23.04.21
Primary Schools

Get Sport Ready – Developing Power in Children

We have discussed the importance of developing a range of general motor skills, along with specific sport skills, as a part of a long-term athlete development programme (LTAD).  Additionally, other fitness components should be targeted throughout the children’s development.  In Lloyd and Oliver’s Youth Physical Development model, the researchers suggested that seven physical qualities should be considered, including, mobility, agility, speed, power, hypertrophy, and metabolic conditioning (endurance). 

Like strength, power is suggested to be trained throughout the different ages and stages of maturation, with considerations around structure – remember that young children’s activities are more unstructured, with more structure be prescribed as the children develop in skill and overall maturity. 

It is noteworthy to highlight that strength and power are different qualities.  Strength is the ability to generate force.  As children play and learn skills, they are also learning how to generate force within a specific activity – for example, hopping, skipping, jumping, and running.  Also, remember that most of the strength (force) adaptations in young children will come through neuromuscular adaptations, where the nervous system can learn to recruit muscles, and to coordinate specific muscles in an effective order. 

Power is more complex to explain, and is a product of force x velocity, or the rate of doing work.  To try to explain this in a different way, two young children have similar strength levels, but the first child is slightly stronger.  However, the second child can increase or express their strength quicker (in a shorter time) – sometimes called explosive strength.  Therefore, even though the second child is not as strong as the first child, they can express their strength quicker, which may be more advantageous when playing games, learning sport skills, and general activities.

Measuring and Tracking Power Development

There are simple challenges that children can do to track power development.  Both the standing vertical jump and the standing broad jump are frequently used to test power, due to the ease of the test.  Additionally, the tests also help children to learn and to develop optimal landing strategies – it’s not just the jump, but the landing too!

These challenges measure how far, or how high the children can jump – so, back to our previous breakdown of power.  The children are trying to jump as high or as far as possible.  Therefore, they will recruit their muscles in a particular order to generate force, plus, and this is a big plus, they are limited in time to complete that task.  The children who can both organise their muscles and in the quickest time generally jump the highest or furthest.

This shows the connection between strength and velocity, with a bucket load of motor skills.  As children develop, tracking their jump height or jump distance are great, as we can support and feedback to encourage them.  However, remember that motor skills are important too, so, for example, their jump distance may reduce, but their overall jump technique and landing may look more efficient – quality of the movement is always important.

Training for Power

Within a long-term athletic development programme, it is recommended that power is targeted throughout the different ages and stages of maturation - pre-and-post peak height velocity. For younger children, power can be developed throughout the fundamental movements.  Activities such as hopping, skipping, and jumping hopefully make sense now, as they require both an aspect of strength, but expressed in a short time. 

For more mature children, and older children.  it is recommended to combineresistance training with plyometrics, as concurrent resistance activities and plyometrics drillshas been reported to develop powerin short-sprints and jumping.

Develop a Strong Foundation with Bodyweight and Strength Exercises

As with other areas of fitness, strength training can provide a solid foundation, from this foundation, we can start to develop power. Body weight exercise and adding further resistance can help support this, depending on the maturity of the children. When using resistance training for power, start with relatively light loads below 30%, medicine balls are a great piece of equipment.

Incorporate Plyometrics Drills to Develop Explosive Strength and Motor Skills

Plyometric training refers to a specific exercise modality that is built around jumping,hopping, bounding, and skipping movements.Theyare performed in an extremelyfastandexplosivemanner.  Plyometrics are also great, as they promote rhythm and coordination in children.  They continually work the muscles through a mechanism called the short-stretch cycle – which has shown to develop acceleration, agility, jumping.


Our goal is to develop effective movement strategies in children, with their movements becoming more efficient, demonstrating improvements in motor control and performance.  Hopefully this will also improve their confidence and their enjoyment in being both active and playing sport.

Improve a range of fitness components and motor skills in children

The Total Sport App empowers children to access fun activities to improve a range of fitness components and motor skills.

  • Develop the fundamental movement skills - agility, balance and coordination
  • Try new skills, like dance and yoga
  • Learn the importance of nutrition, sleep and activity for overall wellbeing


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