Explosive Exercises: Build Power for Every Body Part

Explosive exercises are movements that train you to produce high force in the shortest possible time. They include jumps, throws, bounds, sprints, and fast barbell pulls. They build the quality behind every burst task in uniform. Our military fitness programs include them on purpose, because a big squat does not automatically turn into a fast first step.

Army infantry doctrine teaches movement under fire as rushes of a few seconds between covered positions. A foot pursuit, a breach, a casualty drag, and a wall climb follow the same pattern: brief, maximal, and decisive. Strength sets your ceiling. Power decides how much of that ceiling you can use in the half-second you get.

Below is the full reference, organized by body part: legs, upper body, core, pull, back, and shoulders. It also covers plyometric and speed drills and the rules for programming all of it. Each entry tells you what the movement trains and why it earns its spot.

Key Takeaways:

• Explosive exercises train power, which is force multiplied by velocity. Power drives sprints, jumps, throws, and every burst task on the job.

• Your legs and hips produce most of your power. The core, upper body, and pulling chain transfer that power and express it.

• Do explosive work first in the session while you are fresh. Use 1 to 5 quality reps per set and rest 2 to 5 minutes between sets.

• Count plyometric foot contacts and progress them like any other load. Save depth jumps until you have a strength base.

• Explosive training can add some muscle, but its main payoff is how fast you produce force, not how big you get.

What Are Explosive Exercises?

Explosive exercises are movements done with maximal intent to move your body or a load as fast as possible. They train power, which is force multiplied by velocity, by teaching your nervous system to recruit high-threshold motor units quickly. Jumps, throws, Olympic lifts, and sprints all qualify.

For programming, the useful question is where an exercise sits on the force-velocity spectrum.

• Explosive strength exercises sit toward the force end. Examples are heavy pulls, loaded jumps, and sled pushes, where the load is significant and the speed is moderate.

• Explosive power exercises sit toward the velocity end. Examples are medicine ball throws, plyometrics, and sprints, where the load is light and the speed is near maximal.

Research on maximal power development shows that training across this spectrum works better than training at a single point on it (Cormie et al., 2011).

Strength still matters. Stronger athletes tend to jump higher and sprint faster, and they respond better to power training, because force is half of the equation (Suchomel et al., 2016). Our breakdown of how power training differs from strength covers the physiology behind that relationship. This post is the exercise list.

Why Explosive Power Matters on the Job

The tasks that decide outcomes are rarely long. A rush between cover, a sprint to a casualty, a shoulder into a door, and a vault over a wall in full kit are each over in seconds. Each one demands near-maximal force, produced fast.

The Army built this demand into its fitness test with the sprint-drag-carry, an event of repeated sprinting, dragging, and carrying (FM 7-22). If you train only slow strength and long aerobic work, that gap stays open.

Explosive Leg Exercises

The best explosive exercises for legs train triple extension: the hips, knees, and ankles driving together, fast. Your legs and hips generate most of the power you will ever express. That makes this the largest category on the list and the one to prioritize.

1. Trap bar jump. Hold a light trap bar, dip, and jump. The neutral grip and centered load let you drive hard with less spinal stress than a barbell jump. Choose a load you can still leave the floor with at full speed.

2. Loaded jump squat. Use the same pattern with dumbbells at your sides. Classic loading research found peak power at light loads, from body weight up to about 30 percent of a max squat (Wilson et al., 1993; Cormie et al., 2011).

3. Kettlebell swing. This is a ballistic hip hinge that trains the hip snap behind sprinting and jumping, with minimal knee stress. Keep sets short. Once a swing slows down, it has turned into conditioning.

4. Split squat jump. Start in a staggered stance, jump, and switch legs. It builds single-leg power in the position you push from in a sprint, a stair climb, or a step onto a ledge.

5. Lateral bound. Bound sideways off one leg and stick the landing on the other for a two-count. Tactical movement is rarely straight ahead, and power in the frontal plane helps protect your knees and ankles when you cut.

6. Heavy sled push. Push for 10 to 20 meters with a load that slows you without stopping you. It builds horizontal force at the hips and knees, which is the same demand as driving through a resisting body.

Most leg explosive exercises fail in one of two ways. Either the load is too heavy to move fast, or the reps run so long that speed drops off. Picking from this list is the easy part. Fitting it into a week alongside running and rucking is where most plans break down. Our guide to choosing a strength & power program lays out what to look for.

Explosive Upper-Body Exercises

Explosive exercises for upper body training solve a specific problem. In a standard press, a large share of each rep goes to slowing the bar down so it doesn't leave your hands. Research comparing the bench press with a bench throw showed that releasing the load lets you keep accelerating through the full range of motion (Newton et al., 1996). Upper body explosive exercises are built on that principle: throw the load, release it, or leave the floor.

