There’s a lot to be said for spending the bulk of your time in the gym simply trying to get stronger. Whether you’re chasing a bigger squat, adding a few kilos to your deadlifts or simply trying to retain as much muscle and strength as possible as you get older, increasing the amount of force you can exert is never a bad investment.

But there’s another physical quality that tends to receive considerably less attention in most strength programmes, despite being one of the first things to start slipping away as we age.

Our ability to produce that force quickly.

Research tells us that muscular power – essentially a combination of strength and speed – declines more rapidly than maximal strength as we get older. Meaning that while you might still be capable of shifting some fairly impressive weights, your ability to jump, sprint, change direction or react quickly when you lose your balance could already be heading in the opposite direction.

If your goal is to remain strong, capable and athletic well into your 40s, 50s and beyond, this decline is no bueno.

The good news is that, just like strength itself, our ability to produce force quickly is trainable. And while you could dedicate entire sessions to plyometrics, sprinting and other forms of power training, it might be more efficient to simply introduce a few well-chosen explosive movements alongside the heavier lifts you’re already performing.

They’re perfect, after all, as warm-ups, primers and a bit of post-workout playtime.

This is where the ‘kneeling jump snatch’, an old-school exercise championed by legendary powerlifting coach and Westside Barbell founder Louie Simmons, comes in.

Combining an explosive jump from your knees onto your feet with an overhead snatch, the movement asks you to produce force rapidly and coordinate several actions across your entire body into one fluid sequence.

Simmons himself noted that this one movement can build ‘tremendous jumping power’.

You’re building speed, power, balance and coordination with each rep – all attributes we know start to fall by the wayside as we age.

You won’t need particularly heavy weights, and once you’ve mastered the technique, a handful of quality reps can provide a useful dose of power training without adding another hour to your gym schedule.

The kneeling jump snatch is a variation of the Olympic snatch performed from a kneeling position, with an explosive jump bringing you onto your feet as you lift the weight overhead.

The movement was used by Louie Simmons at Westside Barbell as part of a broader approach to developing explosive strength, alongside kneeling jumps, jump cleans and other plyometric exercises.

You’ll begin in a tall kneeling position, holding a light barbell with a wide snatch grip. From here, you’ll explosively extend your hips, using that movement to generate enough upward momentum to bring your feet underneath you while simultaneously pulling and punching the bar overhead.

Rather than simply jumping forwards onto your feet, you’re attempting to coordinate the jump with the snatch, finishing in a stable squat position with the bar locked out above you.

It’s an unusual movement, for sure, and one that looks considerably more complicated than a conventional squat or deadlift.

But the principle behind it is relatively straightforward, and once you get the hang of it, it can become a useful way to train explosive power and coordination.

Maintain Explosive Power as You Age

If there’s one physical quality worth giving a little more attention as you get older, explosive power is a strong candidate.

Research has consistently shown that muscular power tends to decline faster than maximal strength with advancing age, with reductions in the speed at which muscles can produce force contributing to the difference.

We flag this because plenty of everyday movements rely on producing force quickly, rather than simply producing as much of it as possible.

Catching yourself (or someone else) when they stumble, accelerating into a run or getting your body moving rapidly from a static position all require some degree of explosive strength.

The kneeling jump snatch trains that ability directly, asking you to generate force quickly enough to move from your knees onto your feet while coordinating the weight overhead.

Build Explosive Hip Power

The initial movement comes from your hips.

Starting from a kneeling position removes the conventional ankle-driven take-off you’d use during a standing jump, placing greater emphasis on rapidly extending your hips to generate the momentum needed to bring your feet underneath you.

Your glutes have to contract explosively, while your trunk helps transfer that force into the rest of the movement.

Many of us find ourselves stuck in a leg-dominant approach to movements like jumps and bounds, but the hips are the true powerhouse of the body.

By taking the legs out of the mix, you get a chance to really drill down on this and get a good feel for using the hips.

Improve Coordination and Athleticism

There’s more to athleticism than how much weight you can lift and how fast you can move. A key performance pillar for any good athlete is coordination, and this move certainly puts your coordination to the test.

You have to extend your hips explosively, quickly reposition your feet underneath your body, move the bar overhead and establish a stable receiving position, all in a relatively short window.

Get the timing wrong and the whole movement becomes less than graceful.

In fact, mess up the timing and the whole rep is most likely going to be a dud.

Learning to coordinate these actions is all part of the challenge, developing the ability to organise your body quickly rather than simply grinding a weight from A to B.

Train Power Without Heavy Weights

One of the more appealing things about explosive training is that you don’t necessarily need enormous weights to make it effective.

In fact, with a movement like this, adding too much load can quickly become a dead end.

The objective isn’t to perform the heaviest kneeling snatch possible. It’s to move explosively, maintain good timing and finish each rep in a strong, controlled position.

A light training load is more than enough to begin developing the movement.

This doesn’t just make it a savvy addition to a programme built around heavy compound lifts, it also makes it a useful warm-up on those heavier days.

Glutes: Drive the explosive hip extension that initiates the movement and helps propel your body from your knees onto your feet.

Quads: Help absorb the landing and extend your knees as you establish and recover from the receiving position.

Hamstrings: Assist with hip extension and help stabilise your lower body throughout the jump and landing.

Shoulders: Help drive and stabilise the weight overhead, maintaining a strong locked-out position as you land.

Traps: Contribute to the upward movement of the bar and help stabilise your shoulder blades during the overhead catch.

Core: Transfers force between your upper and lower body while keeping your torso stable throughout the explosive movement.

1. Begin in a tall kneeling position, holding a light training bar with a very wide grip. Keep your torso upright, trunk braced and hips extended. Make sure you’ve got sufficient space in front of you to land safely.
2. Push your hips backwards slightly, creating a small amount of tension through your glutes before initiating the jump. Avoid collapsing your torso forwards or turning the movement into an exaggerated swing.
3. Explosively re-extend your hips, driving upwards away from the floor and quickly bringing your feet underneath you while simultaneously pulling the bar upwards. The objective is to coordinate the jump and snatch into one fluid movement rather than treating them as two separate exercises.
4. As your feet make contact with the ground, simultaneously finish the lift by punching the barbell upwards. Land in a stable squat position with your arms locked overhead, then stand tall under control. Reset carefully before beginning the next repetition rather than attempting to rush through a continuous set.

Begin by mastering the kneeling jump without a bar, progressing to a light training implement only once you can consistently land in a stable position.

Once proficient, try 3-5 sets of 2-3 explosive reps, taking plenty of recovery between sets so that each attempt is performed with maximum speed and intent.

There’s an obvious temptation with any exercise to start adding weight as soon as the movement begins to feel comfortable.

Which, if we’re being fair, is how most of us have been conditioned to approach training. Perform an exercise, get better at it, add more weight and repeat until something stops progressing.

But if the goal is explosive power, the weight on the bar is only half of the equation.

The speed at which you’re able to produce force matters just as much, and if adding another 10kg means your explosive jump has become a laboured shuffle from your knees onto your feet, you’re missing the point – and are likely to start missing reps.

Keep the loads light enough that every rep is genuinely explosive, and give yourself sufficient recovery that fatigue doesn’t start dictating the speed of the movement.