Thursday, February 5, 2009

Strength == Power?

An interesting thread over Strengthmill. Ol' Rip claims (based on the thousands of people he's trained, 30 years of experience in the field, observing elite athletes at the Olympic Training Center, etc.) that power production is largely a genetic trait and can't be trained to a large extent.

Other people in the thread chime in that this isn't true (at least in all cases), and can be trained by increasing strength and practicing sport-specific skills (ie jumping and what not). Thought's on this?

I know personally that I can't reach the rim on a basketball court, but I'm only just now approaching a 2x BW raw squat. I'm sure Dave has much more success. Then again, there are high-school basketball players who can dunk in their sleep but can't squat 225 to save their life.

I think the two strongest indicators of power production are the vertical jump and the power clean/snatch. I don't track my vertical, but perhaps I should.

1 comment:

Kyle said...

As someone endowed with what is known as "white man hops" I would be willing to measure how my vertical improves. Last time I measured it (senior year of HS) it was 13".