How do I train to be more explosive?

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Nathan Featherstone
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I will try to address the basics of this and some of the most common misconceptions. If your goal is to be faster and more explosive then this is not something you can train in isolation. Like many movements or areas of fitness people want a single solution when there are none and for explosiveness, it is a multi pronged approach that is required.

A common solution that people come up with is to perform a movement weighted. This however is often considered less than ideal as you end up doing the movements slower and messing with their mechanics. While some benefits have been shown for this, benefits have also been seen using lighter tools to allow for adaptation to moving a similar object, quicker. So ankle weights, wrist weights, weighted vests and other similar tools do have their use but they are not necessarily the best for building power.

A general rule for this I have laid out below and this is from years of training pro and amateur fighters, and working with other coaches who specialise in the area. This is as follows:

  1. Increase maximal strength (train it explosively)
  2. Work on power training and plyometrics (requires base strength)
  3. Work on endurance (to be able to maintain this level)
  4. Work on skill (the other 3 all suffer when skill is not ideal)

A quick explanation of the four steps above: We want to increase our overall strength which will allow us to move more mass, this includes your own body. Then we want to learn how to harness this strength into moving our own body and or objects quickly. Do not skip on strength work, as this will decrease potential issues that can arise in dedicated power training. Once we have these areas to a suitable base level we want to work on our endurance. This encompasses both our overall conditioning as well as our power endurance. These are dependent on your activity. Finally and most important of all is working on our skill, as without a sufficient level of skill all the other areas will suffer and require more energy to carry out.

As with all areas of fitness, these will need to be tailored to the individual and regularly reassessed throughout the persons training phases to see what needs to be adjusted. If you don’t have any measurable targets, then explosiveness becomes subjective.