Hi all! It looks like it will be a beautiful day up here in western Quebec as we look to enjoy everything Mother Nature has to offer. I have to admit I am a little bummed out today as I am still pissed about the firing of Claude Julien the head coach for the NHL’s Boston Bruins. Without subjecting anyone to one of my myriad of rants on why this was such an incredibly unjust and just plain bad decision, I will acknowledge that this is a part of pro sports where results are pretty much the only thing that matters to owners, management, and for the most part, fans.
Annnnnyyyhow, the situation in Boston serves as an excellent segue into today’s post. As much as we like to participate in sports, we are also a community of spectators. Numbers do not lie, as can be witnessed by the stats quoted on www.deadline.com which saw FOX network draw a staggering 113.7 million viewers for Super Bowl LI.
Football, like hockey, is a sport which showcases strength, speed, agility, and quickness which are all components of the human body’s biomotor ability to generate POWER!
One may argue that an athlete’s expression of power is a basic ingredient in all sports. Regardless if you are watching the pirouetting of figure skater Patrick Chan, the pinpoint passing of Tom Brady, or the terrific tumbling of Gaby Douglas, they all have a common thread in that their performance or level of performance can be tied to the ability to generate power?
Have you ever wondered “how the hell do they do that?” What in the world are they doing to prepare themselves to perform such incredible physical feats? I can assure you that they don’t spend their off-season sitting around eating cake and drinking beer (well maybe a little, the old 80/20 rule, eh).
Now, more so than ever, high level athletes are required to devote as much time and energy to their training as they do to their performances. The athlete’s off-season is the time for the majority of physical preparation to ensure peak performance during the competitive season. Most if not all will employ strength & conditioning specialists to plan, guide, and monitor their training. The S & C specialist will employ a systematic plan called periodization (more on this in a latter post) as a framework for the athlete’s training.
Within this plan are different phases of training designed to elicit a training response in an individual. Think of a training response as a physiological adaptation which makes the athlete more proficient in their sport. Power, or the ability to generate power, is a common training phase for those athletes performing in power oriented sports.
The ability to generate power is critical in athletic performance. As much as I hated physics in school let’s revisit a few concepts which illustrate the concept of power (we are keeping this as simple as possible).
Force is a vector (it has direction and magnitude). An applied force would be the force applied to an object by a person or some other object. A good example is pushing open a door.
Work = force x displacement where force is an action of one object on another to initiate movement and displacement is the amount of movement of the object from its starting point in a certain direction.
Power = work/t
So cutting to the chase, power is the amount of work performed divided by time. If I am pushing a barbell above my head starting at my shoulders and finishing when my arms are straight this would have a certain amount of work involved to move the barbell from Point A (shoulder level) to Point B (position of barbell above my head).
Now if I do this rather slowly then the amount of power I am generating would be less than if I pushed the barbell up quickly. Hence, everything else remaining equal, the speed at which I push the barbell will determine the amount of power created. Less time=more power, and greater time=less power. This illustrates that the creation of power depends upon how long it takes to perform an amount of work. So we can also say:
Power= force x velocity where velocity can be stated as movement away from a starting point in a certain direction (displacement) performed in an absolute amount of time.
The other factor that influences the amount of power produced is the total work executed. Assuming everything else remains the same (time) then an increase in work would result in an increase in power. Using the barbell example above, if I add more mass (10 kgs) to the bar, then I would need more force to push it up at the same rate (i.e. amount of time to move barbell from shoulders to above the head). Consequently, I am generating more power because I am performing more work (increase in force used).
So what does this all mean? Well, in sports & athletics, it is not only useful to be strong; one has to be able to apply this strength in a positive manner when performing skills related to your sport. For example, think of power as being the application of strength. 
An easy example is that of a golfer. When the golfer tees off he/she is normally looking to be as accurate as possible while maximizing distance on the ball. The golfer must be able to generate power through the swing in order to accelerate the club head enough to maximize force on impact with the ball. There are not many sports I can think of, off the top of my head, which do not require high power generation.
Power is not only important in sport and athletics. Think of all the activities and tasks you perform in your daily routine. For instance, climbing stairs, laundry, shoveling the driveway, lifting infants, and sweeping are a smattering of the activities of daily living we may engage in day to day. The generation of power is essential to be able to complete your daily tasks. Needless to say, it is critical, especially as we age, to incorporate power training into your fitness/exercise/workout schedule. Failure to do so would inevitably compromise your ability to complete your daily tasks in a timely and successful manner.
A few years ago one of my clients brought her father into my studio for a consult and personal training. The big issue turned out to be that “Serge” (not his real name) desperately needed both strength and POWER training incorporated into his workout regime. The power training proved to be crucial in allowing Serge to regain his ability to complete simple tasks such as getting up off a couch and helping around the house.
Make sure your coach or trainer is incorporating power work into your weekly training schedule to ensure that you are getting your power charge. You will find after about 5-6 weeks that you will be far more capable and comfortable in doing the things which you need and want to do.
Don’t be shy in requesting a consultation with me if you would like hear more about this topic.
Have a great day folks!