Athletically speaking, there’s very few things more visually appealing than watching an NBA star dunk a basketball or an NFL wide receiver elevate to catch a football, or an Olympic-caliber sprinter run a sub-10-second 100 meters. What do these feats have in common? These displays of power are the results of power training exercises. They make it seem so effortless that you and I could stroll up and do it.
Many of these athletes may have genetics on their side (as well as a willingness to put in the work), but they also train power to maintain an edge over their competition. It’s great to be strong, but it is even better to be strong and powerful.You may never become a pro athlete, but that doesn’t mean you can’t train to develop more power to power through your everyday life.
But what is power? Let’s get scientific for a moment,
Power is determined by Force and Acceleration (P = F x A). Force is a push or pulls from the object’s interaction with another object, such as gravity. Acceleration is the rate at which an object changes its velocity, like sprinting to catch the bus or a car moving from a dead stop.
When you combine these two, the magic happens. What they don’t tell you in the gym is that power is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. Losing the ability to do things quickly and powerfully can result in loss of muscle mass, particularly in older adults. Given a choice, you should use it.
Here six strength and fitness coaches share their favorite power-training exercises so you will use it and not lose it.
When Do You Train For Power?
The power training exercises demonstrated below are best performed after your warm-up when your muscles are ready but not fully taxed. Training for power is demanding on your neurological/muscular system and is best trained when you’re fresh for the best results.
Training power early in your training sets the table for the rest of your workout because your fast-twitch muscles are now primed to lift some weight. Power trains fast twitch muscle fibers that operate without oxygen but have the most significant potential for growth. That’s right; power sets the table for gains.
3 Benefits of Power Training Exercises
Training for power will turn heads in the gym because you’ll be the coolest person there. But here are three other significant benefits of including power training exercises in your routine.
Improved Coordination: Training power is a great way to improve your kinesthetic awareness: your ability to control and be aware of your body in space. Power exercises must recruit all the muscle fibers as quickly as possible to do a rep successfully. If not, it may get ugly.
Better Focus: Think of the moment before you perform a box jump or a plyo push-up before your feet or hand hit the ground or box. This takes some stones and requires you to focus or else. What if you don’t get your hand down in time, miss your box, jump, and slam your shins? Training power will increase your training focus because some fear in your training is healthy.
Improved Cardio Fitness: Training power help improves your cardio fitness because performing power exercises encourages the heart to pump more blood with each pump and return to your resting heart rate faster.
Allan Bacon, Ph.D., an online personal trainer specializing in training powerlifters and body composition clients.: Power Cleans
The power clean is a full-body explosive-power movement driven by legs, back/hip extension, and the upper back and shoulders.
How to Do it:
Start your grip with hands half a fist to a full fist-width outside shoulder-width.
Feet will be approximately hip width and toes slightly turned out.
The bar will be approximately over the balls of the foot in the start position. Note that this is farther forward than during your standard deadlift setup.
While still in the start position, drive your knees out to the side and establish tightness.
Then push with your legs through the floor, maintaining approximately the same back angle until the bar passes the knee.
Once the bar passes the knee, continue aggressively pushing through the floor with the legs and extend the hips violently while keeping the bar as close to the body as possible and ensuring complete contact with the bar with the upper thigh.
Once you’ve extended your torso, pull the elbows up and out to move your body down into the receiving position as you squat partially under the bar.
Spin the elbows around the bar and drive elbows up to secure a proper front rack position. This will put the bar between the throat and the highest point of the shoulders.
Benefits Of Power Cleans
The power clean has a huge carry-over to contact and power sports, those looking to improve power and force production, and those looking to build their legs, glutes, posterior chain musculature, and traps.
Programming suggestion: I recommend three to five sets in the 3- to 8-rep range based on personal goals and preferences.
You can find more about Allan Bacon here: @dralllanbacon
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Chris Cooper, strength and nutrition coach at Nerd Fitness: Med Ball Slams
How to Do It:
Grab a med ball with both hands, making sure it won’t bounce a lot; otherwise, you’ll end up smashing your face and your ego.
Lift the ball overhead, fully extending your arms and getting onto your toes.
Quickly slam the ball down into the ground as hard as possible, using your whole body to generate power.
Let the ball settle on the ground, pick it up and repeat.
Ensure you take a few seconds between reps to get the most power out of each rep.
Benefits of Med Ball Slams
Using med ball slams to generate power is something that anyone can do as it doesn’t require a lot of technique and skill compared to a barbell power exercise. With this, we can still achieve triple extension at the ankles, knees, and hips to maximize force production.
Programming Suggestion
Aim for three sets of 3-6 reps with a one- to two-minute rest between sets to generate as much force with each rep as possible. There’s a difference between using this exercise for power versus using it for conditioning.
