29/07/2026
🤔 Why do some of our participants look heavy on their feet?
If jumps feel sluggish, sprints lack explosiveness, or participants seem to “push” rather than “spring” off the ground, the problem isn’t always strength.
Power comes from triple extension: the hips, knees, and ankles working together. If the movement stops at the heel, or the ankles can’t move freely enough to push through the toes, that chain loses power.
👀 Look out for:
🔹 Limited ankle mobility during squats or landings
🔹 Heavy, noisy landings
🔹 A lack of push through the toes
🔹 Poor core stability, causing energy to “leak”
🧠 Coach Tip: Build power from the ground up. Include barefoot training, ankle mobility, and lower leg strength training in your conditioning programme so participants learn to transfer force efficiently through their whole kinetic chain.
💬 What’s one exercise you use to teach participants to generate power from the ground up?
🦶 Power starts lower than most coaches think.
The calves and lower leg muscles don’t just move the ankle, they help absorb force, store elastic energy, and drive powerful push-offs.
If these muscles are weak or undertrained, the whole kinetic chain has less force to work with.
Train the feet. Train the ankles. Train the calves. The rest of the body will thank you.
