Retired track cyclist Camiel Lok performing a box jump in his strength and plyometric training.
Box Jumps are a plyometric exercise that have the advantage of reducing the impact of landing.
The post Plyometrics Box Jumps Camiel Lok appeared first on Christian Bosse.
If you are looking for the best method to run faster, jump higher, hit and kick harder, then you need to do plyometric training.
Have you heard something like that? But what is plyometric training?
This video and article discusses
In order to understand, what plyometric training is, it is essential to understand the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC).
The stretch-shortening cycles (SSC) is a protective reflex which protects the muscle from tearing. In simple words, the human body has an inbuilt protective mechanism, that when a muscle is stretched rapidly, the body sends a signal to the muscle to contract in order to prevent that muscle from tearing. Important to note, is that this reflex is involuntary, which means it is not in our conscious and voluntary control.
Plyometric training makes use of this protective reflex.
More information how the protective reflex, the Stretch-shortening cycle works in the article A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
Probably a lot of confusion regarding plyometric training and mystical reports on its’ effectiveness is a result, that it is difficult to find a simple and clear definition of what plyometric training is.
Wikipedia offers a long article on Plyometrics which doesn’t include a real definition.
Breaking Muscle offers a deeper insight into Plyometrics: Terms, Definitions, and Proper Planning which also highlights the fact that different authors use a different definition.
In my opinion, Merriam Webster’s Dictionary offers the best Definition of plyometrics ‘exercise involving repeated rapid stretching and contracting of muscles (as by jumping and rebounding) to increase muscle power’
In my attempt to keep things simple, I would just say ‘Plyometrics or Plyometric Training is a training that involves the stretch-shortening cycle as a means to improve speed and power.’
Plyometric exercises, some might call it plyos or plyometrics, are exercises that involve the stretch-shortening cycle and are used as a means to improve speed and power.
For the sake of simplicity and not getting bogged down in semantics, I will simply call it plyometrics.
Plyometrics can be classified into lower body plyometrics and upper body plyometrics. Within this classification of lower body plyometrics and upper body plyometrics, we can further classify plyometrics into short stretch-shortening cycle plyometrics and long stretch-shortening cycle plyometrics.
Short stretch-shortening plyometrics are characterized by contact times below 180 milliseconds and Long stretch-shortening plyometrics are characterized by contact times above 180 milliseconds.
More information and practical examples on short stretch-shortening plyometrics and long stretch-shortening plyometrics in the articles
Plyometrics can be trained with different training modes, from bodyweight to light implements such as Medicine Balls, Kettle Bells, Dumbells, Barbells, etc
Important here is to realize that during the end phase of the plyometric exercise, the training mode, the body or object goes into a free flight mode, also known as ballistic.
Plyometric training or plyometrics is a form of training that elicits the stretch-shortening cycle as a means to augment the muscle contraction, which has a strong stimulus on the nervous system and muscle.
Plyometric training can be divided into upper body plyometrics and lower body plyometrics.
Plyometric training can be classified into short stretch-shortening cycle plyometrics and long stretch-shortening cycle plyometrics.
Plyometrics can be trained with different training modes, such as bodyweight, medicine ball, dumbbells and barbells.
A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
How often should you do Plyometric Training?
What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training?
How Plyometrics Increase Your Vertical
For more information read the article or visit the plyometric training video library
The post Plyometrics: What Is Plyometric Training? appeared first on Christian Bosse.
If you could do only one thing in your training, what would it be? Plyometric Training! Really, why is that? I am not joking, I have heard something like that and thought to myself, if you really want to answer this question, you need to understand what are the benefits of Plyometric Training.
This article and video looks at
Before we get started to address What are the benefits of plyometric training, let’s go back to the definition of plyometric training.
As we have discussed in the previous article and video What Is Plyometric Training? there isn’t one commonly accepted the definition, so I came up with my own definition based on various sources ‘Plyometrics or Plyometric Training is a training that involves the stretch-shortening cycle as a means to improve speed and power.’
The stretch-shortening-cycle is a protective reflex that prevents the muscles from overstretching and tearing. Once the muscle gets rapidly stretched, the body sends a signal to the muscle to contract, that is the essence of the stretch-shortening cycle and the why and how behind the stretch-shortening cycle.
This stretch-shortening cycle applied to plyometric training has two major benefits:
Let’s go through that step by step.
Elastic energy refers to energy being stored in the muscle during the eccentric phase, which can be used for an augmented contraction / stronger contraction in the concentric phase. More details on how elastic energy is stored and used during the different phases in the article How Plyometrics Increase Your Vertical
Neural activation refers to the activation of the motor units, a motor unit is the connection between a nerve and the muscle fibers this nerve activates. To read more on how motor units work have a look at the article 4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
In order to understand what are the benefits of plyometric training, it is important to understand the way motor units are activated.
In a nutshell, there are 3 different mechanisms in the neural activation / the way a muscle is activated
The rate of recruitment refers to how many motor units can be activated, the firing frequency refers to how fast the motor units can be activated and synchronization refers to how effective and efficient motor units can be activated.
More details on motor unit activation in the articles
An adaptation to plyometric training is an improved firing frequency, so the muscles are activated much faster and a better synchronization, which means the muscles are activated more efficiently.
In very simple words, you have to think about synchronization like switching on and switching off, the muscles and muscle fibers needed for the movement are switched on, the fibers that are not used are switched off. Switching on then not only refers to being activated but also in different muscle groups working together more effectively resulting in a stronger and more forceful contraction.
If you have heard me talking and writing about Plyometric Training opens neural pathways, that’s exactly what it is.
A faster signal to the muscle and a more effective use of the different muscle groups.
Almost every sporting action involves a stretch-shortening cycle in one form or the other.
I discussed the example of the stretch-shorting cycle on jumping in the article Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan another example is the stretch-shortening cycle on throwing and hitting movements.
During the coiling of a hit or a throw, the muscles of the trunk and arms get stretched and activates the stretch-shortening cycle, so that the muscles can contract more forceful during the forward movement of the hitting action or throwing action.
Plyometric Training and the effective use of the stretch-shortening cycle can help to activate muscles faster and help muscle groups to work together more effective and efficient.
A targeted Plyometric Training can improve sport specific actions, such as running, jumping, kicking, hitting or throwing.
A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
How often should you do Plyometric Training?
What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training?
For more information read the article or visit the plyometric training video library
The post What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training? appeared first on Christian Bosse.
This video shows the technique analysis of a drop jump from track cyclist Harrie Lavreysen as it happened in a regular strength and plyometric training setting.
More information about Plyometrics in the article A Short Guide to Plyometric Training or the Plyometric Training video library
The post Plyometrics Technique Analysis Drop Jump Harrie Lavreysen appeared first on Christian Bosse.
Are you engaging in Plyometric Training or you are considering to start Plyometric Training and have asked yourself How often should you do Plyometric Training?
There is no one-answer-fits-all to the consideration How often should you do Plyometric Training, therefore this article and video
Before answering the question ‘How often should you do plyometric training’ , let’s have a look what plyometric training trains and what the adaptations to plyometric training are.
The main adaptation(s) to plyometric training are mainly neural adaptations, which means it has an effect on the nervous system. I have outlined the main adaptations to plyometric training in the articles
The nervous system needs more time to recover from training impulses, depending on the training intensity 48 -to 96 hours. With this in mind, we can do plyos every 2 – 4 days depending on the training intensity, therefore the ideal training frequency per week should be 2 to 3 training sessions per week with at least one day of recovery in between.
Next to the recovery of the nervous system, the higher the intensity of the plyometric training, the higher the impact on the active and passive structures of the body (muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc). The higher the training intensity, the more recovery between the training sessions to recover and adapt to the training impact. Consequently for higher training intensities, a maximum of 2 training sessions a week is recommended, with at least 2 days of recovery in between.
Training intensity in plyometric training can be quantified in the impact or the stretch-load that is placed on the body, for example, a higher drop height in a drop jump results in a higher impact or stretch-load and thus more recovery from such a session is needed.
The answer to that question depends on, what you want to achieve with plyometric training and what the demands of your sport are?
You have to decide what you want to use the plyometric training for. You basically have two options, you can choose the plyometric exercises to work closely to the demands of the sport (looking at similar movement patters) or you choose plyometric exercises to stimulate the nervous system maximally.
An example from my day to day work, when I used to work with tennis players, we looked at the plyometric activity within the sport, as an example in the split-step.
For those who are not familiar with tennis, I will explain quickly what I mean, the split-step is a short hop of the tennis player before the opponent hits the ball. The reason is, that the player can react quicker after landing from a split-step as opposed to simply waiting flat-footed on the ground.
This split-step is a plyometric activity, but not very intense. Consequently, the plyometric training for tennis mainly consists of low intensity plyometric exercises focusing on a quick contact on changes of direction.
If you want to stimulate the nervous system, basically teach your nervous system to ‘fire’ faster / activate the muscles faster, you choose high intensity plyometric exercises. This approach doesn’t look specifically at movement patterns of a sport, it focuses purely on the neural component.
The plyometric training volume is calculated in total repetitions, so all repetitions you do in a set multiplied by the number of sets.
In the literature you might find the calculation of total ground contacts, which is essentially the same. One ground contact is one repetition.
High intensity plyometrics are done less frequent, as discussed, and also trained with lower training volumes (less repetitions, less sets).
Low intensity plyometrics can be done more frequent and are also trained with higher training volumes (more repetitions, more sets).
