Muscular power, just the sound of those two words together makes me think of muscle bound men deadlifting and bench pressing weight more than twice my weight! That doesn’t have to be the case, you can have great muscular power even if you are in the rooster division! Many of us little guys don’t hit the gym hard every day so we’re unsure of how strong we truly are. To get a good starting point we you should test yourself out!
Power test of glory
First thing is first, you’ll want to warm up properly to prevent injuries. If you haven’t heard about the new phenomenon of dynamic warm ups yet, check it out in this other blog! Once we are all warmed up and ready to go. Our golden number we are trying to get is 6 reps. It is important we don’t cheat the reps and are honest with ourselves as it will only show us what we need to work on. We also need to put out as hard as we can and push ourselves on the test so we truly know our abilities. First we warm up with each exercise using the format below
- To warm up start with a weight 50% the amount of what you think your max is and perform 8 reps with perfect form.
- Next we will add more weight so we are 60-70% of the amount we think our max will be and perform 3 reps.
- Now we will add even more weight so we are lifting 90% of what we believe our max is for 1 rep
- Rest for 1-2 minutes and perform your max. If you feel like you can do more than 6 reps rest for 3-4 minutes and try again. Once we discovered our max rest 4-8 minutes and proceed to the next test
The exercises we will be testing on are the seated cable row, bicep curls, max number of inverted rows performed in 5 minutes, and the flexed arm hang on a fat pull up bar. A good test of muscular endurance is doing a timed circuit course, check this one out on Military.com!
Python Power
If you liked this test or are just looking to improve muscular power and endurance for BJJ you should check out Eric Wong’s Python Power course. This course is specialty strength and conditioning course designed around developing muscular power and endurance for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, particularly in the field of submission strength and the strength to hold our position against our opponent. Pick up your copy here today! This is one of the best strength and conditioning programs for combat sport athletes that I have ever come across. Eric’s expertise is shown in his multitudes of videos and PDF’s all designed around one goal, to make you into a machine. If you combine expert technique, a solid game plan, and strong strength and conditioning then there is nothing holding you back from going a getting that gold medal.
So go ahead and pick up a copy here! Let me know how you like the course and how you did on the power test!
Train hard
Dan Faggella
