How to Increase Football Kicking Power: Force Production for Kickers
Power is force applied quickly. Most kickers train force and neglect quickly, which is why the gym rarely translates.
The distinction this guide is built on: strength is how much force you can produce; power is how much you can produce per unit of time. Kicking cares almost entirely about the second. A kicker who adds twenty kilos to a squat and no speed to their swing has improved a quality the movement does not use.
If you want the broader picture on adding yards — technique, contact, launch angle — our distance guide covers it. This one is specifically about the physical side: how force production works for kickers and how to develop it.
📋 What’s in this guide
Power Versus Strength
The distinction matters more in kicking than in almost any other football activity, because the movement is over so quickly.
A heavy squat takes a second or more to complete. Your foot is in contact with the ball for a few thousandths of a second, and the entire swing from top of backswing to contact takes perhaps a tenth of a second. Whatever force you can produce in a second is largely irrelevant; what matters is what you can produce in a fraction of one.
Those are genuinely different qualities with different training requirements. Maximal strength training — heavy loads, slow movement — develops the ability to produce large forces given time. Power training — lighter loads, maximum velocity — develops the ability to produce force fast.
A kicker who trains only the first has built a capacity the movement cannot access in the time available. This is the mechanical reason strong athletes frequently kick poorly and why gym numbers correlate weakly with distance.
Your leg has about a tenth of a second to do its work. Training force you can only produce in a full second is training for a movement you are not performing.
Rate of Force Development
The technical term for the quality that matters, and it is worth understanding because it shapes how you should train.
Rate of force development is how quickly you can go from zero force to high force. Two athletes can have identical maximum strength and completely different rates — one reaching peak force in 300 milliseconds and the other in 150. In a movement lasting 100 milliseconds, the second athlete is functionally far stronger.
This quality is trained by moving light-to-moderate loads as fast as possible, and by plyometric work where the intent is maximum velocity rather than maximum load.
The key coaching point is intent. A box jump performed lazily trains almost nothing; the same jump performed with genuine maximal intent trains rate of force development directly. This is why power work requires full recovery between efforts — a fatigued effort is by definition not a maximal-velocity one, and volume actively undermines the quality you are training.
Six to ten quality efforts with generous rest beats thirty tired ones, which is the opposite of how most people approach gym work.
The Elastic Component
A substantial portion of kicking power does not come from muscular contraction at all.
During your backswing, the tissue across the front of your hip and thigh is stretched under load, storing elastic energy in the tendons and connective tissue. That energy is released during the forward swing, adding to what your muscles produce — the same mechanism that lets you jump higher from a countermovement than from a static squat position.
Two things follow. First, range of motion determines how much can be stored. A kicker with restricted hip extension cannot stretch the tissue as far, which caps the elastic contribution regardless of muscular strength. This is why mobility work behaves like power training for kickers.
Second, timing matters. Elastic energy dissipates quickly, so a pause between backswing and forward swing loses it. Fluid, continuous motion preserves the contribution; hesitation or a deliberate muscular effort at the top of the backswing wastes it.
Our flexibility guide covers the mobility work that opens up this component.
Why Your Body Caps You
The most practically important idea in kicking power development, and the least intuitive.
Your nervous system will not permit a limb to accelerate faster than it can safely decelerate. That limit is protective, automatic, and operates entirely below conscious control. A kicker whose eccentric hamstring capacity is poor is being actively prevented from swinging at their available speed.
This produces a specific and common frustration: a kicker adds significant quadriceps and hip flexor strength, sees no distance improvement, and concludes that strength training does not transfer. What actually happened is that they strengthened the accelerator while the governor stayed where it was.
Eccentric hamstring work removes the governor. Nordic curls, slow-tempo Romanian deadlifts, single-leg variations — movements where the muscle produces force while lengthening. Two sessions weekly is a reasonable dose.
Kickers who address this frequently find speed appears that was already available to them, which is a considerably faster return than building new force capacity from scratch.
💡 A signal worth recognising: if your kicking feels capped — like you are swinging as hard as you can and the ball simply will not go further — deceleration capacity is one of the first things worth investigating, ahead of another month of general strength work.
Training Power Specifically
Five categories, in rough order of return for a kicker.
1. Eccentric hamstring work. Removes the protective cap. Nordics, tempo RDLs, single-leg variations. Twice weekly.
2. Plyometrics. Box jumps, broad jumps, single-leg bounds, depth jumps if you are conditioned for them. Low volume, maximal intent, full recovery. This trains rate of force development directly.
3. Single-leg explosive work. Split squat jumps, single-leg box jumps, step-up jumps. Kicking is entirely single-leg, and bilateral power transfers only partially.
4. Medicine ball rotational throws. Trains the hip-to-core transmission that carries force into the leg. Genuinely useful and widely skipped.
5. Hip flexor strength through range. The prime mover for the forward swing, usually both tight and undertrained.
Note what is absent: heavy bilateral squatting and deadlifting appear nowhere in the top five. They have a place in building a general base, particularly for younger athletes, but they are not power training and should not be the centrepiece.