To understand the principle have a look at the article The Holy Grail of Strength Training – Sets and Reps
This article talks about the relation between intensity and total repetitions in a strength training, plyometric training follows the same principle.
Plyometric Training is very strenuous on the nervous system and requires full recovery between the different plyometric training sessions.
Plyometric Training intensity is measured by the impact or stretch-loads, higher training intensities require less training volume and more recovery than lower training intensities.
Plyometric training can be used as a training for the nervous system or to improve sport-specific movement patterns.
A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
How much can Plyometrics increase your Vertical?
How to build a Jump Box for Plyometrics
Why Are Plyometrics Good For You?
How Plyometrics Increase Your Vertical
What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training?
For more information read the article or visit the plyometric training video library
The post How often should you do Plyometric Training? appeared first on Christian Bosse.
This video discusses the questions
We discussed the benefits of plyometric training on the nervous system before in the articles
In a nutshell, when we speak about activation of motor units we speak about
Plyometric training improves mainly the firing frequency, it optimizes the neural pathway so that the signal from the nerve to the muscle fiber travels faster.
Plyometric training doesn’t only have an effect on the nervous system, it also works on the muscular system.
On a muscular level, plyometric training leads to higher muscle stiffness and muscle tension during activity. Not to be mixed-up with stiffer muscles as a synonym for a lack of flexibility! Stiffness in the context of plyometrics refers to how much tension the muscle can produce.
If you imagine a rubber band being stretched and released, the more it gets stretched the harder it recoils if it’s released. Similarly, if the muscle gets stretched and recoils. The recoil is what we see in sporting actions, whether it is running, jumping, throwing, hitting, etc all these sporting actions have a phase where the muscle/muscle chain gets stretched and recoils on the ‘release’.
So, back to the example of the rubber band. The second step is to imagine a stronger and thicker rubber band. Due to its’ higher tension, this rubber band can recoil with much more force than the previous rubber band. The same is true for the muscle or muscle chain, the more tension the muscle or muscle-chain can produce, the stronger the recoil.
This is the adaptation of plyometric training on the muscle and muscular system.
In addition to that, plyometrics also work on the muscle-tendon complex. The muscle-tendon complex refers to the unit of muscle and tendon, where the muscle goes over into the tendon and the tendon is attached to the bone (link to muscle tendon unit/architecture)
The adaptations following plyometric training is, that the tendon and muscle tendon gets stronger, so in a way, we could call plyometrics also a ‘tendon training’.
It has been shown, the higher the impact, the muscles don’t work with eccentric-concentric contractions, the muscle work isometrically and the tendon gets stretched and recoils.
Plyometric training improves the firing frequency so that the signal from the nerve to the muscle fiber travels faster. This is especially important in sports that require speed and power, as the muscle fibers can be activated faster.
Plyometric training increases muscle stiffness and strengthens the muscle-tendon complex, therefore in sporting activities such as running, jumping, throwing and hitting, the muscle is able to store more elastic energy, which leads to stronger and more powerful muscle contractions. Which means, you can run faster, jump higher, throw harder or faster and hit harder.
Plyometric training is not always part of the overall training routine of strength athletes, but Plyometrics can offer unique benefits that work synergistically with traditional strength training.
Traditional strength training, especially maximum strength training with higher intensities improve the recruitment of motor units, which means more motor units can be activated (up to 95% of the total motor units). Improved firing frequency as a result of plyometric training can then activate these motor units faster.
Increased muscle stiffness and a stronger muscle-tendon complex, can be especially important in sports with high eccentric forces and where the absorption of impact is crucial. Therefore plyometrics can be beneficial for Olympic Weightlifters as well. Have a look at the video of Mohammed Ihab under the Plyometric Training article section in the article recommendation week #30 2016 which shows examples how some weightlifters can include plyometrics into their training routine.
The sad news is, that if you want to reap the benefits of plyometric training, it takes time. The higher the intensity in the plyometric training, the more you will see the benefits that are outlined here. In order to perform high-intensity plyometrics, there are two things you need to consider
If we look at the example of a drop jump as a plyometric exercise, the intensity increases the higher you drop off.
What we generally see, if we increase the height of the drop, contact times go up (longer contact times on the ground), which is not what you want to see in this plyometric exercise. You want to increase the height of the drop and maintain short contact times, consequently, the technical mastery is important.
Secondly, if you drop from higher heights, you need to be prepared physically in order to absorb the higher impact. Especially the muscle tendon complex needs to be prepared for that higher impact.
So, how can we solve these issues?
Practice technical mastery with plyometric exercises of low to medium intensity and progress slowly.
Have dedicated sessions at the beginning of a cycle or season, where you deliberately prepare for higher stretch-loads and impact. We do that all the time with our athletes at the beginning of the season, where we work exclusively on the absorption of impact and stretch-load before we progress to higher intensity plyometric exercises.
Plyometric training optimizes the neural pathway from the nerve to the muscle fiber, which is commonly known as firing frequency and means the signal from the brain to the muscle travels faster, which leads to faster and more powerful contractions.
Plyometric training strengthens the muscle-tendon complex and increases muscle stiffness, which means the muscle can store more elastic energy and can use this stored elastic energy for stronger and more powerful contractions.
Ultimately, plyometric training will over time allow you to run faster, jump higher, throw harder and/ or faster and hit harder.
In order to benefit maximally from plyometric training, you need to have the technical mastery to perform the plyometric exercises, as well as you need to be physically prepared to perform these plyometric exercises.
A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
How much can Plyometrics increase your Vertical?
How often should you do Plyometric Training?
How to build a Jump Box for Plyometrics
How Plyometrics Increase Your Vertical
What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training?
For more information read the article or visit the plyometric training video library
The post Why Are Plyometrics Good For You? appeared first on Christian Bosse.
Strength Training and Plyometric Training impressions featuring
Jelle van Gorkom silver medalist at the Rio Olympics 2016 in BMX performing a
Twan van Gendt BMX rider 5th at the London Olympics 2012 and semi-finalist at the Rio Olympics 2016 performing
Jeffrey Hoogland European Champion track cycling 2015 in the sprint, 1 km time trial and team sprint and runner-up at the World Championships track cycling 2016 in the team sprint performing and Olympian 2016 a Back Squat with 220kg
Steffie van der Peet track cyclist and European champion 2016 in the team sprint (juniors) performing an Overhead Squat with 80 kg
Janne Tiktak track cyclist from the development team performing hurdle jumps
The Fundamentals of Strength Training
The Ultimate Guide to Strength Training for Beginners
The Importance Weight Training Has On Power
Power Training vs Strength Training – what is the difference?
Why Strength Training is important
Why Strength Training is important for athletes
How often should you do Strength Training
How long should a Strength Training Session last
How Strength Training works – accommodating resistance
How often should you do Strength Training to lose weight
How many Strength Training sessions per week
How to do Strength Training at home
or the Strength Training video library
A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
How often should you do Plyometric Training?
What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training?
For more information read the article or visit the plyometric training video library
The post Strength Training and Plyometric Training Impressions appeared first on Christian Bosse.
A strong vertical can give you an edge in a few sports and athletes are actively looking for training methods to increase their vertical.
Consequently, the question arises ‘How much can Plyometrics increase your Vertical?’
Is it worth investing your time in plyometric training and what return will you see for the time and effort invested?
This video and article discuss
As with most things in life, things take time. The same is true for training and especially strength training and plyometric training.
What happens in most cases, people enter a new training period highly excited and expect big results. After a few weeks training has taken its toll, motivation is not the same anymore and progress is rather slow.
The problem is, that people look at time frames of 3 or 4 weeks. In order to see the results of your efforts you need to look at a longer time frame, like 10 or 12 weeks.
And ideally, these 10 or 12 weeks are planned in advance and entail changes in training intensity and training volume in order to get results.
Training that target the neuromuscular system, such as strength training and plyometric training take more time until you can see the benefits from your training efforts.
A good time horizon to start with is 10 – 12 weeks, divided into 3 different training phases of 3 – 4 weeks.
For more information on the concept of planning have a look at the articles
An important factor in the plyometric equation is your strength levels.
I know this topic has to be treated with care, as there are a lot of conflicting information and opinions going around.
Well, that would disqualify the majority of people from doing plyometric training.
This information and guideline comes from early recommendations on plyometric training and is based on the idea, that plyometric training involving high impact and stretch-loads should only be done if the body is prepared to absorb these loads.
Looking at the definition of plyometric training as I have outlined it in the article What Is Plyometric Training? shows that plyometric training can be defined as ‘Plyometrics or Plyometric Training is a training that involves the stretch-shortening cycle as a means to improve speed and power.’
This definition shows, that plyometric training involves a stretch-shortening cycle and is a means to increase speed and power.
Plyometric training with a high impact is just one form of plyometric training and should be used once athletes have progressed through plyometric progressions enabling them to do high impact plyometrics.
This argument usually requires a bit of a deeper analysis and more nuanced discussion.
I have also had athletes and still have athletes, that are by far the most explosive, but definitely not the strongest in the group.
But, there is a big but to it, if you look at their strength levels, they are also not that bad. From the top of my head, I can think of two athletes, that are really explosive and are not the strongest compared to their peers or teammates.