Mike T. Nelson, Ph.D., a metabolism fitness professional, strength coach, and educator specializing in tailoring nutrition to each individual’s needs: Rowing Intervals
My fav exercise for power is the Concept 2 rower since it is:
1) a full-body workout.
2) you are pulling against a flywheel which has a different feel to it that even if you are new to rowing, you feel like you can generate power vs. a free weight exercise.
3) it tell you your power on the display so you know exactly where you are at.
How to Do It:
Warm up
Then do 20 to 30 seconds on the rower all out.
Rest completely until breathing is back to normal and the heart rate (if you monitor it) is back down to around 100 bpm.
Go again for 20 to 30 seconds all out, and ensure you are very close to the average power (in watts) you did on your max interval. This is key so that you are doing high-quality work.
Rinse/repeat for 5 -10 rounds or until you can’t keep up the quality of work.
Programming Suggestion
My long-term goal for my athletes, which I stole from my buddy Dr. Kenneth Jay is to have them do ten rounds of 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off (rest) while holding the same power the entire time.
You can find more about Mike Nelson here: @drmiketnelson
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Dr. Bo Babenko, a physical therapist and strength coach specializing in strengthening the mind, body, and soul:Seated Box jump or Step Box jump
How to Do it:
Sit down with a box directly in front of you with about a whole arm’s length worth of reach in front of you (if you hinged forward with your arms outstretched), shift your weight forward as you leave the seat, and work on speed to drive into the ground and get onto the box.
If you’re a beginner, ensure to step down at first; if you choose to jump back down, the landing component onto the box or back to the ground is a vital component to work on the health and control of your entire kinetic chain, land softly into your ankles, knees, and hips every time and do your best to avoid any knee collapsing in.
Benefits of Jumps
Building “fast twitch” muscle fibers and confidence. This has a huge carryover to most “functional” parts of life and provides much “insurance” for our bodies as we age. The ability to generate POWER is something we lose rapidly if we do not practice it. Unfortunately, it is a natural part of aging – so do everything you can to reverse this.
Programming suggestion
You can superset this with any significant lower body strength work, like back squats, or even as a secondary warm-up. It would be best if you did not do a lot of volume on these; consistency over the months and years is much more critical. Three sets oof 3 to 5 reps sets are more than enough once or twice per week, depending on training age.
You can find more about Bo Babenko here: @drbobabenko
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Travis Pollen, Ph.D., exercise science professor and personal trainer and co-creator of the Strength For Yoga program, and co-founder of 3M Athletic Performance Gym: Band-Resisted Kettlebell Swings
The band-resisted kettlebell swing is one of my favorite power exercises. It adds a new dimension to the classic kettlebell swing and helps minimize the most common mistake of turning it into glorified front raises.
How to Do it:
Start by looping a 1-inch superband around the kettlebell’s handle to perform the band-resisted swing. Then lay the superband out on the floor and step on it with feet shoulder-width apart. The band should form a triangle between your two feet and the kettlebell handle. From this setup, hike the kettlebell (like a football) to initiate the set and perform your swings as usual.
Benefits Of The Band Resisted Kettlebell Swing
During the band-resisted swing, the band tension peaks as the kettlebell reaches the top of its arc, causing the bell to swing back down rapidly. This makes it virtually impossible to perform a front raise, requiring you to counteract the bell’s momentum with an even more powerful swing than you would without the band.
Raphael Konforti, senior director of fitness at YouFit Gyms: Kettlebell Snatch
How to Do It:
Start in a deadlift position holding a moderately heavy kettlebell.
Squat up explosively, extending through your ankles, knees, and hips.
Pull the kettlebell up using the lower body momentum as you squat slightly.
Once the kettlebell passes the shoulder, pull your elbow underneath it and catch the dumbbell overhead with your arm fully extended.
Form tip: If you find yourself using your arm to pull up the kettlebell, or you have to finish the rep by pressing it, the weight is too heavy, or you’re not moving fast enough.
Benefits Of the Kettlebell Snatch
The snatch focuses on transferring power from the ground and hips up through the body, which is the foundation of power. The kettlebell snatch requires less flexibility than the barbell version making it easier to integrate into your program immediately. Since the kettlebell will be near the floor for each rep and going overhead, you’ll have to apply considerable acceleration and speed, thus increasing the force you create.
Programming Suggestion
For power, failure is when you can no longer accelerate the weight quickly, not when you can no longer lift it. That’s why you’ll keep reps on the low to medium range (3 to 8 reps) while giving yourself time to recover (90 to 120 seconds) between arms and sets because the goal is power, not cardio.
You can find more about Raphael Konforti here: youfit.com