A Twelve-Week Block
- Weeks 1–3: foundation. Single-leg strength at moderate load, mobility daily, introduce eccentric hamstring work. Low plyometric volume — you are preparing tissue rather than training power yet. Kicking volume reduced.
- Weeks 4–7: power emphasis. Plyometrics twice weekly at low volume and maximal intent. Eccentric work continues. Add rotational medicine ball throws. This is the main development phase.
- Weeks 8–10: expression. Reduce gym volume, increase kicking. You are converting new physical capacity into ball speed, which requires actually kicking. Full-effort attempts capped at ten per session.
- Weeks 11–12: consolidate and test. Maintenance gym work, normal kicking volume, re-test your reliable range against your week-one baseline.
Twelve weeks is close to the minimum for meaningful physical change to appear in ball flight. Kickers who abandon a block at six weeks are stopping before the expression phase, which is where the gym work actually turns into distance.
⚠️ Do not run a power block during a season. Plyometric and eccentric work both produce soreness that degrades kicking quality, and the twelve-week timeline means you would be mid-block when it matters. This is off-season work.
Making It Transfer
The most common failure is building capacity that never reaches the ball. Three things prevent that.
Keep kicking through the block. Reduced volume, not zero. Physical capacity has to be expressed through the actual movement pattern to become usable, and a kicker who spends twelve weeks in a gym and none on a field returns strong and mistimed.
Do not let technique drift. Power work produces soreness and fatigue, both of which degrade mechanics. Keep your technical volume at a level where quality holds, and stop sessions when it drops.
Expect the expression phase to feel awkward. New capacity initially arrives as timing disruption — you have a slightly different body and your calibration lags. Two to three weeks of consistent kicking resolves it.
The measurement point matters too. Test your reliable range at the end of the block rather than partway through, because mid-block testing catches you fatigued and produces misleading results.
Where Power Training Fails
❌ 1. Training strength instead of power
Heavy slow lifting builds a capacity the movement has no time to use.
✅ Fix: Light-to-moderate loads at maximum velocity; plyometrics with genuine intent.
❌ 2. Too much volume in power work
Fatigued efforts are not maximal-velocity efforts, so volume undermines the quality being trained.
✅ Fix: Six to ten quality efforts with full recovery.
❌ 3. Ignoring the deceleration side
Strengthening the accelerator while the protective governor stays put produces no usable speed.
✅ Fix: Eccentric hamstring work twice weekly.
❌ 4. Neglecting mobility
Restricted range caps the elastic contribution regardless of muscular capacity.
✅ Fix: Daily hip work, treated as performance rather than recovery.
❌ 5. Stopping the block too early
Six weeks is before the expression phase, which is where capacity becomes distance.
✅ Fix: Commit to twelve weeks and test at the end.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between strength and power for kickers?
Strength is how much force you can produce; power is how much you can produce per unit of time. Kicking gives you roughly a tenth of a second, so rate of force development matters far more than maximum strength.
This is why heavy slow lifting often produces no distance improvement — it builds a capacity the movement has no time to access.
Why doesn’t my squat translate to kicking distance?
Because a squat is a slow bilateral movement and kicking is a fast single-leg rotational one. The strength you build is real but expressed over a timescale the kick does not have.
Train explosively with lighter loads, prioritise single-leg work, and address eccentric hamstring capacity.
How do hamstrings limit kicking power?
Your nervous system caps acceleration at what you can safely decelerate. Weak eccentric hamstring capacity means your body actively prevents you from swinging at your available speed as a protective measure.
Strengthening them often releases speed you already had, which is a faster return than building new force capacity.
How long does power training take to show up?
Around twelve weeks, and the final phase — where you reduce gym volume and increase kicking — is where capacity converts into ball speed. Kickers who stop at six weeks quit before that conversion happens.
Test your reliable range at the end of the block rather than partway through.
Can I do power work during the season?
Maintenance only. Plyometric and eccentric work both produce soreness that degrades kicking quality, and a twelve-week block would leave you mid-cycle when performance matters.
Run the block in the off-season and maintain with one light session weekly in-season.
Power for Different Kicking Roles
The underlying physiology is shared, but what you do with the capacity differs by job, and that changes the emphasis.
Placekickers need power expressed within a very short, controlled approach and delivered accurately. Raw force matters less here than most people assume, because a field goal is won on precision at moderate power far more often than on maximum output. The power block still helps — extra capacity means your normal kick sits at a lower percentage of your maximum, which improves consistency — but chasing it aggressively at the expense of accuracy is a poor trade.
Kickoff specialists get the most direct return from power work. A kickoff is close to a pure expression of leg speed with a longer approach to build into, and the constraint is genuinely physical more often than it is technical. If you are a kickoff specialist, this is the training block with the highest value to you.
