This athlete is an intermediate level lacrosse player. This athlete must improve power development in their upper-body, since their upper-body power is 30% less than their lower-body. Upper-body power is important for lacrosse for checking and battling with other players. Dead lifting power is their strength right now, which is a good base for generating powerful movements in any direction.

Through the next training block this athlete should train to increase all their power values, a smartPOWER score of 700 Watts is an appropriate goal. Some special focus on upper body power exercises is also required. Reducing that Upper / Lower ratio to under 20% is ideal.

This graph shows the relationship between different factors in the power equation;

Notice how both acceleration and velocity are decreasing as the weight of the lift increases. Decreased acceleration and velocity results in lower power. This decrease is counter-balanced by an increasing mass on each successive lift. Remember, heavier mass leads to higher power.

Peak power training is all about playing around at the fine balance between maximized acceleration and velocity at your athletes peak power weight. If you don’t know what your athletes peak power weight is, then you are just throwing darts in the dark.

Power will be lower when they are lifting lighter than their peak power weight because the mass of the weight they are lifting is not challenging them enough. Power will be lower when they are lifting heavier than their peak power weight because the weight is too heavy for them and they can’t obtain optimal force and velocity.

Peak power weight will change throughout a training block. You want to train your athlete to be able to maintain peak power at a higher weight. If you train like this you will have conclusive proof that your athlete is more powerful and more ready for real-world sport demands.

Power = Mass x Acceleration x Velocity

The following describes their relation to one another:

Mass – the heavier the mass being moved, the higher the power

Acceleration – the faster your athlete is increasing velocity of the mass, the higher the power

Velocity – the faster your athlete is moving the mass the higher the power

Putting it all together, power is essentially how good your athlete is at accelerating a mass that is already moving fast. The heavier the mass, the higher their power.

Power is vital for functional performance because in a game situation important plays happen in the blink of an eye and if your athlete isn’t trained to explode toward that fumbled ball or loose puck then you’re not doing your job as a strength and conditioning coach.

Top level performance requires fast, hard bursts of power. To train an athlete properly in a performance focused training block, forget about trying to control their lifting times; instead, have them to perform lifts as fast and powerfully as possible. This will result in the most gains for sport performance.

Below is a graph that shows concentric and eccentric lifting times from a set of bench press. I’ve also displayed power to show how it changes in this set with different lifting times:

Power is the orange curve and velocity is the blue curve.

Since power = mass x acceleration x velocity, the heavier the weight an athlete lifts, the higher their power will (be assuming all other factors remain equal). Velocity has no mass component. Velocity is simply how quickly the athlete is moving the bar.

Obviously a lighter weight is easier to move more quickly; thus, we have a down-ward sloping velocity as the weight increases in our power assessment. Training an athlete for higher power will result in this velocity curve increasing at heavier weights.

If you are working with an athlete who has to be able to move heavy things fast – like in football or hockey – then training for peak power will raise this velocity curve and result in direct on-field improvement. Even athletes that don’t encounter strong opponent resistance – like in soccer – will become much more explosive with a higher velocity curve!

For the first half of the first meso-cycle challenge your athlete to generate higher peak power at their PPW (peak power weight). Watch their results closely. Once they increase their peak power by 10% in two consecutive workouts, increase the weight at which they are training peak power at. Again, watch their results closely; at the very least, they should be able to at least generate a power value that is higher than their originally assessed peak power.

Here we have our baseball player from a previous power assessment. During his first power training session after his assessment he didn’t increase his squat power. The next two workouts he was working at the same weight, but his power increased by 20% and 28%. The weight was increased in his fourth workout and he still managed to keep his power above his previously assessed peak power. This athlete is becoming more powerful. Here are his results;

At the end of this meso-cycle this athlete will have a week of active recovery then his peak power will be assessed again. The process will begin again with a new power assessment.

I recorded an athlete performing a set of bent over rows with smartBAR. The following graph shows the acceleration, velocity and power for one concentric phase of the set;

Peak acceleration and peak velocity occur at different points. Peak acceleration usually occurs at the very beginning of the concentric phase (blue line above). This is because the bar has zero velocity at the start of the concentric phase; it is easier to increase velocity from a stand still. It is harder to increase velocity when already moving fast.

Peak velocity (green line above) occurs closer to the middle of the concentric phase in weight-lifting exercises in which the bar remains in the athletes hands. To talk about peak acceleration and peak velocity as though they result in peak power is wrong. Peak power (red line above) occurs at the cross-roads of high acceleration and high velocity. This is why power is so important for sport; you have to be moving fast, but still be increasing how fast you are moving. This is hard to do, and this is the difference between making the important play and getting run over by your opponent is.

This is why we as trainers care about power; this is why power is important to train. Power has been erroneously used as a catch phrase by people who do not understand what it truly is. Power is the ability to increase your speed while you are already going fast. That is really hard to do and that is what makes athletes great. That is a big reason why Sydney Crosby has 12 points in the playoffs while most other players are already on the golf course.

As a trainer how are we supposed to know what this magical peak power weight is? In my experience in school and training, I haven’t seen anything that can answer that question – until now. I used the smartBAR to test squatting power with a baseball player.  Here are his results;

To train this athletes peak power in the squat he has to be lifting at around 135lbs. As this athlete moves through his power training block you want to see this curve move up and to the right.

Remember though, when progressing an athlete in a power-training session, try to affect one portion of the power equation at a time;

• Mass – increase weight of lifting mass, challenge athlete to maintain power
• Acceleration x Velocity – same mass, instruct athlete to focus on moving powerfully

]]> http://msbs.ca/trainforpower/?feed=rss2&p=17 2 http://msbs.ca/trainforpower/?p=15 http://msbs.ca/trainforpower/?p=15#comments Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:08:08 +0000 Matt Patterson http://msbs.ca/trainforpower/?p=15 Here’s an idea for reporting on an athletes power profile. This report is based on associating each certrain exercises with certain sections of the body;

• Bench = Upper-Font
• Bent Over Row = Upper-Rear
• Squat = Lower-Front
• Dead Lift = Lower-Rear

Breaking up the exercises this way allows us to look at some interesting comparisons between upper-lower and anterior-posterior (front-rear). This is what it looks like;

I’m doing some work with different types of athletes to discover how these numbers change based on different athletic demands. I’ll let you know my results.  Feel free to post your comments or suggestions about this in the comments section.