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We’re always told to “relax” in order to generate power… but what does that actually mean?

How is it that, despite not being strong in a traditional sense, some baseball pitchers can throw a ball at over 100 miles an hour?

And why is it that a lot of coaches can’t quite explain WHY we use the technique we use?

In this video, I discuss a few concepts that allow us to generate maximum power from the body. Those are: kinetic chains, the serape effect, the double pulse, and the stretch shortening cycle.

Essentially, whether you’re throwing a ball, punching or kicking, or doing a vertical jump… the way we utilise maximum power is by coordinating as many muscles as we can across the body.

This is why throwing is so powerful - because it lets us use the muscles that form an X-shape across the body (including the rhomboids, serratus, obliques, etc.). This is what’s known as the “serape” effect.

To do this properly, though, you can’t simply contract all the muscles at once. Rather, you have to trigger a cascade of contractions and relaxations across that kinetic chain. These are known as “double pulses” in athletics, and it essentially allows us to make use of the stretch-shortening cycle.

This is also referred to as "elastic recoil" in some cases. But it's really more to do with the SSC, rather than any actual elasticity of the tendons.

To do THAT, though, we also need to be relaxed in the muscles until they need to move. It’s complex stuff, but I think that understanding it can make us better athletes. Enjoy!