Power-Producing Exercises for High School Athletes

Generate power in your athletes with these non-olympic power-producing exercises!

When training athletes in the weight room, they are rarely “handed” to us with all the skills we would like. As sport performance coaches, our main goal is to make our athletes as physically ready as possible for their specific sport. Most sports, especially field and court sports, require athletes to generate multiple bouts of high power outputs per game. Knowing how to produce high power in the weight room allows the athlete to reproduce high power in competition.  Building power in the gym means moving weight fast to recruit the most motor units possible.

For many in the strength field this means we would like them to do Olympic lifts such as the snatch and clean and jerk. These weightlifting movements and variations have long been used by strength coaches in search of a solution for increasing power. The Olympic lifts produce some of the highest power outputs possible in the weight room. These lifts are highly technical, but once the athlete understands how to perform them is beneficial to their training program.

Power-Producing Movements

Whether training high school or collegiate level athletes, many possess a rudimentary understanding of the weightlifting movements and how to perform them correctly at first. With power production being the demand, it is imperative that we begin using power-producing exercises even if the athlete is unable to perform the clean or snatch. Fear not, for there are other movements that also produce power, although not to the extent of the Olympic lifts. In the video above, we cover a few of our favorite ways to train for high power. We will use kettlebells, jump boxes, and medicine balls to get your athletes producing power. Therefore, will increase their vertical jump, speed and overall athleticism.

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