WPH Press, 1/13/21
Each Wednesday the WPH features the WPH Wednesday Workout, designed to help you become a stronger, fitter, faster, and better handball player. From leg and shoulder strengthening exercises to HIT Training, biking, and rest, the WPH Wednesday Workouts focus on the areas that every handball player needs to reach their peak form.
On this WPH Wednesday Workout, we’ll discuss how to build explosiveness to develop a faster first step, enabling you to track down more balls and apply more pressure on your opponent.
We all know the toughest opponent is the one who can pick up all of our best shots. The quickest opponents have a knack from digging out two-inch high kills, tracking down pass shots, and finding a way to return any shot you hit. Not surprisingly, the quickest players are often the best players. Anticipation is part of the formula, as is an explosive first step.
Anticipation comes from experience – being able to read your opponents and understand patterns. If you can combine anticipation with explosiveness, you’re on your way to filling up your trophy case.
In the video 10 Explosive Speed Exercises by 7mic HERE, 7mic discusses how working on your explosiveness can improve your speed, your ability to change direction, your jumping power, and all of the movements that require explosive power to develop maximum force in a short space.
These bodyweight exercises (below explained by 7mic) will help you to develop the explosive power necessary to pick up more balls and start winning more matches.
- Jump Squats: take a normal squat and adding an explosive element by jumping into the air – cushion the landing by bending the knees and putting your hands on your shoulders to take away the momentum of the arms, which puts even more stress on the legs so you are building more explosiveness and engaging the core
- Jump Lunges: Bend both legs at 90 degrees, one in front of the other, and then explode straight up into the air by straightening both of your legs and land with the opposite foot in front – cushion your landing by bending the knee as you make impact with the ground – use both arms for balance, as right arm comes forward, the left leg comes forward, and vice versa
- Lateral Bounds: working one leg at a time, bounding from side to side so all of your weight is going on a single leg – engage hamstrings, quads, and calves, plus core to balance, while also using the arms – this exercise will improve your change of direction, making you more explosive off the mark because you are loading one leg
- A Skips: on your toes bouncing and driving one knee up at a time – as you drive one knee up, the opposite arm drives out in front – works on the lower legs – the calves and engaging the hip flexors to build explosive speed
- Reverse Lunge Knee Drive: reverse lunge so your foot goes behind you, bending both knees 90 degrees and as you push up you drive the knee of your opposite leg into the air, driving the opposite arm with the opposite knee – working all of the leg muscles and the hip flexors
- Tuck Jumps: using arms as momentum, lifting both hip flexors, bringing both knees up to 90 degrees parallel with your hips – crouch forward to engage the core
- High Knees: synchronize arm and knee movements – as the left arm drives, the right knee drives and vice-versa – will increase your running speed
- Heel Flicks: Also known as butt-kickers – engaging fast twitch fibers in your hamstrings, which will make you overall more explosive – remain on toes and trying to coordinate your arm movements with leg flexion
- Kneeling Jumps: starting in a kneeling position, then swinging your arms through and using that momentum to jump up off of your knees and land into your feet – forces you to engage your hip flexors and engaging the core as well – the combination of using your hip flexors and core should be enough to get you to your feet
- Calf Jumps: very little knee bend, load the lower legs instead of the quadriceps and the hamstrings to really work the calf muscles – point the toes as you jump into the air, use a slight bend just to absorb the impact and give you a little bit of momentum, but the load is on the calves
Try each of these exercises for ten reps and complete them three times. 7mic recommends doing this workout three times a week with a day off in between each workout.
Watch and listen to the explanations of the 10 Explosive Speed Exercises by 7mic HERE
David Fink
WPH Fitness Director