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Squats: A potential tool for power development

· training,squats,power

I got a bunch of feedback from people regarding my training video I uploaded this week. Among the criticism was that I did not go low enough on my squats. First of all, I need to stop you right there; the most people see squats out of the two main ways: powerlifting and Olympic squats. what many miss is that for example, in sports, squats are not the goal itself, it is just a tool to reaching sport oriented goals. (Tips: click on the hyperlinks for a further explanation on the topics/wordings.)

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When I focus on developing power; squats is a great way to convert strength into power. In my training I use box squats to control my eccentric movement and convert it into a concentric push. The combination of these two movements will help me to convert my strength in squats into explosive power. It's the speed in converting these two that develops power, not the depth of the squat. So by testing this development I do a broad jump or lateral jump (polymetric training) after every set of box squat to measure the difference in height and length of my jumps. The results; I jump higher and longer after a set of box squat than before due to the additional conversion from strength to power. This is a method that can be used in other base exercises like bench press, dead lifts and cleans to become a more explosive athlete.

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Like I mentioned on top; the focus on these exercises is not necessarily the squat itself. The focus is what effect is has on my development as a explosive athlete. The Squat is just a tool to reach a athletic goal.

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“If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.” – Ben Hogan