The Power Position

Watch to learn a proper body mechanics technique used to achieve optimal power transfer and efficiency.

Read Video Text Below:

Hey David Weck. I'm going to teach you how to achieve what we call the Power Position™. We can go deep into the subtlety and nuance of it, if you want to come to WeckMethod and dig deep as you want. We can do that, but this tip is a quick and dirty way to give you the essence and the basics for hitting the Power Position™.

Now the Power Position™ is basically a way that we're going to optimize the power through the spine, so that we hinge our body and harness the power of the hips, and use the hips as the hinge. And we optimize the springiness and power of the spine.

If we don't have a Power Position™ you'll often bleed out force to the lower back. And the lower back, how many people hurt their back in the course of their lives? It's like 8 at 10 have problems at the lower back so the Power Position™ will help that and it will enhance your athletic performance.

So what we do is begin with your feet. You want to position your feet underneath your hips that means they’re narrow and the feet are pointing exactly straight ahead. Most people are gonna stand out wider and they’re going to have their toes pointed out. There are several problems with this and that it tends to lead to this medial collapse which is gonna ultimately compromise the knee. You won't get the full power efficiency out of the foot and you're not optimizing the  pelvic position and the lower back when you're in this position. So practice power position. Perfectly straight ahead, underneath the hips at your feet.

Now first thing you want to do from there is, squeeze your butt (the glutes). When you squeeze um they will have an effect on the pelvis, in the hips and the lower back. The glutes are like the ultimate protector. For the whole pelvic core the glutes set the stage. So we squeeze the glutes powerfully that's gonna take my pelvis and effectively feel like I'm funneling the pelvis forward. And I'm opening up the hips, extending them, and externally rotating through the hips when I squeeze the glutes. So I like to think of the pelvis as projecting forward as I squeeze the glutes.

Next step. I want to lock down my abdominals. You can even think in terms if your gonna brace yourself to take a body punch. Lock in the abs with the glutes nice and tight. You want to suspend your head from the top. Look at my other tip about the striking step and the head over foot to learn exactly where that head position needs to be. Basically, it's a tennis ball tucked underneath the chin and imagine your head is being pulled up from that position. Think wide through the shoulder. And now we get to the lower back.

The lower back, there's three words you want to think. You want to think long. You want to think flat. And you want to think wide.

You want to think that this is a perfect transmission of your upper body down to the pelvis through the lower back. The more of an arch in the lower back we have, the less effective you are going to be at hinging through the hips, and the less affective you are going to be at harnessing that whole springy power that the spine can have.

Glutes. Pelvis forward. Abs. Chin tucked. Shoulders wide. My lower back make it feel long, make it feel flat, and make it feel wide. Nice and flat right there. Now from here you squeeze that all very very hard.

hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it.

Now keep the position and turn it all off and relax.But keep the positioning. That's how we

use what we call a high threshold strategy where we're using muscle action (a muscle force to set the position and then we relax in). Your goal is to control this powerful position with the power and control your diaphragm, that's your breath. The diaphragm, you can consciously control, becomes the governor and that ties in very specifically to intrinsic core muscles like the soas and the quadratus lumborum. That's going to you give you the ease from all the other stuff so all the big muscles are poised and ready to pounce, and you're not wasting energy and you’re in a Power Position™.

How to practice this and incorporate in is...

I'm standing in line at the bank; I'm at the grocery store. I'm any place anywhere I can put my feet in position, squeeze the glutes, abs, set it all up. Find it, Squeeze it, and Release it. Think nice and tall and that will start to set the stage for you to habituate a better strategy for relating to gravity the with greater power and efficiency.

You can use it to set up your exercise. So before squats, boom! Hit your Power Position™ and then go into your squats, lunges. Any exercises you do in a standing basis you can initiate it through a Power Position™ first.

So follow those steps see how it feels. Remember this [points to back] is a fundamental weak link in most people's bodies. We want to arrange it also that it’s no longer a weak link. It just sends the force nice and clean so you can capture the full power of the hips. And that's going to make you more powerful.

So any questions send me tips, follow us on social media (@WeckMethod). Check out WeckMethod.

Stay tuned for more tips.

See you soon friends!