One had a Back Squat 1 RM of 145 kg at a body weight of 82 kg and the other one has a Back Squat 1 RM of 132.5 kg at a body weight of 74 kg, if we look at the numbers, we can see
| Athlete | Back Squat (1 RM) | Bodyweight | Ratio (Back Squat to Bodyweight) |
| Athlete 1 | 145 kg | 82 kg | 1.76 |
| Athlete 2 | 132.5 kg | 74 kg | 1.79 |
Looking deeper into the numbers you can see, even though the guys are not the strongest in their group, but they are definitely not weak or are not strong at all.
If you check out the numbers and benchmarks I have outlined in the article The Fundamentals of the Back Squat you can see how they stack up. They are basically at the lower end of what I consider as ‘good’.
So, what about the guys, that never touched a weight and can jump like crazy?
I have seen that myself, my answer (based on experience) is, that there are always exceptions to the rule and these guys are much rather the exception than the rule.
I have seen firsthand athletes that have incredible physical traits, they can jump like crazy, they get stronger week after week, they grow more muscles than others. That’s just how it is, there are some very special genetically gifted specimen out there.
Bottom-line: There are exceptions to the rule, but for the majority of athletes strength levels affect your vertical and an increase in strength levels will result in an increase in your vertical.
Have you heard about ‘responders’ and ‘non-responders’?
The basic idea behind responders and non-responders is, that responders respond to a given stimulus, while non-responders don’t respond.
A typical example is the supplementation of Creatine, some people respond and see increased results in training, others don’t respond and see no results.
The same idea exists about plyometric training, some athletes respond to plyometrics, while others don’t.
In my opinion, the difference between responders and non-responders with regards to plyometric training is the muscle fiber type distribution.
More information on muscle fiber types in the article Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
Basically, athletes who are more fast-twitch dominant tend to respond better to plyometric training than athletes who tend to be more slow-twitch or intermediate fiber dominant.
This might seem like a bit of a simplistic approach, but I have seen that to be true over and over again.
However, what I have also seen over and over again, the athletes that put in the work day in and day out have increased their vertical over the years regardless of muscle fibers types and genetics.
Bottom-line, there is no excuse for not putting the work in.
Based on the information above, I am not able to give a definite answer to ‘How much can plyometrics increase your vertical?’
As you can see, there are a lot of variables in the equation. Some of those you can influence, such as program design and strength level others you can’t influence, such as the muscle fiber type distribution.
From my experience, athletes that are interested in increasing their vertical usually participate in a sport where they already jump a lot.
Sounds like a no-brainer, but my point is, if you are a basketball player or volleyball player and you simply add plyometrics to the mix, you might end up doing yourself a disservice.
What I really want to say, training forms and methods targeted to improve or increase neural activation, and plyometrics is one of those are very sensitive to training volume as well as very sensitive to doing too much.
A ‘more is better approach’ can have a very detrimental effect on speed development and power development.
Once you are neurologically fatigued and worn out, it will take you a long time to recover from this.
Back to the point of including plyometric training for sports that already have a high volume in jumping, such as Basketball or Volleyball.
Careful planning and structuring of plyometric training becomes more and more important and might also result in you have to take a few of the sport-specific training a bit lighter to put some extra focus into the dedicated plyometric training.
How much can plyometrics increase your vertical depends on a number of factors.
You need to have a goal and a realistic time horizon for when you want to achieve a certain result and then have a solid plan / plyometric training plan how to achieve this goal.
Strength levels are important for plyometric training success if your strength levels are lacking the plyometric training won’t do much for you.
Depending on muscle fiber distribution some athletes are progressing more and faster than others, but everyone who puts the work in will improve.
A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
How often should you do Plyometric Training?
How to build a Jump Box for Plyometrics
Why Are Plyometrics Good For You?
How Plyometrics Increase Your Vertical
What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training?
For more information read the article or visit the plyometric training video library
The post How much can Plyometrics increase your Vertical? appeared first on Christian Bosse.
Box jumps are one of the most popular plyometric exercises, but also one of the most controversial plyometric training exercises.
Box jumps offer some benefits that other plyometric drills don’t offer, therefore the question ‘How to build a jump box for Plyometrics’ is an interesting question for those doing their plyometric training at home or want to save costs and build their own jump box for plyometric training.
This article covers
In the grand scheme of plyometric training and plyometric exercises box jumps are just one plyometric exercise out of many plyometric exercises. You can do a very effective plyometric training without a jump box. You can go a long way with your bodyweight and plyo hurdles of various sizes.
For more information on plyometric training exercises have a look at the articles
Well, if you have read any of my articles before I don’t really believe an exercise or activity is dangerous, much rather the execution of an exercise or the misuse of an exercise.
Plyometrics and plyometric exercises are no different. And with regards to the box jumps, I believe it’s one of the most misused plyometric drills.
Why?
I have experienced first-hand, athletes breaking hands, breaking wrists, scratching their shins so that you can almost see the bone and many more things.
What is the reason for that?
Somehow the height of the box gives athletes a reference or benchmark. So, if they could jump to a 60 cm box and can now jump to a 90-centimeter box, they have improved, correct?
Well, not really. Because you can use a different strategy to achieve this. Just have a look at the Article recommendations week #38 2016 , where I shared a picture of Lachlan Wilmot demonstrating that a jump to a higher box does not necessarily mean a higher jump.
Jump training needs to improve COM displacement, not hip mobility, a higher box doesn’t mean your jumping higher! pic.twitter.com/hEcKWcfjLZ
— Lachlan Wilmot (@lachlan_wilmot) September 23, 2016
My point is, I am not against athletes being ambitious – by no means! – neither am I against testing your limits once in a while, but I do believe that the box jump is not the right exercise for that.
With regards to testing your maximum jump height, I have seen
The list could go on and on, again I am not against box jumps, but I believe the box jump is not a good exercise to test your maximal jumping ability.
If you want to test your jumping ability, there are various ways to do that.
If you don’t have a great deal of equipment, you can use a standing long jump or a vertical jump. When I was in school, we did the vertical jump next to a wall, put some chalk on your fingertips, reach to the highest point on the want you can reach vertically, put some chalk on the fingertips again jump and try to reach the highest point vertically and measure the distance between the two points.
Well, is that very accurate you might be asking. No, but better than a broken wrist that takes you out of your training for a couple of weeks.
If you want to invest into equipment you can look at a yardstick or an Abalakov jump belt. The Abalakov belts are so old school, that you can hardly get them anymore, but they serve the purpose. Basically, it’s like a measuring tape attached to a belt and to a gadget o the ground and once you jump the measuring tape unreels and measures the distance.
If you want to have more accurate measurements, there are various devices out there you can use from contact mats, over position transducers, accelerometers to force plates that allow you to test your jumping ability.
Considering you are using the box jump wisely and you are not going crazy on jumping to a too high box, as I just outlined, box jumps are a great plyometric training exercise.
The box jump offers one benefit, that many other plyometric drills don’t offer, which is that they take out the impact of landing or better reduce the impact.
How does that work?
If you imagine you have a vertical jump of 80 centimeters and you perform a simple countermovement jump, you jump 80 centimeters up and land from 80 centimeters height, which results in an impact from a height of 80 centimeters.
Just as a simple example, if you would jump to a 60-centimeter box, you would jump 80 centimeters up and land on 60 centimeters, so the impact would be reduced to an impact from a height of 20 centimeters.
Again, that is just a simple example but showcases the point.
It is very important to note, that when you jump onto a box you don’t jump back down because then you did not take out the impact! You took it out upon landing on the box and you put it back in by jumping down. If you really want to reduce the impact, you need to jump onto the box and step down for the next repetition.
Bottom-line, if executed correctly and used wisely, the box jump can be a great plyometric exercise.
I use the box jump early in my plyometric training stream or plyometric training continuum, before introducing other plyometric drills with higher impact.
In addition to that, the box jump can also be used effectively to teach and learn proper jumping technique and landing technique.
So, what are the considerations for building a jump box for plyometrics?
Unfortunately, I am not very skilled at building and constructing things, therefore this article will not provide a step-by-step outline on how to build a jump box for plyometrics.
However, I have seen enough athletes using boxes and also coached athletes from various sports how to jump onto a box or form a box, that I can offer some considerations what is important when building a jump box for plyometrics.
Whether you want to jump onto the box or you want to jump off the box, you need to make sure the surface of the box is big enough. The last thing you want to worry about is whether you make the jump because the surface is too small. Also consider that you might want to do lateral box jumps at some point, where you tend to land in a bit of a wider landing position than with linear box jumps.
The surface should be at least 60 by 60 centimeters, if not 80 by 80 centimeters.
From my experience, it has always been helpful, if the edges of the box were soft, rather than hard and sharp.
This can be achieved through either using a softer material or rounding the edges and put a kind of carpeting layer over the edges.
Different type of jumps requires different heights of the boxes. For example, a single leg jump requires a lower box than a double leg jumps. Or a jump with rotation requires a lower box than a linear jump.
Possible solutions to that are either a box with adjustable heights or boxes with various heights.
Which brings me to the next point, storage.
If you build different heights of boxes, consider it will take up a lot of space for storage.
Building boxes with adjustable heights or boxes that are stackable can help reduce the space for storage.
Last but not least, you want to use the solid material. At some point you will be advanced and consider box jumps with the additional load, so make sure the material of the boxes is solid enough to support the weight.
Also, think about the longevity of the material, you want to use the jump box for a couple of years.
If used and applied correctly, box jumps are a great tool in your toolbox of plyometric training exercises.
In order to perform box jumps safely and effectively, a jump box for plyometrics need to fulfill certain requirements, that you need to consider when you build a jump box for plyometrics.
