The Coach's Room | FlipSled Blog

How to Increase Athletic Performance Faster

Written by Sean Campbell | Mar 9, 2020 10:40:51 PM

If you’re looking to increase your athletic performance, win more games, become noticed, etc, you’ve come to the right place. With the FlipSled's  unique "finishing" moves, you are going to get faster, stronger, and create more power at a more accelerated rate than your competitors. 

 By fostering and improving an athlete’s power output capabilities, this will give them the advantage over their opponents and ultimately lead them to success (Haff et al., 2001).

Finish Your Moves

    Research has demonstrated that if a lifter is able to throw an object, the force and velocity will be significantly different compared to when the lifter must maintain a grip on the object (Newton, Kraemer, Hakkinen, Humphries, & Murphy, 1996).

Velocity

    Two of the figures of this study are shown here. The first figure below (Figure 2) shows the change in velocity of the bar with subjects performing a bench press vs a bench press throw. In both conditions the subjects were told to move the bar as rapidly as possible through the entire range of motion. 

    The top curve (closed boxes) shows the velocity throughout the range when the bar was thrown. The bottom curve (open boxes) shows the velocity throughout the range when the subject kept their grip on the bar. As noted, in both cases the subject was told to move the bar as rapidly as possible through the entire range of motion of the movement. 


Applied Force

    How does this translate to applied force you may ask. Fortunately the researchers asked this as well. The graph below (Figure 3) follows the same 0-100% of range of motion of the explosive bench press (open boxes) and explosive bench press throw (closed boxes). The force applied to the bar that was able to be thrown (top curve) was relatively flat throughout most of the range. On the other hand, when the subject was forced to hang onto the bar, the force applied to the bar steadily decreased throughout the lift (bottom curve). 

    As a coach or trainer, when you train with equipment or moves where you can’t throw, the neurological path that is being burned into the athlete’s neuromuscular system is to “pull the punch”, or slow down prior to contact. With a throwing movement, they are being conditioned to explode through their opponent.

Power Production

    If we look at power production (work done over time) at the end portions of these movements, this data is quite revealing. At 90% of the range of motion, the “press” power was approximately 135 watts. At 90% of the range for the “throw” the power output was 858 watts. Throwing provided a greater power output of over 6  times versus pressing. 

    At the end of the movement (100%), which is where it counts if you are throwing anything, the power is 40 watts for the “press” and 702 watts for the “throw”. Yes, this is a 1700% greater power output at the end of the movement when the subject can throw the object as opposed to keep it in their hands!

Haff GC, Whitley A, Potteiger JA. A brief review: Explosive exercises in sports             performance. Strength Cond J, 2001; 23(3): 13-20.        https://elitetrack.com/article_files/explosive-exercise-performance.pdf

Newton, Robert U. (1996). Kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activation during               explosive upper body movements. Research Gate (p.36-38).                           https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223128720_Kinematics_kinetics_and_muscle_activation_during_explosive_upper_body_movements

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