It is important to include power and strength training into your workout. Knowing the difference in how you are training your muscles will improve your overall health. Our muscles are made of two particular types of fibers: fast twitch (power muscles) and slow twitch (strength muscles). Each type needs to be trained. Power lifters like the world’s strongest man, or line men on football teams focus their training on strength, other athletes like sprinters and basketball players focus their training on power, however each of these incorporate the other training method into their workout to make them well rounded as so should we. Knowing the difference in the way you are training will help you refine your training to achieve the best results.
Power is the ability to generate as much force as quickly as possible. Training for power includes exercises such as vertical or box jumps, the swing of a baseball bat or weighted sprints. Each of these actions requires speed to be successful with light to moderate weight.
Strength is the ability to generate as much force as possible without time as a factor. Exercises like squats or bench press uses a slow purposeful movement to lift or move the most amount of weight possible. Training for strength involves lifting very heavy weights, low repetitions, and no time factor. Including drop sets (Doing as many reps as possible with a heavy weight, then gradually reducing the weight performing as many repetitions at each weight load) into your workout will improve your strength.