A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
How much can Plyometrics increase your Vertical?
How often should you do Plyometric Training?
Why Are Plyometrics Good For You?
How Plyometrics Increase Your Vertical
What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training?
For more information read the article or visit the plyometric training video library
The post How to build a Jump Box for Plyometrics appeared first on Christian Bosse.
Why is Plyometrics effective and why do some many people talk about the Plyometrics benefits?
The benefits of Plyometric Training are manifold, however a quick search on the favourite search engine Google reveals, that there seem to be a few misconceptions surrounding the benefits of Plyometrics.
This article and video discusses
A well-designed plyometric training program can offer a variety of benefits, these plyometrics benefits can be
One phrase that stuck with me, when I was a young student and reading Vern Gambetta’s book Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning
What does that mean?
There are 3 primary mechanisms of muscular activation when you look at the motor unit complex
I have explained the different mechanism of activation in the articles
In a nutshell,
When referring to neural pathways, plyometric training can help to improve firing frequency and synchronization by reducing the latent period between the electrical activation of the muscle and the onset of force production.
In simple words, your muscles are activated faster.
This is not only important for sports that are speed and power dominant, but also for sports that are highly force dominant.
I have outlined this point in the article
An often overlooked benefit of plyometric training is, that plyometric training seems to be able to reverse the activation of motor units.
What?
The Henneman’s size principle explains that the activation of motor units occurs in an order from low threshold motor units to high threshold motor units.
This basically means in order to activate the high threshold motor units with the potential for high and fast force outputs, you have to go through the sequence of activating the lower threshold motor units first.
Research indicates that chronic adaptation to plyometric training programs can change the recruitment order so that the size principle is reversed and the high threshold motor units can be activated immediately.
Very often I hear the question ‘What muscles do Plyometrics work?’
Whilst the answer to this question highly depends on the plyometric exercise you are performing, obviously lower body plyometrics work different muscle groups than upper body plyometrics.
After all, the question can be specified into ‘What muscle fibers do Plyometrics work?’
Generally speaking, humans have
I have given a short outline on the different types of muscle fibers in the article
Plyometric training trains the fast twitch fibers, also called type 2X muscle fibers. Usually these muscle fibers aren’t activated very often and following the ‘Use It or Lose It Principle’, which basically states, if you don’t use something, you are going to lose it, most people and athletes have either traded a percentage of their fast twitch muscle fibers for intermediate muscle fibers or aren’t really able to activate those muscle fibers.
Plyometric training can help to teach to activate these muscle fibers, I have seen that over and over again with my athletes, that they got more explosive over time.
Plyometric training can also help to shift the muscle fiber type distribution towards more fast twitch muscle fibers.
Whilst this is quite a bold statement and previous beliefs were that a muscle fiber type change only happens from fast to slow and can’t be reversed, never research indicates, that a shift from slow to fast is possible.
To be clear here, the main mechanisms seems to be that the intermediate fibers have the capability to shift in either direction.
Bryan Mann recently talked on a podcast with Kabuki Strength about Velocity Base Training, how training at high velocities with little fatigue can lead to a shift in fiber type distribution and selective hypertrophy of fast twitch muscle fibers. Check out the podcast
If you want to learn more about Bryan’s work, check out his book on Velocity Based Training DEVELOPING EXPLOSIVE ATHLETES: USE OF VELOCITY BASED TRAINING IN TRAINING ATHLETES
This is where a lot of the confusion starts, if you browse through popular websites when plyometric training is advertised as a primary method for weight loss.
I am not saying, it’s not possible or plyometric training can’t be used in a weight loss protocol, but let’s dissect plyometrics for a second.
Plyometric training in its purest form is meant to be trained at high intensities, short durations and with short intra-serial rest periods and long inter-serial rest periods. For a detailed explanation, check out
This means, that Plyometric Training (again in its purest form) doesn’t set the stimuli that enhance weight loss and is also not meant to be for that. As I have outlined above, the main stimuli are on the neural level.
However, there is a certain form of Plyometric Training, that can be used to enhance weight loss. Joel Jamieson from 8 Weeks Out has coined the term ‘Aerobic Plyometrics’ an approach where you use low-intensity plyometric drills for longer durations and in a circuit training fashion. Joel has had great success with this method with the MMA fighters he trains.
Whilst this approach has led to great results, it’s a variation of traditional plyometric training.
From a coaching perspective, I have seen very often, actually very very often, that certain basic movement patterns like jumping or any other triple extension activities are sub-optimally developed, to phrase it nicely.
The sequencing of the different parts of the movements is not ideally aligned to ensure an optimal transfer of impulses.
If you are not familiar with the concept of the kinetic chain, in a nutshell, it refers to the sequence of impulses generated from the larger muscle groups transferred to smaller muscle groups. Ideally, the impulses are summated and result in a higher final impulse.
As a practical example, if you think about throwing a ball (like a tennis ball or baseball), the last link in the chain is the wrist, when the ball is released. However, the wrist isn’t able to produce the force needed to generate the high velocities. Therefore, the movement of the throw starts from the leg drive, through the hips and trunk rotation and gets transferred through the shoulder to the forearms and wrist.
What does that have to do with plyometrics?
Very often you see, athletes are able to perform a movement pattern correctly, when they do it slowly, but once they have to do it fast, the whole movement pattern breaks down.
This is where plyometric training can help improve the movement pattern and sequencing by providing the right feedback how a movement can be performed with high velocities.
As a simple example, if you have your athletes throwing a medicine ball for height, they will quickly realise the right movement pattern and sequencing in order to achieve the task.
The technical point is closely connected to the benefits of plyometric training on the neural level, since certain mechanisms of the neurological activation help, such as the synchronization and the reciprocal inhibition, which is closely related to the synchronization of motor units.
Nonetheless, as a practitioner, I believe it is a separate point, closely related to the day-to-day coaching practice.
Plyometric training offers many benefits, mainly targeted to improving speed and explosiveness as a result of neural adaptations and improved activation of muscle fibers.
Plyometrics doesn’t only offer benefits for athletes engaging in speed and explosive sports, but also for athletes engaging in strength sport and endurance sports due to improved neural efficiency.
However, due to popular beliefs, plyometric training in itself is not the best method to enhance weight loss, whilst certain variations of plyometrics can support a well-designed weight loss program.
A Short Guide to Plyometric Training
4 Unexpected Benefits of Plyometric Training
Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
How much can Plyometrics increase your Vertical?
How often should you do Plyometric Training?
How to build a Jump Box for Plyometrics
Why Are Plyometrics Good For You?
How Plyometrics Increase Your Vertical
What are the Benefits of Plyometric Training?
or visit the plyometric training video library
The post Plyometrics benefits – Why is Plyometrics effective? appeared first on Christian Bosse.
How to increase your Vertical Jump is a question, not only professional athletes ask themselves, but also ambitiously people participating in the sport of Volleyball, Basketball, just to name a few…
At the UK Strength & Conditioning Association’s Annual Conference 2017 I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr.Jeremy Sheppard.
Dr. Jeremy Sheppard is one of the most sought-after experts in the field of Strength & Conditioning and Sports Science with a wide background in many sports, amongst them Volleyball and Beach Volleyball.
Not only is Dr. Jeremy Sheppard a Coach, he has multiple publications under his belt of applied research on the topics Plyometrics, Plyometric Training, How to Increase your Vertical Jump for Volleyball players and Beach Volleyball players.
The interview covers questions around the topics How to increase your Vertical Jump for Volleyball, Vertical Jump Tests for Volleyball, appropriate Plyometric Exercises and Plyometric Training design.
Check out the table of content or listen to the feature video below – enjoy!
Christian: Today I’m here with Jeremy Sheppard. Jeremy Sheppard is the Lead Strength & Conditioning Coach at the Canadian Institute of Sport for Snowboarding nowadays and previously Head of Sports Science Surfing Australia.
Jeremy has a broad experience working as a Strength & Conditioning Coach with Volleyball and Beach Volleyball and was mentored by Istvan Balyi.
Christian: Today’s topic will be touching on your experience with Volleyball and Beach Volleyball and the theme for this interview will revolve around the questions ‘How to Increase your Vertical?” and ‘How to increase your Vertical Jump for Volleyball?’
I also want to look at the implementation of plyometric exercises that help you jump higher and how to plan a plyometric workout.
The specific question, how would you go through planning of a Volleyball Plyometric workout
Program?
Jeremy: Volleyball is a great context, because as a Strength and Conditioning Coach in some sports you are torn in many different directions on what you can affect the sports performance with. What I love about working with Volleyball players is, that although there are many things you could help with, there is really one that just stands out and it is just so important.
And that is the speed of their movement on court and their Vertical Jump.
If you can improve their Vertical Jump, you can also improve their speed quality.
The Volleyball Vertical Jump training and the speed training are complementing each other.
The Vertical Jump for a volleyball player is king!
An important aspect for many people is, that they often see impressive vertical jumps from short people and they assume that tall volleyball players cannot have a good vertical jump.
The opposite is true, tall men or tall women have a longer push distance through their vertical jump. As these tall athletes go through growth and are getting used to getting their tall body coordinated, they can have extremely impressive Verticals.
When it comes to prioritizing how to improve your Vertical Jump for Volleyball, it is important to have your criteria assessment for Volleyball Vertical Jump measurements. Specifically, that is a Spike Jump and a Counter-Movement Jump.
