How Do You Train Strength, Power, And Speed, In One Training Session?

Despite the recent snow here in my part of the world, sponsored fighter Joe Le Maire has still made it in for his gym sessions at my home gym!

And I thought I’d share some of the work we’re doing together to help him prepare for his next fight.

So here’s a quick video highlight of the lower body exercises we’re using with Joe right now – in his Power Block of training.

And although Power is the emphasis, we also train both speed and strength in maintenance doses too. This is how we train strength, power and speed in the same session.

How We Train Strength, Power, & Speed, In The Same Session

This block of training is designed to increase Joe’s power, while concurrently maintaining his speed and strength levels.

We’re looking at just the lower body exercises from the training session, to illustrate how different exercises and loads can hit different velocities and result in a different training effect – coordinating strength, power and speed in the same session.

1. SPEED: Band Resisted Broadjump

We began with Band Resisted Broad Jumps as these are the fastest of the three exercises and require a great deal of fine motor control.

If Joe was already pre-fatigued from heavier exercises then he wouldn’t have moved as fast and we wouldn’t have improved his speed specifically.

The Broad Jump was selected because it’s a high-velocity lower body exercise with a significant horizontal component.

Effectively producing a lot of horizontal force translates specifically to Muay Thai striking techniques, where you direct your force toward your opponent.

The band resisted version of this exercise was used to minimise the shock loading on the knees and the patella tendon in particular, allowing Joe to fully commit to jump without risking knee damage.

2. POWER: Hang ‘Hit’ & High Pull

The Hang “Hit” and High Pull exercise is the main focus of the training session in this block, as it maximises power production.

This exercise is a precursor to Olympic lifting exercises like the clean and the snatch and allows Joe to build the explosive technique required to do a better job of these Olympic lifts when we return to them very soon.

It develops power without the full technical demand of the clean or snatch lifts.

Again there’s a strong hip dominant action which develops horizontal power toward an opponent.

The load used was selected so that Joe could move it at a vertical velocity between 1.0 and 1.3 m/s, ideal for increasing power without messing up his technical form. The video shows Joe on his “high” week, using his heaviest loads.

The exercise volume-load spent on this exercise predominates the lower body training in this session, and suits our objective of power development in this training block.

3. STRENGTH: Front Squat

The front squat is there to maintain strength levels in this block of training.

It’s the slowest, heaviest lift in this particular session, and demands the least neuromuscular motor control and skill.

It’s therefore best placed later in the session to avoid undue fatigue which would slow the velocity of the faster, more powerful exercises in the training block.

I’ve opted for a knee dominant strength lift here, as the other two lower body exercises in this session have been deliberately hip dominant, and this pattern will be a little more fatigued.

This will allow Joe to go a bit heavier in these front squats than he would otherwise!

I hope that insight behind the choices of some of the exercises in Joe’s program helps you improve your own strength and conditioning training too.

And if you’d like more of my help with your training, shoot me an email! Or of course, check out the further resources below.

Further Resources

• Training Fighters for Strength, Power & Speed
• Muay Thai Strength vs Speed – Sports Science
• Strength-Power-Speed (SPS) Routine – A S&C Routine for Training at Home
• The Science of Building Champions Video Course