When you think of power you usually think of executing a skill with strength or more accurately, great speed. This means that you are able to execute the skill in the shortest amount of time. In essence, the greater the speed the greater the power generated.
One factor often overlooked in executing the skill faster, is how the skill is executed. In other words, the technique involved in execution of the skill. Understand that skill execution is the key to summation of forces. This means that you get the maximum force from every joint action.
When the joint actions follow in sequence, as for example, ankle, knee, hip shoulders… the force produced in each joint action is added on to the next action culminating in maximum speed at the end of the skill execution. If the last joint action is wrist flexion it would have a tremendous amount of force behind it.
For example think of a baseball pitcher who throws 100 mph or a baseball batter hitting a home run. In each case you will find that they involve most if not all major joint actions beginning with the lower body and ending in the hand.
In all throwing and hitting skills the first major action that produces force is weight shift. There are various ways of executing weight shift of the most important is hip abduction. In other words, you get the hips moving forward. This in essence, gets your body moving forward.
In analyzingIn analyzing hundreds, if not thousands of throwing and hitting athletes I have found that very few have good weight shift or even include weight shift in their production of force. As a result, they lose a tremendous amount of force in the throw or it.
To prevent this from happening you should concentrate on getting the hips in motion prior to any other major action. The key is to drive the hips forward, in action known as hip abduction. In this case the legs are not in action but the hips are in motion.
The best way to learn this is to do the side lunge with Active Cords. In the exercise you drive the hips forward before moving the upper body or concentrating on any action in the knee or ankle.
For more information see, Explosive Hitting. Also see Build a Better Athlete.