The Counter-Movement Jump resembles a block or any movement that doesn’t involve an approach to the net. The Counter-Movement Jump can be done with 2 arms, like a block with one arm, as a reaching movement.
The Spike Jump or Approach Jump the athlete can use, three steps, four steps or however many steps that they use on the court.
As equipment, you can use a Vertec.
Once you have the results of these two jump tests, you already have something to compare.
The question that stands out ‘What is the percentage difference gain from the approach?’
As an example, if a Volleyball player has a Vertical Jump of 330 centimeters on a Counter-Movement Jump and their Approach Jump is 345 centimeters, they are not getting a lot of additional gain from the horizontal approach.
You can then look and break down the jump testing results.
Is this a technical factor? Is it that they don’t have the knowledge of how to do it? Is it a physical issue or a biomechanical issue? When you answer these questions, you can start to break that down further.
Then from there, I would add in other assessments to further determine what their Vertical Jump training should look like, rather than just say ‘You have got a 330 centimeters Counter-Movement Jump, here is your training program.’ You need to say ‘I need more information. I need to know well where is that coming from.’
You can then look at something like a Drop Jump and see if they are getting additional jump height from a drop jump?
Following up on the example of the Volleyball player with the 330-centimeter Counter-movement Jump. If this player drops off a 20-centimeter box and the Vertical Jump is 325 centimeters, you know, this player is not getting an additional gain in vertical jump height from dropping. That means that the ability to tolerate eccentric loading and absorbing forces is low.
This suggests, that there is a great window of opportunity to start training stretch load tolerance, with depth jumps, drop jumps and/or accentuated eccentric loading.
If the athlete is not ready for depth jumps, they can do a regression from a depth jump, like a tuck jump or a jump variation, that will start to develop that tolerance to the stretch load.
With a Volleyball player, you can do a complete vertical jump profile and test the 20 cm, 30 cm, 40 cm, 50 cm and 60-centimeter drop jump for maximum vertical jump height.
Christian: How does such a Vertical Jump test profile work?
Jeremy: You let them perform a drop jump from the heights I have just outlined and record the vertical jump heights achieved on each drop jump height.
The results can give you more insights into the actual jump performance, as I presented at the UKSCA Annual Conference in 2011.
It is possible, that you have two players, that have the exact same Vertical Jump height in a Counter-Movement Jump but show a complete different Vertical Jump test profile.
With these results, you can determine, where there is the biggest scope for improvement for every individual player. It could be the plyometric ability or it could be the maximum strength levels.
Christian: Would you use the same Vertical Jump profiling process for younger Volleyball players?
Jeremy: It depends on the training history of the athlete, as well as their maturation status. For example, a 14-year-old who doesn’t have a good training history you might not do all the different drop jump heights, but you might do some 20 cm, 30 cm, and 40 cm.
In any case, whether it’s a young athlete or a professional athlete, you can compare the different Volleyball players and graphically look at the results and decide one volleyball player might benefit from depth jumps from 20 centimeters, and one of them may need to do depth jumps from 40 centimeters.
Christian: This is a bit of a philosophical question, right?
Do you want to ‘strengthen the strength’ or ‘weaken the weakness’?
Jeremy: That is a really good point and I suppose it is a philosophical question. It is something that I have discussed with different people and I, in this case, it is a weakness.
On the other hand, I don’t necessarily look at it as targeting their weakness, much rather than looking at an opportunity to where the most adaptation could occur from.
In a bigger picture sense, I do agree that ignoring your strengths and only attacking your weaknesses as an individual philosophically speaking may not always be the right approach.
Another example, I have had volleyball players who weren’t very strong in the weight room setting, but they were inherently explosive jumpers with very good vertical jumps.
One approach that most people would take is to attack the weakness, but that might not always work.
I work with snowboarding now and I have a snowboarder who snowboards very well, but if we are trying to attack his weaknesses, he doesn’t respond very well.
Therefore I actually can’t attack his weaknesses, because it tears apart everything else that we are trying to achieve.
But, he is an extreme example.
For me, I haven’t had a lot of these extreme examples.
With the example of the volleyball players, who weren’t very weight room strong, we didn’t have any negative repercussions like the explosiveness disappeared, when we did Front Squats and other heavy lifting activities.
They had great depth jumps and were amazing at Plyometrics. Therefore I didn’t need to give a lot of additional plyometric exercises since they seemed to be inherently good at the plyometric training. However, when I gave additional resistance training, it didn’t make anything else worse.
On the flip-side, with the snowboarder I mentioned before, I can make him worse very quickly.
In the weight room, we are focusing more on the velocity of movement. When we put a lot of tension through his body and he squats with lower velocities, that allows him to only move the bar with average speeds of 0.3 to 0.4 meters per second through the concentric part of the squat, the problems that come with this high load, low velocity training are not worth the benefits that we gain from this.
But he can squat with lighter loads, that he can move at 0.5 or 0.6 meters per second and when he starts to move these loads even faster, then we can increase the loads and this approach doesn’t ruin his snowboarding.
Christian: Let’s talk about Plyometric Workouts and Plyometric Training Programs. How do you design a plyometric training program? What are your progressions, if you implement the general plyometric training program? How do you approach the season for Volleyball Players, or how do you design a long-term plyometric training program throughout the entire season.
Jeremy: I use an expression in my mind, that has helped throughout the years.
The training program needs to be athlete specific and sports relevant.
The same is true for the plyometric training program, it has to be specific to the needs of the athlete and relevant to the sport of Volleyball. In practice that can mean, that I have a volleyball player that is working with plyometric training progressions that are not as aggressive as some people might think. People might think “He is a volleyball player, he should be doing more Plyometrics.” But because of the results of our force profiling, that we do in addition to the jump profiling that I mentioned earlier, I may actually be using very, very small doses of very, very specific plyometric exercises, that are only in the plyometric training program to complement the heavy resistance training or heavy ballistic training progressions. Once I have achieved a few things, that I was looking for, I then lay out the full plyometric training program.
Meanwhile, another player, that is on the same team and right beside him on the court, is also right beside him in the weight room doing a completely different training program. Sometimes we had Volleyball Coaches visiting our training sessions and I had to explain, that these volleyball players are on the same team and sometimes even in the same position on the court and have the same responsibilities but there are huge disparities between one training program and another training program.
But this is what I mentioned before, the training program needs to be sport relevant, but also athlete specific. And this explains, why the athletes do different training programs.
If we dive into that example we might have one guy who has one plyometric exercise for a couple micro-cycles, maybe even for a couple meso-cycles.
And it might be, that the other player is doing Accentuated Eccentric Drop Loads with 30 kilograms, which means 15 kg in each hand. I might do that to teach him the motor aspect of the explosive transition from the eccentric movement to the concentric movement. I do that in addition to the heavy strength training, to contrast it with something explosive. Another example could be, that I pair the heavy strength training with an Over speed Jump so that I don’t lose or minimize that velocity side of things.
Christian: For those who are not familiar with Accentuated Eccentric Loading, can you elaborate, what it is, how it works and what adaptations you can expect?
Jeremy: Accentuated Eccentric Loading is advanced plyometric exercises. Think about a jump, where you hold two dumbbells in your hand and you jump. With the Accentuated Eccentric Loading, you only hold onto the dumbbells for the dip and let go of the dumbbells in the bottom position. You basically do the dip with your body weight plus the dumbbells, but the actual jump only with your bodyweight.
Studies have shown, that Accentuated Eccentric Loading can lead to superior power outputs, higher jump velocities and an increase in your vertical.
The adaptations are a combination of myogenic adaptations, adaptations on the muscular system and neurogenic, adaptations on the nervous system.
On the muscular system, because the eccentric phase is done with additional loads, on the nervous system, because there is a potentiation effect when you let go of the dumbbells and the nervous system sends a stronger signal to the muscle fiber to fire.
Christian: With the Accentuated Eccentric Loading or the Over speed Jump you are looking to train both ends of the Force-velocity continuum? High loads and low velocities on one side of the continuum and Low loads and high velocities on the other side of the force-velocity continuum, correct?
Jeremy: Exactly, because I really think of it like a continuum and I think many coaches do think so as well. Therefore we do not only see our plyometric exercises also as continuums, but also the physical qualities as a continuum.
Meanwhile, in our example of the hypothetical athlete, who is not working a lot on that low load and high-velocity end of the continuum, he might do more work on the other end of the continuum with high loads and lower speeds. This athlete is the mainly working with the Olympic Lifts and derivatives of the Olympic Lifts, such as Hang Cleans, Hang Snatches and Loaded Jump Squats. This is the typical big strong white guy strength coaches love because he can squat a lot and the strength coaches can brag about how strong their athlete is.
However, this guy might only be the second-best for his position on the national team, because his Vertical Jump is great, but it is not world class Vertical. This athlete might have a Counter-movement Jump of 330 centimeters and a Spike Jump of 340 centimeters.
But then there is this other guy with a different sort of background, different athletic makeup, who has a 350 cm Counter-movement Jump and a Spike Jump of 370 cm. And when this guy drops off a box during your plyometric training, this athlete jumps over your head. But this athlete might only Front Squats 90 kilos, which is his body weight, and he thinks that is really hard.
So, one guy can grind through the lower velocity and high load training, whilst the other, the more explosive guy has difficulties with higher loads. This athlete could use the high load low-velocity training as an opportunity for improvement while making sure he doesn’t lose, what makes him really good.
