As a quick aside from my last post, I wanted to provide alternative power exercies from the hang clean before I get into preventative groin strategies for soccer players (by the way, this will significantly help soccer players!).
I cannot think of many team sports where power isn’t a desireable quality. Baseball, hockey, soccer, football, lacrosse, tennis, and any other that I am leaving out, needs to be explosive at some point in the game. Some, such as baseball, need to be express “more” power in a shorter amount of time throughout pitches or swings, whereas in soccer it is dispersed throughout the entire 90 minutes.
Hang Cleans are a staple lift in our programming and typically the first phase (even the second) can be geared towards technique and grooving such a complex lift (jump & catch portions).
However, in many cases hang cleans may not be the best choice. Sometimes athletes may not “understand” the lift, not be ready to perform it, or have previous injuries (low back, shoulder) that makes this exercise selection not the optimal one. Even their body type may make it very difficult to perform well. Here are some other alternatives that work on acceleration and deceleration…
Drop Squats w Stick (we use for a lot of our younger athletes)
Box Jumps
Broad Jumps
1-Arm DB Hang Snatch
KB Swings
Vertimax Jumps (Stick landing, w/ Rebound, and Continuous): the Endeavor guys did a great top putting that together.
Not to mention, we can do single leg variations of jumps as well as hops and bounds (lateral or linear). For soccer we like to start with box, broad, and vertical jump variations before hang cleaning. Ultimately, we want to get to the hang clean but there is no shortage of power movements (I am probably leaving out a bunch).
Cheers,
Matt
Categories: Strength Training
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