1. Plyometric push-up. Push hard enough that your hands leave the ground, then land with soft elbows. If you can't reach full height from the floor, start on a bench.

2. Medicine ball chest pass. Throw a 4 to 6 kg ball against a wall or to a partner from an athletic stance. Because you release the ball, you stay fast through the whole movement.

3. Landmine punch press. From a split stance, drive the bar up and out with one arm while rotating through the hips. The pattern mirrors a strike or a hard shove, with the force starting from the ground.

4. Bench throw or speed bench. Use a light-to-moderate load moved at maximal speed, ideally thrown in a Smith machine. This is the closest barbell version of the throwing principle.

Med-ball work carries the most value here. Our full list of medicine ball exercises covers throws and slams for both the upper body and the core in detail.

Explosive Core Exercises

Your trunk transfers force between your legs and your arms. Explosive core exercises train it to do that at speed. That carries over to combatives, throwing, and controlling a resisting subject. Planks build stiffness, but they don't teach the trunk to move fast.

1. Rotational med-ball scoop toss. Stand side-on to a wall and throw from hip height, rotating through your hips first. This trains the hip-to-trunk-to-arm sequence behind every powerful rotation.

2. Med-ball slam. Reach overhead and drive the ball into the floor with your whole trunk. It builds explosive flexion and is hard to do wrong.

3. Half-kneeling side toss. Throwing from a half-kneeling position takes your legs out of the movement, so the trunk has to produce the rotation.

4. Landmine rotation. Swing a loaded bar from hip to hip under control, then accelerate it. Your trunk learns to resist rotation and then produce it, which is the job it does under a plate carrier.

Plyometric and Jumping Exercises

Explosive plyometric exercises rely on the stretch-shortening cycle. A fast stretch of a muscle-tendon unit, followed immediately by a contraction, produces more force than a contraction from a dead stop. Meta-analyses consistently show that plyometric training improves vertical jump performance (Markovic, 2007; de Villarreal et al., 2009).

Plyometric exercises for explosive power need the most management of anything on this list. Count foot contacts. NSCA guidance runs from roughly 80 to 100 contacts per session for beginners, up to 120 to 140 for advanced athletes (Haff & Triplett, 2016).

1. Box jump. Jump onto a box, land softly, and step down. The box limits landing forces, which makes this the safest first explosive jumping exercise.

2. Broad jump. Jump for horizontal distance and stick the landing. It is also one of the simplest power tests you can run on yourself.

3. Single-leg broad jump. This is the same jump off one leg. It exposes side-to-side imbalances that bilateral work hides.

4. Hurdle hops. Hop continuously over low hurdles with minimal time on the ground. This trains reactive strength, meaning how quickly you turn a landing into the next jump.

5. Depth jump. Step off a low box, land, and rebound up as fast as you can. It is the most demanding drill on the list. Earn it with a solid strength base and clean landings first.

Explosive Exercises for Speed

Acceleration comes down to how much horizontal force you can put into the ground in very short contact times. Explosive exercises for speed target that directly. A review of sprint training methods found that resisted sprinting is particularly effective over short acceleration distances (Rumpf et al., 2016).

1. Resisted sled sprint. Sprint 10 to 20 meters pulling a sled light enough that your mechanics hold. This builds acceleration force without the grind of a heavy push.

2. Hill sprint. Sprint 10 to 30 meters uphill. The slope forces a forward lean and full hip extension, and the lower top speed is gentler on your hamstrings.

3. Pogo hops. Do quick, stiff-ankle hops with minimal knee bend. They build the ankle and tendon stiffness that short ground contacts depend on.

4. Three-point start acceleration. Drive out of a low start for 10 meters. This is the rush itself, trained at full intent.

These drills develop the qualities. Our sprint workouts build them into complete sessions.

Explosive Pull, Back, and Shoulder Exercises

Explosive pull exercises send force from the floor through the posterior chain and into the bar. Weightlifting movements and their derivatives are among the best-supported tools for this. A meta-analysis found that weightlifting training improves vertical jump more than traditional resistance training does (Hackett et al., 2016).

1. Clean pull. This is the clean without the catch. Because you skip the catch, you can load heavier and focus purely on extension. Pulling derivatives like this one are a practical way to train power with less technical demand (Suchomel et al., 2015). We break down the clean pull step by step.

2. Hang power clean. Start above the knee and finish in a quarter-squat catch. It trains the fast hip extension and rapid bar turnover that sit behind most explosive back exercises.

3. Barbell high pull. Pull the bar explosively to chest height. Your traps, upper back, and erectors all work under a fast load.

4. Power snatch or single-arm dumbbell snatch. Take the load from the floor to overhead in one motion. The dumbbell version is the accessible option, since it gives most of the benefit with far less technique to learn.