Christian: Expanding on the two examples you just outlined, with the strength guy you normally see a different jump profile, with a deeper dip and more a ‘strength-based’ jump, whilst the explosive and plyometric guy, uses shorter dip but very bouncy jump and more use of the elastic components for the Vertical.
Jeremy: Yes, that is correct. The stronger guy uses a longer push distance. And the more plyometric guy uses a high rate of movement. And the first example, the stronger in the weight room guy favor a longer length of the stretch-shortening cycle activity.
Both of them stimulate stretch-shortening cycle activity, the difference lies in the rate at which they do it, slow vs fast; as well as the range in which they do it, short vs long.
Christian: I remember, when I was working with Indoor Volleyball and Beach Volleyball towards the Olympic Games in London 2012, we classified athletes in these two groups, the strength-dominant athlete, and the plyometric-explosive athlete. One question always stood out ‘Can you make the strength-dominant athlete into a more plyometric-explosive athlete? What is your take on that?
Jeremy: I don’t know if you can make the strength-dominant athlete completely into a plyometric-explosive athlete, but you can tap into the opportunity that they currently don’t have. And I see that with some level of confidence because I have been consistent with monitoring those physical qualities so that I can observe those physical changes.
The athlete, who is not that explosive might have that 330-centimeter Vertical Jump and going back to that score, his vertical of a depth jump from 20 centimeters is 325 cm. We can get those guys up to 335 of the 20 cm Depth Jump, and what will often find is, that the Counter-movement Jump goes up to 335 cm.
They improve both scores, but with a severe bias towards the one that was lacking, to me, that really stands out.
If you jump off a box and you can’t get a higher Vertical Jump I would say to them, ‘Don’t get depressed, get excited, because we just found something we can work on.’ and then they work on that quality.
And then the next step is, how we might lay that out?
The athlete has not really got a drop height that is really optimal because theoretically, you would have a drop height where you get your best Vertical Jump from. Then you philosophically ask, ‘Do we use that drop height where he gets the best Vertical? Is that what it means?’
Maybe. I don’t know for sure.
But maybe we use that drop height and little higher drop height. Or maybe there are ways to use lower drop heights, but that changed the nature of the plyometric exercise.
I use part of Maarten Bobbert’s work from the University of Amsterdam, he uses different classifications of Drop Jumps.
I use two of Maarten Bobbert’s proposals, one Drop Jump, where you emphasize the short contact. For this one, I might use lower heights for that. The other Drop Jump variation, where you maximize vertical jump height, with longer contact times, I use higher drop jump heights.
Christian: Yes, Maarten Bobbert talks about Bounce Drop Jump and the second one a Counter-movement Drop Jump.
Jeremy: Yes, and then I think he has a third one. For me, practically speaking I stick with those two. For the Bounce Drop Jump, I instruct the athletes, that the idea is to literally bounce off the ground or flip a Volleyball.
I don’t get too descriptive because that can confuse the athletes and I just say to them, ‘Drop off the box and go bang like this.’ and I just drop a Volleyball and bounce it quick.
With the Counter-movement Drop Jump, I say, ‘I want you to jump off the box and find a way to jump as high as possible.’ Because, if you tell them that, that is the outcome they will look for. They won’t over-think what they need to do, like how much to dip or whatever.
They still might ask me that question, ‘How much am I supposed to dip?’ I reply, that they need to figure that out. I again instruct ‘Drop off the box and do whatever you need to do to jump as high as possible.’
In addition to that, I might put the Vertec for them to test, what gives them the best Vertical.
Coming back to the original question, where do we start? We use those two different types of drop jumps and layer it out. We might start with lower heights and then monitor it, as we improve the vertical height on those lower drop heights, we start raising the drop heights.
If I think of a great Volleyball player, I use the example of Igor Yudin a professional Volleyball player in Poland.
Igor used to drop off a 40 or 50-centimeter box and get his best vertical jump height.
Then the question which fascinated me, if I should use that drop height for him?
If I accept this as a good idea, then maybe, I should also use drop heights a bit higher and a bit lower than that. Almost like a mixed method approach to plyometric exercise selection.
Having said that, Igor was such a good Volleyball player and such an amazing jumper, that my role would be to do everything I can, to make him handle his landings better. Because the better the Volleyball player, the more balls they are going to get from the setter in the attack. The more time you are going to jump and consequently land from those jumps, which is a high impact.
So I needed to figure out, how to extend his career so that he can have a longer career and provide for his family longer.
I was wondering, whether this was my contribution? So again, philosophical approach.
Christian: Comes down to the responsibilities of a Strength & Conditioning Coach, which is improving performance and preventing injuries, and therefore prolonging the career longevity.
Jeremy: For sure. Our contextual purpose is to win volleyball games or to improve the performance of our athletes. But at the same time, our overall purpose is to upgrade people’s lives, and one of those lives that you can upgrade is the people you are working with.
It may be obviously winning games for the team is great and for the individual as well. But teaching them how to take care of themselves is a big responsibility, and it is a legacy we could and should leave. I live in Canada and Igor, to come back to the example of Igor, lives in Poland and I think part-time in Australia and still plays for the Australian National Volleyball team. If I have taught him something that helps him now and adds quality to his life and the lives of his family, that adds a tremendous amount of satisfaction to me.
That is different than if he was a just a player on a piece of paper, where you would say, ‘Look, he’s got an amazing Drop Jump from 40 centimeters.’ And I might be using 40 and 50 cm Drop Jumps, and then when I begin to see improvements in the 40 cm and the 50 cm, then I can be confident that we might move to higher drops, such as 45 cm, 55 cm or even 60 cm. But I always layer in higher drop landings to prepare for the added stretch loads.
Christian: Can you give a specific example, how you use the Landings to teach and train to absorb forces and use Drop Jumps to train force production and power production?
Jeremy: Definitely, for example, this amazing and explosive freak Igor, he might be doing Bounce Drop Jumps off 20 or 30 centimeters, and in the same micro-cycle doing Counter-movement Drop Jumps from 40 and 50 centimeters for maximum Vertical Jump height, as well as doing 60 centimeters Drop Landings, to work on stabilizing quickly and landing softly.
Christian: How would you sequence Plyometric Exercises in a Plyometric Training session? Do you start with Plyometric Exercises focussed on absorbing forces first, or do you start with the most explosive Plyometric Drills first?
Jeremy: Good question. We would warm up to start with plyo drills focussed on absorbing forces. We do not start with dropping from heights, we start with Drop Squats focussing on a quick drop and stabilizing, we progress the Drop Squats from double leg to single leg.
I also like to do some basic gymnastics with almost every sport I work with. Obviously now with Snowboarding and Surfing, there are a lot of direct applications of gymnastics, but even with Volleyball players doing things like a forward roll and then re-stabilizing on your feet is a basic skill that can help to improve Volleyball performance.
It is relevant for their backcourt play, where the Volleyball player might have to dig a ball at an angle and then roll efficiently and come back up quickly. Because one of the hardest physiological challenges in Volleyball is actually getting up off the ground when you are really tall and big athlete. They have a vertical jump thousands of times per week in practice and competition and that is where our main focus lies. But they also dive about 150 or 200 times and usually very little focus is put on the dive, the roll and the recovery back into the Volleyball court.
And they are really big people and getting up off the ground is actually really hard. If you can teach them to actually roll better and be a bit better at basic gymnastic skills in how they recover their body weight from digging a ball or chasing a ball and trying to bring it back into play, that helps too because it is less stressful for them.
Back to the integration of Plyometric exercises into a Plyometric Training session. As outlined we start warming up for the absorption and start our plyometric training with drop landings. We might also do the drop landings at the end of training, to teach effective landings and force absorption under fatigue, but that depends. That is the Art and Science aspect of coaching, you go with your instinct and your data.
Where do I put each individual athlete?
That is a kind of a fun decision to make, to switch it up for each individual athlete if required. I do the same thing with our gymnastics and balance training. Sometimes it is after the warm up before we do our main plyometric training, and sometimes it is at the end of the plyometric workout to challenge them under fatigue.
Christian: Thanks, Jeremy, I could talk for hours to you. It looks like we have to go back to our next presentation.
Thank you for your time, it was great!
Jeremy: Yes, appreciate it.
The post How to Increase Your Vertical Jump for Volleyball – an Interview with Dr. Jeremy Sheppard appeared first on Christian Bosse.
Plyometrics are around for decades now and athletes have used Plyometric Training to improve speed and explosiveness for years.
It seems that Plyometrics has had a revival in recent years as a popular training method in the last years and you find claims, that Plyometric Training is an effective training method to lose weight and also build muscles.
Is that really true?
This article and videos discuss
As I mentioned in the introduction, Plyometric Training has been popularized in recent years as a secret weapon to accelerate weight loss and promote muscular gains.
In addition to that, Plyometric training offers the benefit, that you don’t need much equipment, which makes it even more appealing.
However, the question, that stands out is, whether Plyometric Training can help you to gain muscle mass and how.
Just check out a few popular articles, that outline the benefits of Plyometric Training to promote muscle growth.
Ok, let’s take it away, Plyometrics is actually not the best training method to build muscles, period.
Why is that?
In order to build muscles, the two main drivers of muscle growth are
The higher the mechanical load, the higher the potential for muscular growth. This is why you won’t see massive guys, who don’t lift massive loads.
