Extreme Power Applied

Steven Legendre is one of the top gymnasts in the country right now. He’s wickedly powerful. This is a video from the recent national championships. I love Steven’s gymnastics because of his capacity in terms of power. It’s easy to see how that power comes in handy on the floor. If you’ve done any tumbling you will have some concept of how difficult the things he does here are. He makes ridiculously difficult skills look easy. Unfortunately this video cuts off his first pass in which he does a double front into a front 3/2 laid out. Superb technique aside what sets this guy apart is power. He is able to generate a tremendous amount of force off of the floor. A while back William Sands did some force plate testing with elite gymnasts tumbling. He measured force impulses exceeding 20X body mass on the take off and landing of some tumbling skills. The power seen here exceeds 7 kilowatts. Elite Olympic lifters generate about 6 kilowatts on the second pull of a snatch, though their range of motion for force application is substantially greater. We chase power because it tends to induce greater adaptive response, and improves performance in sport, and critical life situations better than other modes of training.