PHYSICAL CONDITIONING · Athlete Level
POWER AND RATE OF FORCE DEVELOPMENT
13 min · Full library · written lesson, video in production
The point
After this lesson you can build explosive strength that actually shows up in the tiny window a landing gives you, and you know how to slot that work into a week that already contains riding.
Half the answer, free
The Technique
- Separate maximum strength from rate of force development, because they are different problems. Maximum strength is how much force you can produce given all the time you want. Rate of force development is how quickly you can get there. A landing, a pop off a lip, a save when the front wheel tucks - these are over long before anyone reaches their maximum. So the useful question is not how strong you are, it is how much of your strength you can express in a very short contact. A rider can be strong in the gym and slow in the air, and that gap is exactly what this lesson closes. Both qualities are trainable, they are trained differently, and one is a prerequisite for the other.
- Respect the strength floor. You cannot make fast what is not strong, because rate of force development work only redistributes the force you already have across time. A common coaching convention is that dedicated power work starts to pay properly once an athlete can back squat somewhere around one and a half times body weight with clean depth and control, or can demonstrate equivalent relative strength in a hinge and a single leg pattern. Below that, more time in heavy strength work returns more than more time in jumps, and the jumps carry more injury risk for less reward. Test it honestly. If you are underneath the floor, the answer to "how do I get more explosive" is usually "get stronger for another twelve weeks".
- Build the landing before the jump. Every jump you perform is a landing you have to absorb, and the force absorbed on landing is greater than the force produced going up. This is where riders get hurt, and it is where most home-made plyometric programmes are backwards. Start with eccentric control: slow tempo squats and split squats, four to five seconds down. Then add isometric holds in the landing position. Then drop-and-stick from a low box, landing quietly in a stable position and holding for a full two seconds before you move. Quiet is the standard. If the landing makes a noise, you are arriving on the floor rather than receiving it, and no amount of jump training fixes that.
Still under the glass
- The plyometric ladder, contact counts, and where power work fits inside a riding week
- 5 more technique steps
- The 5 mistakes that undo it, with fixes
- The drill that builds the reflex
- The safety non-negotiables
It opens when you book a trip that runs physical conditioning - these are the exact drills you run with your coach out there. Your booking unlocks this whole library.
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