The ideal time under tension for your muscles to grow is somewhere between 25 to 60 seconds, depending on whether you work on functional hypertrophy or the non-functional hypertrophy. For more information on Functional Hypertrophy and Non-Functional Hypertrophy, check out the article The Holy Grail of Strength Training – Sets and Reps
From this criteria, you can see, that the mechanical load that is needed for eliciting muscle growth is too low and the time under tension that is needed to provide a stimulus on the muscle to grow is too short.
However, if you look at adaptations that follow Plyometric Training, you can see that there are adaptations, that can help indirectly to facilitate muscle growth.
What are these adaptations?
Plyometrics provide a high neural stimulus.
This high neural stimulus leads to adaptations of the nervous system.
Plyometrics can open so-called neurological pathways, which refers to the signal from the brain to the muscle can travel a bit faster.
For more information on firing frequency, check out the article Plyometrics benefits – Why is Plyometrics effective?
In very simple words, the muscle fibers within your body can be classified as fast-twitch fibers and slow-twitch fibers.
Fast-twitch fibers can produce higher forces, but fatigue faster, slow-twitch fibers can’t produce very high forces but are fairly fatigue resistant.
If you take a closer look at the fast-twitch fibers, they can further be divided into type 2X fibers and intermediate fibers, type 2A fibers, that possess qualities of the type 2X fibers, but also qualities of slow-twitch fibers.
Plyometric Training activates more of the type 2X fibers or type 2X motor units (let’s just use muscle fibers and motor units interchangeably, they are not exactly the same thing, but for this outline, we can use it interchangeably).
If you follow a regular muscle building regimen with more repetitions (above 4 – 5 reps), lower intensities (between 65 – 85% 1RM) and more controlled bar speeds, these Type 2X motor units are often not activated, you mainly activate the type 2A motor units.
Consequently, what Plyometrics can do for you, if you add Plyometric Training to your regular training routine, is that the signal to the muscle travels a bit faster so that you can activate your muscle fibers faster. And Plyometric Training can help to activate the type 2X motor units, that are usually not activated but possess a great potential for muscular growth.
You could say, it’s an untapped opportunity.
For more information on different muscle fiber types, check out the article Why understanding the Mechanics Behind Plyometric Training will make you jump like Michael Jordan
Plyometric Training strengthens the muscle-tendon complex.
What is the muscle-tendon complex?
Very simple, the muscle is attached to a tendon and the tendon is attached to a bone.
An adaptation following a Plyometric Training program is, that the muscle-tendon complex gets stronger, especially the tendons.
How does it help to have a stronger tendon?
Well, you could ask Dorian Yates, who tore his Triceps tendon in the preparation for the Mr. Olympia 1997, check out his recollection (from minute 00:53)
A stronger muscle-tendon complex helps you to tolerate higher loads and ultimately lift higher loads. Remember, I mentioned earlier, the two main drivers of muscular growth are the mechanical load and the time under tension. Consequently, the higher the mechanical load, the higher the stimulus for muscle growth.
Plyometrics in itself is not the best method to elicit muscular growth for the simple fact, that the mechanical load is too low and the time under tension is too short.
However, there are certain adaptations that are following Plyometric Training that can help you to build muscles in the long run.
These adaptations are a stronger muscle-tendon complex, a higher firing frequency and a higher activation of the Type 2X fibers, the fast-twitch muscle fibers.
The post How to build muscles with Plyometrics? appeared first on Christian Bosse.
How many reps for Plyometrics should you do? You might have read 3 * 10 or sometimes 3 * 20, what is the ideal number for a plyometric training?
This article and video discusses
How many reps should you do in a plyometric training?
The number of repetition depends on your training goal.
In order to determine how many reps you should do in a plyometric training, you also need to understand the neurological and metabolic requirements for an optimal plyometric training.
What does that mean?
For a plyometric training to be effective, it needs to provide a high neural stimulus with no to very little fatigue. That means, a high neural stimulus is determined by the training intensity, and the duration should be short that it elicits no fatigue.
Check out the article 3 Unbreakable Plyometric Training Rules from Stack, which outlines, that you need to limit your reps.
From a metabolic standpoint, a plyometric workout requires a high activation of the Phosphagen system or the ATP-CP system, which provides energy for short periods of time (around 6 – 10 seconds).
For more details check out the article 3 Steps to Develop your own Power Training Method
Consequently, everything you do in your plyometric training needs to be somewhere between 6 to a maximum of 10 seconds and should produce very little fatigue.
Another aspect and training variable in your plyometric training program are inter-serial rest periods and intra-serial rest periods.
Inter-serial rest is the rest between sets. As an example, you completed 5 counter-movement jumps and you rest for 4 minutes. This piece of information you can find very often in the literature.
However, the intra-serial rest is the rest between repetitions and this piece of information isn’t very often addressed but is very important.
An example of an intra-serial rest is, if you complete a counter-movement jump, you reset yourself to get ready for the next jump (which might take 2 or 3 seconds) and perform the next counter-movement jump. This short period of rest is the intra-serial rest.
In a plyometric training, it depends pretty much on the plyometric exercise you are choosing, whether there is an intra-serial rest or not.
Let me explain.
If you chose an activity like hurdle jumps, there isn’t any intra-serial rest, conversely, if you chose a plyometric drill such as the box jump, there is an intra-serial rest for the simple fact, that after you jumped on the box, you have to get down off the box and get ready for the next box jump.
Consequently, the plyometric drill you are choosing has also an influence on how many repetitions you can do. In the given example, if you do hurdle jumps you are much more limited than if you do box jumps.
Concluding, to make a complicated topic short and simple.
The duration of a plyometric exercise shouldn’t exceed 6 – 10 seconds, however, the number of repetitions you do in a plyometric drill is dependent on the plyometric drill, whether there is an intra-serial rest or not.
For a continuous plyo exercise, such as hurdle jumps, you can choose lower repetitions, between 4 – 6 reps and for plyo drills with an intra-serial rest, you can choose higher reps, for example up to 10 reps. I personally prefer to choose lower reps and outline my rationale in the next paragraph.
If you read some popular literature on plyometric training you might find exercise prescriptions of 6 – 10 reps, or even higher, such as 12 – 15 reps.
From my experience with my athletes, I have found that the prescriptions are far too high.
Why is that?
We use the counter-movement jump to monitor the readiness and fatigue of the athlete. We use the position transducer and force plate to measure the velocity, as well as the rate of rate of force development.
I have found over and over again, that if my athletes do counter-movement jumps with a maximum effort, I see that they are able to do 4 to 5 maximum repetitions, after that the velocity decreases. Bear in mind, that we do counter-movement jumps, where they have an intra-serial rest of 3 seconds or more.
If they do more reps, like 6, 8 or 10, I can see the velocity and rate of force development decreases, which is an indicator that the plyometric training is not effective anymore.
What has this taught me?
In order for a plyometric training to be effective, I much rather break down my repetitions during the training and perform lower repetitions (up to 4 or 5) and increase the number of sets to match the total volume.
Check out some guidelines for total volumes in the article Principles of Plyometric Training from Coaches Education.
Do you always have to limit your repetitions to 4 or 6?
If you want to get faster and more powerful yes, you should limit the reps, however, there are exceptions to the rule, if your training goal is different.
If you are in a sport, where your footwork pattern is plyometric I nature, such as tennis or boxing, where you have some low-level plyometric activity but for an extended period of time.
If you want to train this plyometric pattern and the ability to last or reduce fatigue during the execution of this low-level plyometric activity, you need to train differently.
You design plyometric drills with higher repetitions and incomplete rest between the sets.
However, then also your training goal is different and you aren’t focused on increasing speed and power, but you are focused on decreasing fatigue.
The next time you ask yourself ‘How many reps for Plyometrics?’ think about a high neural stimulus, that the metabolic demands don’t exceed 6 – 10 seconds and whether the plyometric activity you are choosing has an intra-serial rest or not.
The post How many reps for Plyometrics? appeared first on Christian Bosse.
You have asked yourself how Plyometrics build muscle? Let me take it away, plyometrics won’t build muscle mass directly, however, if you understand the adaptations that follow the plyometric training and the adaptations needed for building muscle mass, which are both covered in this article you will understand how plyometrics build muscle faster, compared to no plyometric training.
This article and video discusses
If you are interested in building muscle mass, there are two adaptations that follow a plyometric training program, that is important to you.
Firstly, plyometric training offers a high neural stimulus, which means that the signal from the brain to the muscle travels faster and your muscles can contract faster.
Why is that important?
Just check out the random video below, which shows a maximum effort Bench Press attempt. However, even if movement velocity is low, you still want to make sure that the neural drive to the muscle is maximized to succeed.
Secondly, plyometric training strengthens the muscle-tendon complex.
What is the muscle-tendon complex?
In simple words, the muscle is attached to a tendon and the tendon is attached to a bone.
This complex of muscle, tendon, and bone gets stronger, which allows you to lift heavier loads over time.
Why is that important?
Well, you might want to listen to 6 times Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates on how he experienced a tendon tear during the preparation of his last Mr. Olympia contest and the painful injury and recovery process
In order to stimulate a muscle to grow, you need to tick 2 boxes of the most simple requirements.
You need a high mechanical tension on the muscle and you also need to have that tension for a certain amount of time, which is referred to time under tension (TUT). And to be completely precise there are more elements, as stated by Dr. Brad Schoenfeld, amongst them metabolic stress and muscle damage.
However, the primary requirements and those you can influence easiest are the mechanical load and time under tension.
