Strength vs. Power- Which do you need?

“Strength” and “power” are  words that like to get thrown around when it comes to sports and training. But what do they actually mean and how are they applicable to the athlete? Which one is more important? Many times those words are used interchangeably (wrong) and it’s important to differentiate between the two so you can understand what you need to train and how you need to successfully train for those goals. Let me break it down for you. To put it rather simply, strength is the amount of force your muscles can produce. Power is how quickly you can use strength. Think of a continuum with strength on one side, speed on the other, and power in the middle. Power is the athletic, beautiful love child of speed and strength.

Which is more important for the athlete? Both are. Power is the ability to skate fast, have a sweet vertical, or effectively move an opponent out of your way. Many athletes and their parents are always talking about how they need to work on their speed and power but think that strength training isn’t relevant since they don’t need to be “strong” for their given sport. For the sake of this piece, I’m going to ignore the plethora of reasons why strength training is important for every sport and focus on how it is applicable to a powerful athlete.

No one can deny that being “powerful” makes you a better athlete. The quicker you can use your strength, the better you will be as an athlete. However, the more force you can produce, the more powerful you will be. And how do you produce more force? By increasing your strength. I took logic in college, I’m good at deducing these things. Increasing your strength is not only relevant to lifting weights but makes you run faster, jump higher, throw farther, and push people around in contact sports. The ability to exert force, as quickly as you can, against an object (be it a shotput, the ground, or another person), will make you a better athlete. That means you need a combination of strength and speed to become powerful.

You can’t be powerful without a certain level of strength and you also can’t become a better athlete by only focusing on your speed work. As an athlete, you can’t ignore one facet of training and hope to excel as an athlete.

Now you, dear reader, know the difference between speed and power, how they relate to your training, and why you need both. Because knowledge is power!

-Coach Lily