The Explosive Power Formula

Over the past few years, weve seen an explosion of data in the field of strength and
conditioning. We can now track and analyze more components of sports performance
than ever before.
However, this process can be overwhelming. The hard part is often knowing where to
being, let alone what to make of all the numbers and data that can be collected.
Today, Id like to take a look at explosive power and show you how data science can be
a tremendously powerful tool to improve your training, without being complicated.
When it comes to most sports, developing explosive power is absolutely critical. Ive
never met an athlete or coach who wishes they were LESS explosive.
But given all of the wonderful technological advances in training (accelerometers, force
plates, etc.), where should you start? How do you improve?
Heck, how do you even know if youre considered explosive or not?
Well, I have good news my friends:
Remember, its not data that makes decisions its
people.
breaking down explosive power can be
very simple. No fancy tools required, just well-applied data science.
Dont worry, Ive done the hard work for you
As a general outline, you should follow these three simple steps:

1) Evaluate your current level of explosive power

2) Identify your explosive power ratio
3) Train, track and compare
Before we get started, one thing thats important to note is that everyone is different.
Remember, its not data that makes decisions its people. Data is meant to give
insights to help YOU make better decisions.

Step 1: establish a baselineHow explosive are you?

Lets start with one of the most basic yet effective tests to determine lower body
explosive power: the vertical jump.
This simple test is used in numerous sports as a benchmark for explosive power for
one reason: it actually correlates well to performance.
So, how do you know where you match up?
Here is the NSCA vertical jump table that shows the average vertical jumps for
different categories of sport. Whether you are an athlete yourself or youre coaching
one, this table can be used to estimate where you stand relative to your goals.
For example, consider someone who has aspirations to be a Division I defensive back.
Looking at our table, we know that the average vertical for a D1 college defensive back
is 31.5 inches. Lets examine three cases of what you can learn from comparing your
jump to this standard:
Case 1: The athlete has a 20 inch vertical. This is an immediate red flag. The athlete is

well below the standard and should place a very high priority on developing greater
explosive power to enhance performance.
Case 2: The athlete has a 31 inch vertical. This is a good start, but there is still some
room for improvement. The athlete has a good degree of explosiveness thats equal to
the average of his group, so increasing explosiveness is still important but not as high
of a priority.
Case 3: The athlete has a 40 inch vertical. This is excellent and gives good reason to
look at other areas of performance that may need improvement. Chances are,
explosiveness is not a weak point for this individual.

Step 2: The explosive power ratioHow do you improve?

Models help us understand the world around us and are what science and
mathematics are all about. In our particular case, we are going to model the factors
that comprise a vertical jump.
There are four main factors that drive jump performance. These can be modeled as:
Vertical Jump = Max strength + Rate of Force Development (RFD) + Genetics +
Technique
While genetics and technique (this also includes components like coordination and
balance) play a role in vertical jumping, the primary drivers are an athletes maximum
strength and RFD.
This means that increasing maximum strength and rate of force development (RFD)
will most likely give you the biggest bang for your buck in increasing explosive power.
You may be asking, What is the difference between max strength and rate of force
development?
They are closely related, but maximum strength essentially governs the maximum
amount of force you can produce during any explosive movement. This largely comes
into play at the beginning of the movement, where the highest forces are produced.
This is because most cases require you to overcome inertia at the beginning of a
movement, i.e. gravity, which requires a lot of force.
Once youre moving and velocity increases, maximum strength becomes much less
significant and rate of force development becomes more important in driving explosive
power.
If youre lacking in either or there isnt the right balance between the two, your

explosive power will suffer dramatically.

This means that the key thing to understand isnt simply that you need both maximum
strength and good rate of force development to maximize explosive power you need
these two qualities to fall within the right ratio.
This is what the explosive power ratio is all about
In order to determine what this ratio is, I spent a ton of time digging into competitive
Weightlifter research.
Why Weightlifters?
Simple. They are some of the most explosive athletes on the planet and they track
their best lifts so theres a ton of data to analyze and dig into!
I looked specifically at studies including the two key lifts that demonstrate maximum
strength and rate of force development: the squat and the clean, respectively.
The beauty of using these two exercises is that they are simple to perform and
monitor, and they require no special equipment. Any qualified strength and
conditioning coach should be able to incorporate these into their athletes programs
and most are already using them.

Photo courtesy of Hookgrip.