Punters occupy a middle position. Leg speed matters, and the range of motion involved is larger than in placekicking, which makes mobility and elastic contribution proportionally more important. But punting is gated by drop consistency before it is gated by power, so a punter with an inconsistent drop should fix that first. Our punting distance guide covers why.
The practical implication is that a kicker doing multiple jobs should run one power block and then decide where to express the gains, rather than trying to optimise separately for each role.
Age and Training Readiness
Power training carries more risk than general strength work, and readiness matters more than enthusiasm.
Younger athletes should build a base of bodyweight single-leg strength, landing mechanics and general athleticism before adding significant plyometric volume. Jumping is fine; depth jumps and high-volume plyometrics are not, particularly during growth periods when tissue is already under stress from lengthening bones.
The landing is the risky part rather than the take-off. A young athlete who cannot land a box jump softly and under control is not ready for the progressions above, and teaching that control is genuinely valuable work in itself.
Adults returning after time off should treat the first three weeks as tissue preparation regardless of previous training history. Tendons and connective tissue adapt more slowly than muscle, and plyometric injuries typically occur when someone with the muscular capacity for a movement lacks the connective-tissue readiness.
Anyone with a history of groin or hamstring strain should build the eccentric work up gradually and prioritise it over the plyometric side initially. That tissue has demonstrated vulnerability, and eccentric loading is both the most protective intervention available and, done too aggressively, a way to re-injure it.
💡 A simple readiness test: can you land a box jump silently, on one leg, with your knee tracking properly and no wobble? If not, spend a few weeks on landing mechanics before adding plyometric volume. It is unglamorous and it prevents the injuries that end power blocks in week three.
Measuring Power Progress
Ball distance is a poor short-term measure because it is affected by technique, conditions and fatigue simultaneously. Track physical markers alongside it.
Broad jump distance is a straightforward proxy for horizontal force production. Test monthly, fully rested, best of three.
Single-leg vertical or box jump height speaks more directly to the single-leg quality kicking uses.
Countermovement versus static jump difference indicates your elastic contribution. If your countermovement jump is barely better than a jump from a static squat position, your elastic component is underdeveloped and mobility work is likely to help.
Eccentric hamstring capacity can be tracked crudely by how far into a Nordic curl you can control the descent before losing it.
Test these monthly, not weekly, and interpret them alongside your kicking data. Physical markers improving while distance stays flat usually means the expression phase has not happened yet rather than that the training failed.
When Power Is Not Your Constraint
Worth checking before committing twelve weeks, because for a substantial proportion of kickers power is genuinely not the limiting factor.
Run the eighty per cent test first. Kick a session at controlled effort with every kick measured, then five at maximum. If your controlled kicks match or exceed your maximum-effort ones, tension is your constraint rather than capacity, and no amount of power training addresses that. Learning to relax will produce faster gains than a gym block.
Check your contact quality on film. A loose ankle or an inconsistent strike point is losing energy that already exists, and adding more force to a leaky system produces disappointing returns.
Check your launch angle. Kicks that climb steeply and land short are a trajectory problem, not a power problem. So are flat kicks that drop early. Both are corrected in weeks rather than months.
Check your mobility. Restricted hip extension caps the elastic contribution and shortens your acceleration runway. Daily mobility work is cheaper and faster than a power block, and for tight kickers it produces more.
Only when those come back clean is a dedicated power block the highest-value use of twelve weeks. Kickers who skip this check frequently spend a winter in a gym solving a problem they did not have.
📚 The honest summary. Power development is real, it works, and it is slower and less universally applicable than most kickers hope. Diagnose first, commit to a full twelve weeks including the expression phase, prioritise the deceleration side that most programmes ignore, and accept that the return arrives across a season rather than a month.
Train velocity, not load.
Power Checklist
- Training rate of force development, not maximal strength
- Light-to-moderate loads moved at maximum velocity
- Plyometrics with genuine maximal intent
- Six to ten quality efforts with full recovery, not high volume
- Eccentric hamstring work twice weekly
- Single-leg explosive work prioritised over bilateral
- Rotational medicine ball throws included
- Daily hip mobility to enable the elastic contribution
- Kicking maintained at reduced volume through the block
- Twelve-week commitment, tested at the end
- Off-season only — maintenance in-season
- Expression phase included, not just accumulation
The bottom line: power is force produced quickly, and kicking gives you almost no time. Train velocity rather than load, prioritise the eccentric hamstring work that removes your protective speed cap, keep the mobility that enables elastic contribution, and commit to a full twelve weeks including the expression phase where capacity becomes ball speed. Kickers who train strength and expect power are training earnestly for a movement they are not performing.
Keep Going
🏋️ Strength TrainingWhat transfers and what does not
🧘 FlexibilityEnabling the elastic component
⚙️ Kicking BiomechanicsHow force actually reaches the ball
General training information, not medical advice or individualised programming. Plyometric and eccentric work carry injury risk — build up gradually and consult a qualified professional, particularly if you are young or have an injury history.