It hardly takes much convincing to conclude that having blinding speed of punches or bone-cracking power in kicks are the most desireable assets for Martial Artists to posess. Remember Miyamoto Musashi stated in his famous text "A Book of Five Rings" that one ultimate goal of the warrior is to learn to end the fight with a single blow! That's exactly where speed & power come in! The idea is to make them as specific as possible so as to achieve the most applicable results. In this article we will attempt to explore some of the best methods available to get those results.

Economy of Motion. Basically the more you practice your peticular techniques, the more your nervous system becomes familiar & you naturally get faster. Its a really good idea to use mirrors because you can self-coach so to say & strip away wasted movements as well as learn to utilize power centers (like the hips & legs). For example you can immediately make your punch will be twice as powerful by springing off the slightly bent legs when you execute it. Think of your body akin to a coiled up snake about to strike!

Think SPEED! Sounds simple but when you start thinking you are fast you will actually start moving faster. Get over any preconceived mental limitations you may have. The other aspect of this notion is to keep the thought of speed on the forefront of your mind. As you train to do those skills you wish to be faster & stronger at make a conscious effort to do them with your best speed & power efforts! Time yourself. Count down how many strikes or roundhouses you can land on a target or heavy bag in a 10 second period. Seek to improve your numbers every session.

Overspeed methods A.K.A. Forcing faster muscle memory! The abridged version goes like this:You have an innate speed at which muscles can fire off & move any given limb. Factors like motor unit recruitment, neural efficiency/capacity, & strength ratios effect this. What we are going to do is teach the nervous system to coordinate movement & build muscle memory at faster speeds! To speed up punches wrap a tubular resistance band or even bungee cord around your wrists and anchor the other end or have a partner stretch it out. Now release & throw the arm into motion with the added speed. Relax the opposing muscles to avoid any "braking" effects. The same proceedure can be performed on kicks by binding the band to the foot.10-20 reps 2 times aweek will be enough to develop noticeable results.

Specific drills to build power. Much can be done with a simple medicineball & even bodyweight outside of what you are already familiar with. Here are some to get started on:

Power absorbtion exercises:How the theory works is that you can't create more power than you can absorb. So it only makes sense to start here before we start "jumping" into plyometrics! For upperbody power, drop push-ups are king! Assume a position upright but on your knees with both arms at chest level slightly more than shoulder width apart bend aprox 90