Friday 24 May 2013

Power Development


We are concentrating heavily on squats, jump squats, deadlifts and push press to name a few exercises.  These explosive movements have been worked on along with the kettle bell training.  This is all to enhance your ability to strike an object at any given time with maximum force.  Now that object can be close, where you might employ a knee strike, or it might be further away where you can use a regular front kick. What we want is to be able to deliver as much power as we can as quickly as possible.  So in our training, be it bodyweight or under load, we need to move fast, to flow and have great form.  

It is the little things that count and often we can overlook them. Do you have your core engaged when you strike with your knee, or are you lazy and simply deliver the force thinking about your leg only?  If it's the latter, and you strike hard, think how much more force you will deliver when you have your core braced. Sometimes in class, people are so concerned with simply getting through a round they don't think about their body as a unit.  For example, when punching, it's all arms with no hip twist, or kicks with all legs and the legs look like spaghetti flying everywhere.  The fact of the matter is, your body is a whole and we need to use it all together - not parts in isolation.  Let's use a punch as an example. It starts life in the guts, moves down a leg into the foot, rebounds off the floor, back up the leg, through the guts, up through the chest and the shoulder then down the arm delivering the strike with the fist.  That's a lot of stuff going on to through a punch, but that's how it is done correctly. 

If any of this sounds familiar think about how you can correct it in class.  Take more time during a round or combative set.  Think about your start and finishing position and the movements in between.  Think about your timing, rhythm and tempo and be smooth like glass.  I guarantee in a few weeks your power delivery will have increased. 

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