Q&A: Power Development

Last week I had the honor of doing a podcast with Greg Everett and Robb Wolf, and there was a question that came up about power development.

I’m going to paraphrase a bit here, and then we’ll get into the meat of the post:

Eric Cressey doesn’t feel as though there’s much carryover between the power development seen in the Olympic lifts and rotation-based sports such as baseball.

What are your thoughts on this?

First, EC is my guy and if he says something, I listen. The guy is an absolute savant when it comes to training baseball players, and I definitely understand his perspective.

I think one of the biggest reasons Eric doesn’t like the O-lifts for his athletes is due to the fact that he works with some legit baseball players, people that are going to making a living off their bodies.

(EDIT via EC: I actually LOVE the O-lifts, just not for rotational sport athletes. {and particularly pitchers with multi-million dollar hands/wrists}. I’m all about them for football, etc.)

Why would you want to run the risk of an injury to a wrist, elbow or shoulder from the O-lifts if you can develop power in other ways with less risk? I would tend to agree with Eric in that regard – I’m always one to err more on the side of reward vs. risk. Not to mention the fact that Eric is the expert in training these athletes, not me!

The waters here could be muddied even further if we started talking about the differences between a kid who plays baseball for fun, and one who is going to be making millions of dollars someday based on the health of his arm.

I kind of hate answering these questions, because the best answer always ends up being, “It depends.”

Plus, if you want Eric’s opinion on something, or you want to learn more about why he does something, it would be a great question to ask him in the future!

If I left it at that, this would be a pretty lame blog post, so let’s talk a bit more about power development, and where I think a lot of people go wrong when it comes to power development.

The Speed-Strength Continuum

Like all things in the training world, there’s a continuum. One of the most fundamental for us to understand is what’s called the speed-strength continuum.

As you can see below, the left side of the continuum is filled with exercises that are very explosive or ballistic in nature: sprints, jumps, etc. On the right side are big lifts that focus on brute strength such as maximal squats, deadlifts, etc.

Let’s narrow our scope even further, though. Think if we cut this continuum in half, focusing only on the speed/power side. It may look something like this:

For the young, developing athlete, consider spending more time training the entire spectrum. Power as a whole needs to be developed, and I think the broader your initial base is, the more benefit you’ll see when it’s time to develop.

For the more mature, developed athlete, you can start to focus more and more on the specific speed/power qualities you need to be successful in your sport of choice.

General vs. Specific Power

Too often, we get caught up in how something looks and assume we have to replicate sport-specific positions to get a carryover.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s a time and place for position-specific power work, especially with higher-level athletes.

But I also think it’s a mistake to spend all of our time in sports-specific positions.

This was a huge point of contention in the whole single-leg debate. Sure you run and cut on one leg, but the forces involved are more similar to bilateral exercises vs. unilateral ones.

Quite simply, if you want to build a stud athlete, you train them in both unilateral and bilateral exercises. (If you want more info about this, check out my free single-leg training presentation from a while back.)

Power can be thought of in a similar fashion. If you play a rotation-based sport like golf, tennis, baseball, etc., then a large portion of your explosive/power work will revolve around movements with rotation.

But does that mean we can’t see some benefits from more general power-based training?

Absolutely not.

If you want to build a high-functioning and resilient athlete, focus on more general means of power development in the off-season, and get more specific as you get closer and closer to your competitive season.

How to Start Training Power

One demographic we work with extensively at IFAST is young athletes. As a general rule, a lot of these kids aren’t ready for the Olympic lifts or their derivatives (typically due to mobility and/or stability limitations), so we start them off with more general methods of power development.

While we’re hammering on the specific mobility/stability needs of these young athletes, we like to lay the foundation for future power development. In this case, basic work such as low-level jumps and plyos, as well as medicine ball work, can teach them appropriate body postures and positions.

From there, once they have that movement foundation, you can start successfully adding the Olympic lifts into their programs. If you need some great resources to get you started, check out the work of Glenn Pendlay and/or Greg Everett. I’ve learned a lot from those guys, plus I’m lucky to have two awesome O-lifting coaches (Dan Brown and Grant “Rufus” Gardis) in my gym to show me the ropes.

A Brief Rant on the Olympic Lifts

Now let’s come back to the Olympic lifts, because I need to rant on this for a second.

I’m not going to sit here and act like I’m the best Olympic lifting coach known to man. However, even as a powerlifter/corrective exercise guy, I see the value in using the lifts with my athletes.

One of the biggest reasons certain coaches choose not to include them is because they say they take too long to coach and/or develop.

And to be quite honest, I think that’s a bunch of BS. What these coaches really mean is:

  1. I don’t know how to coach them, or
  2. I’m too lazy to coach them.

Look, if you don’t know how to coach the lifts, I’m ok with that. Say that.

They’re not for everyone and I’m not going to push my agenda on you!

The second one is what really bugs me though.

If you’re a guy like Joe DeFranco who does a ton of combine prep, you only have 6 weeks to groom a guy and get him ready to rock.

You literally do not have the time to coach the lifts extensively and make people proficient at the lifts, so there are probably better ways to develop power in that short time frame.

But if you work for an athlete for 2, 3, or 4 years…

and you know the lifts can make them better….

and you’re willing to spend 4-6 months helping them squat proficiently…

why are we arguing that the O-lifts take too long to coach?

Coaching is a process. Sometimes when you have a kinesthetically aware kid who’s a stud athlete, it comes easily.

For others, it’s a more labor-intensive process. It’s going to take some time and effort on your part.

But if you really want what’s best for your athletes, and you have the time and skills necessary to do it, why not teach them how to Olympic lift effectively?

If you have a specific reason or rationale as to why you choose not to include them in your program, that’s fine.

If you’re a guy like EC who is training 70+ pro players in the off-season, trust me, I get that and want you to make smart decisions that keep your athletes healthy and performing at a high level.

But as an industry, and as a whole, I don’t think we should discount their benefits just because of personal preferences.

And if you want to learn more about teaching the lifts to young athletes, Greg Everett is coming out with a new book very soon that can help you out. In the interim, you might also like to pick up a copy of the IYCA course on the Olympic lifts as well.

Summary

This seemingly short post got a little out of hand, but I hope you enjoyed it. Power development is something I studied extensively earlier in my career, and it’s obviously something I’m still passionate about today.

If you work with athletes of any shape or size, you owe it to yourself to learn about the various methods of power development, and how they can make your client and athletes better.

Good luck and good training!

Stay strong,

MR


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