What do great athletes, a cheetah, and a Ferrari have in common?
Power = Strength/Time.
Relative power is power-to-weight ratio.
Ex: if a 175lb athlete drops to 160lb but maintains the same power and strength, his relative power increased! Relative Power makes efficient athletes.
You can put a Ferrari engine in a Hyundai Sonata, you can accelerate with that powerful engine, but that Sonata body can’t handle that engine... You put a Hyundai Sonata engine in a Ferrari body, and it too won’t run well. It’s about the power of the engine to the weight of the car. How efficient can it be that makes it powerful.
This is an athlete and their body to their power!
We are referring to “Relative Power.” Relative power makes things easier for the athlete. They’re better able to control their body weight while also efficiently being able to decelerate and reaccelerate into the ground or someone else. Power is a concept of per unit time. Athletes are measured in units of time.
This is the difference between one wide receiver stopping on a dime & quickly cutting vs another player who’s power is less making a long, laborious cut. One gets away from the defender and makes the catch, the other remains covered.
I accidentally wrote “Week 1” and “Week 2”. This isn’t a 7 day increase. This is a 4 Week Test period. I should have written Test 1, Test 2.
These are some verticals from our baseball boys. All under 17. Not oddly enough, they are all improving on the diamond as they become more powerful for their weight. Average vertical for pro baseball guys? 27 for rookies, 28 for MLB guys. We have 15 & 16 year olds beating that…
Here’s a common misconception:
To increase power you need larger muscles or more weight.
Example: if an athlete weighs 200lb w/ 10% body fat, he has roughly 180lb of lean muscle & 20lb of body fat. Lets say he stays at 10% body fat but adds 10lb of Lean Body Mass. Now measure his before and after in the vertical and broad jump (popular tests of power).
If performance is same, most coaches would see positive. He DID add 10lb of Lean Body Mass and still jump as high. However, at Pride Fitness…
I would say we failed. Our expectation with the way we train power is that if he adds 10lb of Lean Body Mass, we expect vertical and broad to increase too for him to be faster and more efficient. That’s that goal when referring to relative power.
People often assume that more Lean Body Mass is better. That’s not so for most sports. With most sports, adding Lean Body Mass just for the sake of adding Lean Body Mass probably will make the body LESS efficient. You’ve added more overall mass to carry with the same power. This could FORCE the athlete to work that much harder to accelerate and decelerate with every stride they take.
The goal:
…Is to decrease body fat while maintaining and improving the efficiency of your lean body mass. “Intelligent” lean mass is more valuable than massive bodybuilder muscle because it possesses greater mobility, stability, movement patterns, power, strength, and endurance.
Bodybuilder muscle is for show. Intelligent lean mass is for performance.
Ready for a proven sport specific program for the athlete in your life? Ready to accelerate results and give your kid the competitive edge they need. Click the link below to schedule a free strategy session for an evaluation and assessment.
Continuous Progress Programming:
Utilizing evidence based training techniques and real world training experience, programs are progressed in a 4-week basis year round.
Metric & Results Driven:
Goal #1: keep our athletes healthy.
Goal #2: have our athletes reach their on field performance goals.