Saturday, February 4, 2017

Skeletal Muscle Adaptation to Exercise- Strength vs. Power

by Emily Goltz

Many times, strength and power are characterized to be the same thing. Yes, they can be related to each other but for the most part, they are very different things when it comes to exercising. For an athlete, it is good to have both strength and power.

When you talk about strength, we are talking about a muscle or group of muscles creating a maximal force against a resistance. This means that when you work out, it will only allow for you to do a small number of repetitions to measure the amount of strength you're body can handle. One- repetition is referred to be the standard for a strength assessment. It tests for the greatest resistance that can be moved through the full range of motion in a controlled manner.

With power, you test for the amount of work you can get done in a set amount of time. You want to exert a quick force. Power has to do with the maximum amount of times you can do an exercise in the time you have. The formula given for power is the force times the velocity that you put out. 

Both strength and power can be expressed with absolute and relative terminology. Absolute refers to the  actual external load while relative is the external load in terms to an aspect of body weight. If you want to compare on the same person, you use absolute values. If you want to compare different people, a relative value is made. This being said, when you compare men to women in strength and power, most of us will say that men are stronger because that is what we have always been known to say. In truth, when it comes to strength, yes men are stronger. But when we compare power and a force of a person, there is no difference between men and women.

“MSU- KIN 173 – Foundations of Kinesiology – Spring 2017”. Education.msu.edu. N.p., 2017. Web. 31 Jan. 2017.

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