Power and speed workout

Hey everyone,

For our lower body workout, we chose to focus on power and speed.  When many athletes train, they focus on these attributes.  They do so because power and speed can be leveraged, in almost any sport or physical endeavour, for superior results and performance.

As we are not specialists in any one sport, our focus on power and speed is based on the acknowledgement of their importance in physical capacity and conditioning.  Our primary sport is fitness itself - and it certainly is advantage for us to be able to move our bodies faster and push and accelerate weights faster and more explosively.

To start this workout, we super-setted double kettlebell front squats with one-leg hip bridges (for 3 sets).  For both of these exercises, we did a 1.5x rep format (which we'll discuss in an upcoming blog post).

This element of the workout was to thoroughly warm up our muscles.  As this was a morning workout for us, we wanted to ensure that our nervous and muscular systems were fully awake and energized before moving into the more dynamic and fast-paced part of the workout where we focused on power and speed.

As this was our first workout ever to deliberately focus on power and speed we limited it to four exercises.   Since we were focusing on our lower body, we tried to incorporate exercises which would target quads, hamstrings, glutes, etc.  As with the beginning of the workout, we supersetted these exercises, for 3 sets each.  In the first superset, we did jumping lunges with Jungle Gym hamstring bicycles.  The focus of each set was to maintain a rapid movement.  Thus, when we began to tire we would finish the set, rather than grinding out extra reps.

For the second superset, we chose kettlebell swings and one-leg burpees.  Again, we didn't focus on completing a certain number of reps, but tried to do it at high intensity and stopped our set when the movement began to slow.

For a first-time power and speed workout, we were quite happy!  It was definitely a challenge and a mental shift from our more typical focus on strength or conditioning.  Our initial observation is that exercise selection and then conscious focus on power and speed are crucial for this type of workout.

For exercise selection, there are some movements which clearly lend themselves to power and speed work (e.g. jumping or plyometric exercises).  Conversely, there are some exercises which are slower and/or where it would be dangerous to complete the movement too quickly (e.g. TGUs).  For this reason, we recommend that you think carefully of which exercises you will perform in a power/speed workout.  We also recommend that you be fully warmed up and that you don't overestimate your abilities and/or push too hard the first time through (to avoid injury).

As for focus, this is something that you should be doing in all of your workouts, but it becomes especially important here.  Since power and speed was a different emphasis for us, we needed to consciously focus on moving quickly in the exercises.  For example, in the kettlebell swings, it helped us to really concentrate on popping the weight up with an explosive snap of our hips - to really drive it up powerfully/forcefully (combined with an exhalation of breath).  By focusing, you won't get lazy or sloppy on the exercises.  We think this extra mental effort is worthwhile and will improve your results and help you avoid injury.  If you try a power and speed workout, let us know how it goes.  Good luck!

- Tannys & Alex