In last week’s post, I presented some ideas about staying in shape during the quarantine. Today we’re going to cover how to do power training during the quarantine. Our assumption here is that you’re either stuck at home or, best case, you have access to a public park somewhere.
Normally if we were doing power training we’d be looking at a combination of the Olympic lifts, plyometrics, and throws. But, if you are training at home and don’t have access to a weight set, then this is going to be difficult.
First, it’s important to keep a few things in mind (this was in the last post):
- Doing something to stay in shape is better than doing nothing. We’re not going to be able to train optimally under these circumstances, so the best we can do is to stay in shape even if it’s not our ideal workout.
- Sport-specific training isn’t going to happen without access to our facilities, so let that idea go.
- The principles of exercise still apply here. This means we get what we train for, we have to find ways to make things progressively more difficult, we need to rest and recover (e.g. so we don’t want to do the same thing two days in a row), and we need a balanced program.
This power training program is meant to supplement any strength and conditioning that you are doing under the quarantine (and you can do the program I outlined in the previous post). This is a four day-a-week program, two days for upper body and two days for a lower body emphasis.
The upper body program makes a lot of use of medicine ball work. What if you don’t have a medicine ball? Then use any type of ball that you have! Medicine balls are nice, the resistance is nice, but the intent is to move as explosively as possible. So use a basketball if that’s all you have and throw it really far!
Day One:
Emphasis: Upper body power
Clapping push-ups: 3 sets of 5. The intent here is to be on the ground for as short a time as possible, so you should be exploding up every time you hit the ground.
Medicine ball chest pass: 3 sets of 10. Find an outside wall or a garage door. Perform a chest pass at the wall so that the ball comes right back at you. As quickly as you can after catching it, fire it back at the wall.
Medicine ball overhead toss: 3 sets of 5. Hold the medicine ball overhead. Take a step forward with one leg and fling the ball towards the ground in front of you as hard as you can.
Day Two:
Emphasis: Lower body power, vertical emphasis
Counter-movement jump: 10 jumps. Move quickly into a quarter squat. Without pausing jump up as high as you can. Focus on landing with your hamstrings absorbing the landing. Each jump is an all-out effort, so take your time to get set up between each jump.
Squat jump: 10 jumps. Move into a quarter squat. Pause for a full count (“one one thousand”). Then jump as high as possible. Again, each jump is an all out effort.
Split cycle jumps: 3 sets of 5 on each leg. Move into the split position. Jump as high as possible and cycle the legs so that the opposite leg is in the front position when you land. Without pausing immediately explode back up and cycle the legs, reversing which leg is in front. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.
Reactive jumps: 3 sets of 30 seconds. Perform a counter-movement jump. Immediately upon landing jump up again. How many jumps can you make in 30 seconds?
Day Three:
Emphasis: Upper body power
Explosive incline push ups: 3 sets of 5. You need a table for this. Make sure to move it against a wall so that it doesn’t move. Go into the push-up position with your hands on the table and your feet on the ground. Explosively push yourself off the table. As you fall back, the moment your hands touch the table push back off again.
Explosive decline push ups: 3 sets of 5. Again, you need a table. Place your feet on the table and your hands on the ground, assume the push-up position. Explosively push yourself off the ground, when you land immediately push back off again.
Medicine ball rotational throw: 3 sets of 5. Face an outside wall or garage door. Hold the medicine ball in both hands. Squat down and rotate so that you are holding the ball outside your right knee. Explosively rotate to your left, straighten up, and throw the ball towards the height of your left shoulder. Repeat with the left side.
Medicine ball reverse rotational throw: 3 sets of 5. Standing facing away from the outside wall or the garage door. Squat down and hold the ball between both hands on the outside of your right knee. Explosively rotate and extend your body, throw the ball towards the wall over your left shoulder. Repeat with the other side.
Day Four:
Emphasis: Lower body power, horizontal emphasis
Standing long jump: 10 jumps. Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Quickly move into a quarter squat while swinging your arms back. Throw yourself forward as far as you can. Put some kind of marker on the ground so you can see how far you jumped. Aim for that, or further, on each subsequent jump.
Hurdle hops: 3 sets of 10 jumps. Hop over ten hurdles. As soon as you land, launch yourself over the next one. If you don’t have hurdles, put something on the ground to indicate where each one should be (I like to use pencils). Spread them further apart to make this more difficult. As you do this, work to jump over the highest hurdle that you can (i.e. we’re pretending the hurdle is there).
Medicine ball forward toss: 10 throws. Hold the medicine ball with both hands in front of your body. Quickly move into a quarter squat and swing the medicine ball back between your legs. Without pausing, extend your body explosively and throw the ball as far in front of your body as you can.
A few simple workouts you can do at home to work on your power! You don’t need a lot of fancy equipment and this can supplement any other strength and conditioning that you are doing at home. Remember, the important thing is the intent to move explosively!