5. Push press. Dip and drive the bar overhead with your legs. It is the best of the explosive shoulder exercises because the shoulders learn to express force that starts in the ground.

If you want to build the full lifts with proper progressions, follow an Olympic lifting regimen rather than adding them in piecemeal.

How to Program Explosive Exercises

Order: First in the Session

Do explosive work first, after a thorough warm-up and before heavy strength work or conditioning. Power depends on a fresh nervous system. Fatigue reduces speed, and a slow rep no longer trains power. One exception is contrast pairing, where a heavy set is followed by a light explosive one. It can raise performance on the second exercise, but only with enough rest between the two (Seitz & Haff, 2016).

Dose: Low Reps, Full Rest

Explosive work is quality work. NSCA guidance for power training calls for low reps and long rests (Haff & Triplett, 2016):

Figure 1.1 - Five categories of explosive training with their prescribed sets, repetitions and rest, checked against the published limits for power work. Multiplying sets by repetitions shows that loaded jumps reach 25 and plyometrics reach 30 at the top of their ranges, against a position-stand ceiling of 24 repetitions times sets for power adaptations at loads of 30 to 70 percent of one-repetition maximum. Plyometric volume is governed not by sets but by foot contacts per session, 80 to 100 for beginners up to 120 to 140 for advanced athletes, so a five-by-six block consumes half an advanced session's budget in one exercise, and sprint recovery scales at one to two minutes per 10 metres, meaning a 30 metre sprint needs three to six minutes rather than the two to three prescribed. Sources: Currier et al., ACSM Position Stand, Med Sci Sports Exerc 2026;58(4):851–872; Haugen et al., Sports Med Open 2019;5:44; Cross et al., Int J Sports Physiol Perform 2017;12(8):1069–1077; Caterisano et al., Strength Cond J 2019;41(3).

Volume and Progression

Pick two or three explosive exercises per session, one from each of your main categories. Progress plyometrics by contacts and intensity: move from box jumps to broad jumps to hurdle hops to depth jumps. Progress loaded movements by bar speed, not by adding weight at any cost.

The broader question is how much power work your phase needs compared with pure strength. Our comparison of strength vs power training shows where each one belongs. For most tactical athletes, two sessions a week that open with explosive work are enough to drive adaptation without stealing recovery from running and rucking.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

What are explosive exercises?

Explosive exercises are movements done with maximal speed and intent to produce high force quickly. Examples include jumps, throws, sprints, and Olympic lift variations. They train power, which is force multiplied by velocity. For tactical athletes, that power shows up in rushes, pursuits, climbs, and any task decided in a few seconds.

What exercises build explosive power?

The most effective explosive power exercises are loaded jumps (trap bar jump, jump squat), plyometrics (box jump, broad jump, depth jump), medicine ball throws, sprints, and weightlifting derivatives such as the clean pull and hang power clean. Combine movements from across the force-velocity spectrum instead of relying on one type, and build them on a base of maximal strength.

Do explosive exercises build muscle?

Explosive exercises can add some muscle, especially in less-trained lifters. Research shows plyometric training can produce measurable hypertrophy (Grgic et al., 2021). However, power work uses low reps and long rests, so it accumulates far less volume than dedicated hypertrophy training. Treat muscle gain as a side effect. The main adaptation is faster force production.

Should explosive exercises be done first or last in a workout?

Do explosive exercises first, right after your warm-up. Power output depends on a fresh nervous system, and fatigue from heavy lifting or conditioning slows every rep. A slow rep no longer trains power. The only common exception is a planned contrast pair, where a heavy strength set is followed by a light explosive set after adequate rest.

Why are explosive exercises so exhausting?

Explosive exercises recruit your largest, highest-threshold motor units at maximal intent. They also draw heavily on the phosphocreatine system, which can take several minutes to restore (Haff & Triplett, 2016). The fatigue is mostly neural and metabolic rather than muscular. That is why full rest between sets matters, and why a few high-quality reps beat long sets.

Strength gives you force, and explosive exercises teach you to deliver it in the fraction of a second the job allows. Build from the legs out, keep every rep fast, put the work first in your session, and track foot contacts the way you track load. Pick two or three movements from this list, run them consistently for a full training block, and test your broad jump before and after. If you want that structure built for you, CF ONE programs explosive work into every phase alongside your strength, running, and rucking, and CF PRO does the same for SOF pipelines.

References:

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Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 7-22, Holistic Health and Fitness. 2020.

Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 3-21.8, The Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad. 2016.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Explosive and plyometric training places high loads on muscles, tendons, and joints. Consult a qualified medical professional before starting a new training program, especially if you have a current or past injury. Individual results vary.