Get the feeling that you aren’t hitting the ball as far or as hard as some of your teammates or opponents? In hitting based sports, powerful hitting is often the difference between success and failure. Not only do hitting sports require you to hit with power to send the ball as far as possible they also require repetitive efforts of hitting power. Power generated directly relates to the distance hit.
Although timing has plenty to do with how far a ball will travel once hit. If you don’t have the engine to back up your perfect timing, you’ll never reach the intended destination.
If you don’t have the engine to back up your perfect timing, you’ll never reach the intended destination.
For sports such as golf, baseball distance is generally the objective and is achieved through strength and speed upon connection. For sports like hockey variations, cricket, tennis repetitive powerful is the objective along with ball placement. If an athlete has poor repetitive power their technique will fall throughout a game a lead to miss targets and errors.
The main takeaway from this is that it is important in all hitting sports that power training is included along with your skills training. To develop power, we first need to make sure that we are strong through not only our upper body but more importantly through our lower body. A powerful swing is generated through the lower body and core not just through the arms and shoulders, an important thing to consider especially if you feel your upper body gets sore and tired throughout the season.
Once strength is developed its time to get ridiculously powerful! Below are the some of the best exercises that will make you hit the ball further and with more consistency than ever before.
Exercise 1. Explosive Landmine Press (Video)
A great exercise that allows athletes to load up through the lower body then explode up through their upper body and shoulder in a safe manner due to the angle of the landmine press. A great option especially for those with niggly shoulders when pressing overhead. Keep the reps pretty low, should be maximum intent each rep – 4 sets of 3-4 reps each side.
Exercise 2. Med Ball Side Throw (Video)
Obliques are often a weak link through rotation and hitting power, the MB Side Throw strengthens that link. By adding weight to powerful rotation, you will see massive improvements in your swing speed and power. Keep the med ball light on these, 2-5kg is plenty. 3-4 sets of between 4-6 reps each side. Important note, make sure you improve both sides not just your hitting side.
Exercise 3. Med Ball Pocket Rotation (Video)
Similar to the side throw we stand side on and rotate powerfully through the lower body and generating a powerful ‘pass’ like action. A little different to the side throw that is an underhand throw, the pocket rotation gets a bit more shoulder involvement which is perfect for hip height-based hitting. Stay light again with the med ball, 2-5kg. 3-4 sets of 4-6 reps each side.
Exercise 4. Band Side Chops (Video)
The use of the band in this exercise forces you to produce power for longer and more effort is required towards the end of movement (where contact would normally happen). This is to make sure that we are working as hard as we can all the way through contact to generate more power and hit that ball even further. Long resistance bands are best, 3-4 sets of 4-8 reps each side.
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