Strength Vs Power
Let’s not get these two things twisted, because I hear them used interchangeable by people a decent amount. Those two things: Strength and Power. Let’s dive into exactly what these to things are
Strength: the ability to produce force to overcome an outside resistance
Power: The ability to produce force in a quick amount of time to overcome and outside resistance
At first glance they look like they have the same definition, however power has that little extra part that makes all the difference is time. How quickly you can move the weight. When you are working on building up your strength it doesn’t matter how quickly you move that weight and as you lift heavier you have probably noticed it takes you longer to move the weight. That’s okay, that’s building up strength. However if you wanted to build up power, not the case. Power is how quickly you can produce force to overcome that outside resistance. Think of watching people olympic weightlift (clean, jerk, snatch), the bar movessssss fast vs a power lifter (bench, squat, deadlift) the bar is moving sllowwww.
When it comes to power, coordination and speed play a role. Especially neural coordination as moves become more complex, think of a clean or in climbing a paddle dyno. Those moves require snappiness but also coordination. We can break down that neural coordination into two different categories:
Intermuscular coordination: how well your muscles communicate and work together
Intramuscular coordination: how well the muscle fibers communicate and work together within a singular muscle
Now that we can see that these two things, strength and power are different they also have benefits to your athletic endeavors
Strength
You can think of strength as the cone to the ice cream. It is the base for everything else you do in your athletic life and/or day to day life. Having a strong foundation of strength sets you up for better success in your other athletic components: mobility, power, speed, and agility. It also helps you become more resilient to injuries and if you do get injured have a faster recovery. Being stronger is not a bad thing. It is the base for everything else
Power
If you look at any sport what sets apart the top athletes tends to be how powerful they are. If they are able to produce force quickly they are usually the best. Think of the top climbers; they are all snappy, quick, and coordinated compared to the majority of other climbers. So being powerful is beneficial. You have increased reaction time to what is happening in front of you. In climbing power would be beneficial for dynamic movements, those compy style movements, dynos, and bouldering. If you are a shorter climber, power is great because it helps you reach holds you wouldn’t be able to reach if you went statically.
Training Strength
When we want to build up strength in the weightroom a recommended outline would be
75-95% a 1RM or RPE 7-9ish
3-8ish reps
3-5 sets
And a solid rest time in between sets, like minimum 2 minutes.
If you are reading this and want to learn more about strength definitely check out The Free Lifting Guide. The guide to set yourself up for success with confidence in the weightroom. You can find that here. We dive into how a great way to figure out how many reps to train strength is to train near failure, not all the way to failure.
Training Power
When we want to build up our power in the weightroom a recommended outline would be
1-5 reps
1-4 sets
40-95% but generally lower percentage: RPE 5-9
When first starting off, doing lower percentage/RPE is a good place to start. If you are an advance athlete/advanced lifter you could possibly do higher intensities
You can totally do the same lifts as you were doing as for strength, the intention behind the exercise changes, that’s all. With power the intention is to move the weight quickly, that’s why we are training at a lower intensity vs strength.
If you have never trained in the weightroom, I highly suggest you start off with doing a strength block to build a strong foundation before hopping in to training power. Having a good strength foundation will make training power easier and also see a greater benefit from a power block after a strength block.
Check out The Free Lifting Guide to learn more about strength training and how to complete lifts (barbells and dumbbells) in the weightroom
You can also dive more into the topic of strength vs power via Face The Climb Podcast Episode 82. You can listen to it on Spotify and ITunes
