Many athletes don’t understand the difference between force, power, and speed, and how to apply these concepts to their performance. Next, you’ll learn how to master the art of power and force and take your sprint and jump performance to new heights. This applies to sprinters, jumpers and even multi directional athletes. In this post I teach you based on the teachings of the former world record holder Willie Banks the difference between speed and power and how to develop force when sprinting. You’ll also learn some key drills that help athletes understand how power and force influence performance on the track or field.

About Willie Banks

The inventor of the famous “rhythmic clap,” 3 time Olympian Willie Banks set a world record in the triple jump of 17.97m/58-11.5 in 1985. He was named 1985 USATF Jesse Owens Male Athlete of the Year and 1986 U.S. Olympic Committee Sportsman of the Year. The 1983 IAAF World Championships silver medalist was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1999.

A lot of times athletes don’t understand the difference between the force or the power and speed. They think just take off. There’s a few things that you can actually do with your athlete to help them understand the difference between force and speed.

The first exercise is about pulling and it’ll help them understand that they have to really push hard in order to go forward. Your athlete is going to pull you. First, before he does anything, he’s going to stand up straight and then he’s going to pull you. He can’t do it unless he leans forward and it’s the same with your run. You have to lean forward and then push. That’s the only way it works. He won’t be able to pull your weight unless he leans forward.

You’ll watch a lot of athletes do their run-throughs and some can stop right in the pit or even at the beginning of the pit because they have no force behind their run. Other athletes go through the pit and maybe 10 or 15 meters down past the pit, and that’s an athlete with a lot of force and power.

There’s another way of doing this same using the same concept but allowing your athlete to utilize their arms in order to understand how the arms can also help them engage. Place your hands at the top of your athlete’s shoulder, and then the athlete is going to lean forward. You hold them there. Let them lean and then they start pushing you, engaging their arms and pushing. And you step out of the way. It’s a great drill to get your athlete to run at you. You hold them back and after maybe six or eight strides, you let them go and see if they continue. If they can stop after two or three strides, you know they understand and you understand that they’re really not pushing.

There’s certain physics concepts that you can use to illustrate how important it is for the foot to be underneath the hips, the hips to be underneath the shoulders, and the shoulders to be underneath the ears, when you’re landing on the ground because if everything is lined up, it’s easier to jump. There’s a little drill that Willie Banks came up with, that will help illustrate all these to your athletes.

Have your athletes down both feet against a surface or a bench. Have the athlete stands straight with the ears, the shoulders, the hips, the knees, the ankle, all lined up and then ask the athlete standing in this position to put a foot up onto the bench or whatever it is. Do not allow the athlete to move forward. That is the cylinder of force. Now, ask your athlete, without moving forward and without pushing backwards, to go straight up. It’s almost impossible because all your athlete is using is this because that’s the cylinder. So long as things are outside the cylinder, they’re just a loose heavy mass of weight that is impossible to lift. All you have to do is allow the athlete to move forward slightly and enter the cylinder of force. Now, his body is in the cylinder of force, it’s easy. Remember. In physics gravity only works one way, straight down, and you need that gravitational force in order to push against to go up.

Bibliographic references:

• Outperform. (2022). Sprint and Jump Like a Pro: The Key Differences Between Speed and Power [Video file]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/msZ28cPJElo?si=w5021nkmLzSCguyo