Digging into the research

During the Cold War era, the Soviets had a masterful sports science program
consisting of a huge, state-sponsored athletics program that collected a ton of data.
For weightlifting in particular, researchers collected different personal bests among
various skill groups and compared them to other exercises. These comparison charts
can be seen in Laputin and Oleshkos book, Managing the training of weightlifters.
Whats interesting about this data is that independent of body weight and skill level
(class I to International Master of sport), the back squat seems to be invariably
around 130% 5% of the athletes best clean.
Keep in mind that clean in this sense is referring to a full depth squat clean. If you are
talking about a power clean (catching the bar above parallel), which is what most
non-Weightlifters are doing, then youre looking at the back squat being about 154% of
the power clean.
These same basic percentages were also recently re-confirmed in Ben Coves Study at
the 2015 world weightlifting championships. The results are summarized below:

So what does all this mean?

Well, it means that if you want to maximum explosive power, simply being strong isnt
enough. You need to achieve the right balance between maximum strength and rate of
force development.
The data suggests that this balance is achieved by having an explosive power ratio of
1.5 1.6.
(Note: this ratio assumes youre doing power cleans instead full cleans, like most
athletes are. If youre performing full cleans, simply add 0.2 to your explosive power
ratio to compensate).
An explosive power ratio that is either too low or too high above that range tells you
that you dont have the correct balance between maximum strength and rate of force
development.
Consequently, your explosive power isnt nearly what it could be.
To determine your current explosive power ratio, simply take your maximum back

squat (1RM) and divide it by your best power clean.

If youre not doing 1RM testing, you estimate your 1RM with free calculators like this
one.

Exclusive Bonus: Click here now to download the explosive power cheat sheet and
follow the simple three step formula
Lets use this equation to calculate the explosive power ratio of two hypothetical
athletes:
Example 1: Athlete A can squat 300lbs and power clean 200lbs. In this case, his or her
EPR would be exactly 1.5 (300lbs / 200lbs)
Example 2: Athlete B can squat 400lbs, but only power clean 230lbs, producing an
EPR of 1.74.
This would mean that Athlete Bs ratio is out of balance and developing more max
strength isnt the answer to improving explosive power.
Instead, Athlete B should focus on improving their rate of force development with
explosive lifts and methods like ballistic training and plyometrics.
The chart below summarizes how to use the explosive power ratio to help guide your
training:

The great thing about the explosive power ratio is that it gives you a clear roadmap of
the type of training that will improve your explosive power the most.
Simply plug your 1RM, or projected 1RM, for the back squat and power clean into the

equation and quickly find out if your ratio is within the right rangeor if you need to
focus your training on a specific area.
As you train and start to see improvements in your lifts, use the explosive power ratio
to make sure youre maintaining the proper balance of max strength and RFD.
Teaser: In future articles Ill cover the data behind exactly what types of programs
produce the fastest increases in strength, or rate of force development. I think the
information will surprise you but thats a topic for another time.

Step 3: Track, train and compareHow do you stack up?

Now you have a gauge for explosive power and you know how to see where you fall on
the explosive power ratio scale.
With this, you can see how you or any athlete, for that matter stack up against other
athletes in terms of max strength and rate of force development.
Knowing this will help you track your progress over time and ensure you have both the
right explosive power ratio and the overall levels of strength and rate of force
development necessary to perform at the highest level.
Ive developed different training standards for comparing components of explosive
power using Mark Rippetoes starting strength standards, Greg Everetts
weightlifting classification system, and other observations.
Its important to remember that these numbers should be used as rough
guidelines and are only designed to give coaches and athletes a reference for where
they stand compared to the best of the best.
The results are summarized in the charts below:

Summary
If you need to improve explosive powerand who doesntthe explosive power ratio is
an invaluable tool to assess your own weaknesses or, if youre a coach, to help develop
the most effective program possible for your athletes.
To maximize explosive power, all you have to do is follow this three step process:
1) Perform a vertical jump test as a benchmark of explosive power
2) See where your EPR is by dividing your back squat by your power clean 1 RMs
3) Compare against different standards [the good, excellent, or elite strength levels in
the charts above] and track your progress over time
This 3 step process will allow you to quickly pinpoint specific weaknesses and even
better, it will give you a roadmap to the shortest route to maximizing power
Data science is about application. It doesnt always require expensive equipment or
time consuming data analysis. Too often, we see people collecting a lot of data and

doing little with it.

Instead, with the right approach, we can collect data from few simple tests and turn it
into a powerful application. Remember, data is often what you make of it.

Exclusive Bonus: Click here now to download the explosive power cheat sheet and
follow the simple three step formula
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