How to create Home Workout for Muscle Power
If you are interested in developing power and athleticism while working out at home, then continue reading below.
To perform tasks such as jumping, throwing, hitting or any other physically demanding functional movement, you need agility and explosiveness in your muscles. The more explosive and agile you are the more successful you will be in sports. To have such explosiveness, your muscles must be able to generate a lot of power. In the fitness definition video series, we have covered muscle power. In that video I explained that muscle power is the ability of our muscles to generate a large force in the smallest amount of time possible. This is very different from the traditional mass building and strength building workouts, where the focus is only on generating a lot of force. If you are interested in learning about these difference, I would recommend you to refer to my Fitness definitions playlist. The link to that playlist is included in the card above.
There are three methods, that I described in my previous article, which you can use to develop muscle power. These were
- Olympic Weight lifting
- Variable Resistance training
- Plyometric exercises
Since in this article we have to focus on a home workout, the first two options are out, as they require some type of equipment. The only option left for power training at home for you then is Plyometric training.
What are Plyometrics?
In very simple terms plyometric are specific exercises where in the beginning you contract your muscles like spring and then one explosive movement you release all the stored energy to generate a lot of force in a very small time. Basically these are exercises, which involve a lot of jumping and explosive movements. Although there are a lot of plyometric exercises that one can incorporate in his/her workout, here I will show you six popular ones you can perform at home without any equipment.
Plyometric Push ups: Place yourself in the plank position with your weight supported by your toes and palms on the ground, your arms must be fully extended and elbows locked. Now by bending your elbows lower yourself down as much as you can without touching the floor. From the bottom, explosively press yourself up so that your hands leave the ground for a short period of time, before returning back to the ground. After returning to the starting position repeat.
Squat Jumps: Keep you feet at a comfortable width apart. By taking a breath in, descent into a squat by drawing the hips back, followed by knee flexion. At the bottom of the squat jump up explosively and land in a controlled manner. Right after landing, descend into a squat and repeat.
Split jumps: Starting position for this movement is at the bottom of a lunge with your weight mostly on the front foot. Now move your back foot forward and at the same time explode from your front foot to perform a jump. Try to go as high as possible. While jumping move the back foot in the front foot orientation and vice versa. Land softly on the floor and continue to drop into the lunge position. When you reach the bottom of the lunge, repeat the movement.
Burpees: Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart. Drop into a squat position by drawing the hips back, followed by knee flexion. Continue dropping down and place your hands on the ground. Now shift your weight on the hands and kick your feet back, placing your body into starting position of a push up. Here you have an option of performing a full push up. Jump your feet back close to your hands and come out of the squat explosively by jumping up while extending your hands up in the air. Land on your feet about shoulder width apart and immediately lower yourself into the squat and repeat.
Reverse lunge jump: Standing with your feet hip width apart, step your one foot back, just as in a reverse lunge with most of your weight to your other foot. Now start moving your back foot forward and at the same time explode from your front foot to perform a jump. Keep moving your back foot forward until the knee of this foot touches your chest. After landing on your front foot, immediately perform reverse lunge and repeat the whole movement over.
Long Jumps: Starting position for this movement is with your feet hip width apart, firmly planted on the floor and you at the bottom of a bodyweight squat. Now in one continuous movement swing your arms back and come out of the squat explosively with a jump forward. Swing your arms forward as you land on the floor. Now you can turn back and perform the jump back to the starting position or you can just walk back to the starting position.
How to Incorporate Plyometrics in your Workout
Plyometric exercises by themselves will not improve your power. You should include Plyometric exercise in addition to your strength workout. Perform 3–4 sets of 8–12 reps of the exercises mentioned two to three times a week. For optimal power development allow for a rest of atleast a minute between each set. More rest is fine if you do not feel that you have recovered from previous set. If you are more interested in building endurance then decrease the rest time between sets or perform these exercises in a circuit. You can perform plyometric workout on the same day as your strength-training day or on a separate day.
