One of the timeless, effective ways to prepare athletes for maximal power outputs is simply: Playing team sports.
Typical "general" warmups (marching drills, active stretches, etc.) don't come close in so many cases.
Every time I've used sport play as a warmup for jump or sprint testing, the results are substantially better than a "general" warmup, and other coaches have found the same.
Although useful, "standard" warmups can only bring an athlete to a particular level of output
But, how can we "close the gap" between our typical warmups, and what team sports can offer, to help athletes be powerful and explosive?
Amongst several answers, one may surprise you:
It's interesting, because we don't tend to relate fatigue with power. In fact, the majority of coaches, and coaching literature would advise to avoid fatigue like the plague when working explosiveness.
At the same time, when you play team sports
It's repeat burst in nature
It gets your aerobic system (and all energy systems) involved
It taxes linear, lateral and rotational movement pathways
There is a limit to this.
Some fatigue is good, but too much can be a problem. A small to moderate level of fatigue can actually "activate" the muscle by an enhancement of the metabolic pathway, in addition to the neural coordination demand.
We also see light-to-moderate fatigue methods, coming out of the "DB Hammer" system, used by sprint coach Chris Korfist, such as 30 second single leg line hops, and 20-40 second hip flexor swings, interspersed with short sprints.
When I was in college, if you were feeling flat in your high jumping, my coach told me to "sprint a 200 fast", to get your system going. It seemed silly given the typical "warmup" protocol, but it worked!
In high school, my highest jump-touch (11'7" at 6'1" tall) came immediately after practice and a bunch of fast COD and wind-sprints, on short rest, that most definitely had my aerobic system punching hard, as well as many muscular pathways. There had been plenty of those "fatiguing", sprint-heavy practices leading up to that point as well.
These methods can be highly effective, but there is also some finesse when it comes to what muscles to fatigue, and how much to do. There is a line between "activation" and "lactate bath".
While "activating" fatigue is beneficial, over-conditioning is not
There are also some muscles that do better with moderate fatigue than others (such as the hip flexors and calves).
I've been fortunate to have had conversations with brilliant coaches, such as Christian Thibaudeau, and Chris Korfist, speaking on the nature of light ot moderate fatigue, and its activation potential for power performance.
A great place to start, is mixing 20-30" single leg, maximal rate, line hops in with your other explosive work, and go from there. Or just play that game of pickup basketball before your next jumping test.
Christian Thibaudeau podcast on manipulating fatigue in performance training (and much more).
Chris Korfist podcast on hip flexor swings in sprint training
