total body: 5 Total Body Power Exercises You Need to Do Every Day

Power exercises should be a regular part of your workout routine. They promote muscle growth by stretching and tearing (and then repairing) muscle tissue. They also help you train your body for quick, powerful, or strong responses. Power exercises are essentially about overcoming resistance as quickly as possible.

Instead of simply teaching your muscles to grow bigger and stronger, power work improves the neuromuscular system, which sends signals from the brain to the muscles, allowing the body to respond to a stimulus and take action more quickly.

Best Total Body Power Exercises

Check out the following five total body power exercises you can do every day:

1) Barbell Clean and Press

This classic power exercise is excellent for developing functional, total body strength.

The clean and press increases strength in a variety of muscles throughout the upper and lower body, including the hamstrings, quadriceps (quads), biceps, glutes, triceps, deltoids, rhomboids, trapezius, and lower back. It also works the core muscles.

Instructions:

Place your feet shoulder-width apart on the floor, and grab a loaded barbell with an overhand grip.
Lift the bar to your chest by driving through your heels and keeping your core tight.
Dip your knees, and drive your elbows up to catch underneath the bar.
Stand tall with your weight in a front rack position, and press the bar overhead till your arms are fully locked out.

2) Kettlebell Swing

If you could only do one power exercise for the rest of your life, it would have to be the kettlebell swing. It's a more dynamic hinge than the deadlift, requiring you to generate power while also maintaining stability and, if done one-handed, resists rotation.

Instructions:

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and a kettlebell slightly in front of you on the ground.
Grip the bell with both hands, and hike it between your legs like a football player, but don't let go off the handle.
In a hip hinge, reverse the motion to propel the bell forward and up, squeezing the glutes and keeping the shoulder blades pinned back and down.
Allow the bell to float up till it's level with the chest when it's above waist height.
Maintaining your grip on the bell, allow it to begin to fall, and use the momentum to repeat the 'hike' phase.
Rep 5-6 times more.
Rest for 2-4 minutes before repeating 4-6 times.

3) Medicine Ball Slam

While kettlebell swings require a strong opening of the hips, another effective way to work the hinge pattern is to forcefully close the hips. The medicine ball slam is an excellent power exercise to achieve that. This simple exercise requires you to work on two movement patterns (overhead press to hip hinge).

Instructions:

Place your feet on the ground, shoulder-width apart, with a medicine or slam ball between them.
Pick up the ball with one hand on each side.
Raise the ball to your shoulders till both arms are fully extended.
Cinch your abs, and hinge at the hips till the torso is nearly parallel to the floor.
Make use of your momentum to slam the ball into the ground.
Pick up the ball, and repeat 4-6 times.
Rest for 2-4 minutes before repeating 4-6 times.

4) Depth Jump

As far as power exercises go, this is one of the best ways to build explosive power in your legs.

Depth jumps — stepping down from a lower box or bench and then exploding quickly up off the ground — are a great progression from box jumps. Before beginning any type of explosive jumping, spend a few weeks skipping rope or doing smaller jumps in place to increase your load tolerance.

Instructions:

Place your feet on a low bench or plyo box.
Step down from it, landing on both feet with a slight knee bend.
Leap into the air as soon as your feet touch the ground.
To generate more upward motion, use an arm swing.
Land on your toes, and tap your heels to the floor. Rep these steps 4-6 times more.
Rest for 2-4 minutes before repeating 4-6 times.
You can also finish by jumping up onto a higher box.

5) Heavy Sled Push/Drag

The sled drag promotes overall strength, muscle growth, conditioning, and power development, making it an excellent total body power exercise. The quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, glutes, hip flexors, shoulders, abdominals, and lower back are all worked out.

Instructions:

Load weight plates onto a sled.
Stand behind the sled with a pole in each hand for the sled push.
Push the sled forward as quickly as you can, using your entire leg with each step.
For the sled drag, grab the sled's rope or straps, keeping your weight back and arms locked, and pull.
As you move backward, take short, quick steps.

Takeaway

The aforementioned total body power exercises can help increase your power and strength. For more such exercises, check out our articles on exercises for beginners to build explosive power, power-building exercises for women, and exercises to build power in athletes.