourself from injury.
Here we have another Olympic lift. As we said before, Olympic lifts are all great for increasing power. You could say top Olympic lifters are some of the most powerful people out there, and you would be right.