Mechanical load refers to the external load, the higher the external load, the higher the mechanical load. Yes, your 40 kg Bench Press set with accentuated negatives might burn, however, the mechanical load is low and consequently that won’t do very much for you.
Time under tension is the total time of tension, if you lift the weight for 1-second hold it for 1 second and lower it for 2 seconds, you have completed 4 seconds of time under tension. In order to maximize hypertrophy, the total time under tension should be 25 – 60 seconds.
You can make the math on the given example from above how many repetitions that are in total.
However, once you change the rep cadence, you need to adjust the number of repetitions as well.
I have covered the requirements for muscular hypertrophy, as the height of the mechanical load is determined by the external load and the time under tension, as the total time the muscle is under tension.
Let’s have a look at plyometric training and the requirements for muscular hypertrophy.
Since plyometrics are most often performed with bodyweight only or very light implements
Check out the example for a short stretch-shortening cycle activity for the lower body vs a long stretch-shortening cycle activity for the lower body performed by Track Cyclist Harrie Lavreysen
And another example of a short stretch-shortening cycle activity for the upper body vs a long stretch-shortening cycle activity for the upper body also performed by Track Cyclist Harrie Lavreysen
In both examples, you can see, that the total time under tension is minimal and you won’t get to the total time under tension required of 25 – 60 seconds.
This is exactly the reason, why plyometrics can’t build muscle directly.
In conclusion, plyometrics does not build muscle directly.
However, a strategic implementation of plyometric training into your training routine, associated with the benefits of stronger and faster neural drive and a stronger muscle-tendon complex can help you to build muscle mass indirectly and help you to stay injury free.
The post How Plyometrics build muscle in 3 steps appeared first on Christian Bosse.
How do you structure a plyometric training program for basketball? What are the right plyometric exercises to increase your vertical for basketball?
This plyometric training program video review is the answer to a question I have received.
In this video and article, I discuss
Let’s start with a short disclaimer: I don’t know the exact context of the training, many ways lead to Rome, so I can only give my opinion and take you through my thought process.
The plyometric training is aimed to increase the vertical for a 16-year-old basketball player.
The plyometric training program looks like the following
Nine different plyometric exercises with three sets of 25, with the exception of exercise seven, which is three sets of 10 repetitions.
My first question is to think about the energy system, that is required for plyometrics to be successful, which is the ATP-CP system.
I have outlined the different energy systems and how they relate to Plyometrics and Power Training in the article 3 Steps to Develop your own Power Training Method
The ATP-CP system provides energy for a very short period of time with a high amount of energy. If you are performing 25 repetitions, you are not working in the ATP-CP system, from that standpoint, my first question would be why the number of repetitions is so high?
I would much rather advise lower repetitions and if you want to increase volume add more sets.
The plyometric training volume seems very high, a total training volume per session of 400 jumps can be considered as extremely high.
It is always difficult to determine exactly how many jumps actually should be done.
There are a few guidelines from Don Chu and Radcliffe, and they advise a total plyometric training volume between 80 – 150 jumps.
I also know that these numbers are debatable, but it gives you a good indication that these 405 jumps are actually ‘quite high’ to ‘very high’.
Let’s have a look at the information this training program does not provide.
For a plyometric training to be successful you need to consider a few things.
There is no mention of weekly progressions or monthly progressions. Any good training program needs to be progressive. Progression can come in volume or intensity.
In general, a training program starts with a low intensity and increases in volume, at a later point volume decreases and intensity increases.
Check out How much can Plyometrics increase your Vertical? where I outline the importance of a long-term plan and longer horizon of expectations for plyometrics to increase your vertical.
Training frequency
The next one is the training frequency; how many sessions are supposed to be done in a week or a month? There is no mention of the training frequency.
Check out How often should you do Plyometric Training? where I discuss the training frequency, as well as training intensity and training volume.
Rest periods are very important for plyometrics, and rest periods can be distinguished between
The rest period within the set. For example, if you look at exercise one – the depth jump and exercise no. 8 – the single leg Box jumps, there are intra-serial rest periods, because if you do a depth jumps, you are on an object, jump down with a short contact onto another object. After that, you need to get off that object, walk around and get back onto the object you are jumping off. This is the intra-serial rest period. Whilst if you look at exercise like no. 9 – Continuous squat jumps, there will be no intra-serial rest.
The rest between the sets. After the completion of set number one and the initiation of set number two, how many seconds or minutes should you rest?
Also, check out the article How many reps for Plyometrics? where I explain the relation between intra-serial rest periods and inter-serial rest periods on the number of repetition for plyometric exercises.
How long do you need to rest after you have completed three sets of 25 depth jump, when do you start with exercise number two?
Basketball is a sport that has a high jump volume, the nature of the sport entails a high number of jumps in the basketball training. These can be maximal effort jumps or sub-maximal effort jumps.
With a plyometric training program for basketball, you need to think about, that the plyometric training program needs to set an additional stimulus.
As an example, if you do 200 jumps in your basketball training for rebounding or layups or whatever you are doing, how much will these additional jumps of your plyometric training program actually do?
You need to think about these jumps, that they need to be either at a higher intensity or you perform jumps that you don’t do in your basketball practice.
Bottom-line, I can’t emphasize that enough think about the additional stimulus that the plyometric program needs to provide, that you don’t already get from your sport-specific training, in this case, the basketball training.
Check out How to Increase Your Vertical Jump for Volleyball – an Interview with Dr Jeremy Sheppard, an in-depth piece with one of the brightest minds in the world of strength & conditioning, where he discusses exactly this principle, of how to make plyometrics work for a sport that already involves a lot of jumping.
Age has to be a consideration, not only because in this example, it is about a 16-year-old male, but also training age is an important consideration for plyometric training programs.
Biological age
With 16 years of age, you are most likely at the end of the pubertal period (if you are normally developed and not an early developer or late developer). Within the pubertal period (between 12 – 16 for males) the body experiences a rapid acceleration of growth, but also rapid deceleration of growth.
That means, that the body in this period, is very susceptible to niggles and small injuries. Consequently, if there is a period during your development, where you need to be careful with training intensity and training volume, it is this period.
During puberty, you need to cut down on volume and intensity to allow the normal adaptations and normal growth process to occur.
Training age
Not only for plyometric training, but the loading also needs to be based on the development, as well as the so-called training age.
If you really want to consider high plyometric volumes like the jump volume in this program, it should be later in the athletic life, if you have a well-adapted athlete and you want to set an additional stimulus by high training volumes, through some shock micro-cycle how some periodisation models would call it. A short period of high training volume with the goal to elicit adaptation.
The rep ranges of this training program seem to be very high, which will not only utilize the ATP-CP system.
The total training volume seems to very high with 400+ jumps in one plyometric training session.
The program does not provide information on progressions, such as weekly progressions or monthly progressions.
There is no information about the training frequency, how often it needs to be done. And no details with regards to the rest periods, such as intra-serial rest, inter-serial rest or the rest between the exercises.
The post Q & A: Plyometric workout for basketball reviewed – How to Increase your Vertical for basketball appeared first on Christian Bosse.
You have heard about the benefits of Plyometric Training and are wondering how much do Plyometrics help?
What is the return you can expect from Plyometric Training?
This article and video discusses
There are different applications of Plyometric Training, most often Plyometric Training is used to increase explosiveness and power, so that you can jump higher, run faster, kick and hit harder, throw faster, whatever applies to your sport. Check out the whole list of benefits including scientific sources in the article Plyometric Training from Science For Sports.
However, there are also other applications for Plyometrics, where it can help with your strengths efforts and endurance efforts.
Another long-term adaptation of Plyometrics is that it helps to strengthen the muscle-tendon complex, which has a positive effect on your strength efforts or endurance efforts.
Why is that?
I have outlined the story of Dorian Yates tearing his tendon, and raised the idea, that a stronger muscle-tendon complex could have helped to prevent that.
How can Plyometrics help your endurance efforts?
One example is, if you think about running, a stronger muscle-tendon complex can increase running efficiency. The stronger the muscle-tendon complex, the more the muscle contracts isometrically and the elastic energy is stored in the tendon. Hence there is less energy demand on an eccentric-concentric contraction. Check out the article The Science of Plyometrics: Key Questions on Jump Training from Freelap USA that outlines the increases in running economy due to elastic contribution.
Back to the question, how much can Plyometrics help?
There are a few important considerations.
For Plyometrics to be effective, you need to engage in higher intensity plyometric exercises.
In order to do higher intensity plyometric exercises, you need to have a certain training history and experience with plyometric training. That means, it requires a training history and a structured plan of multiple years.
The long-term plyometric progressions start with lower level plyometric exercises in the beginning stages and progress through more advanced higher level plyometric exercises at later stages.
I have outlined the idea of a multiple years builds up in the video below from minute 0:50
I guess you want some quantifiable numbers, right?
Quantifiable numbers are always difficult, as the magnitude of progress is multi-factorial and difficult to generalize. So, please treat the following numbers, that I outline with care, as they are not written in stone, but can serve as a guideline.
The simplest way to look at improvements in Plyometrics is to look at a vertical jump, like the counter-movement jump.
Let’s have a look at possible improvements in a countermovement jump following a structured plyometric training over the span of 6 to 10 weeks.
Why 6 – 10 weeks?
If your goal is to improve performance, you will target improvements in neural efficiency and efficiency of the efficiency of movement, which takes a minimum of 6 weeks.
For a novice athlete, the main goal should be learning the correct execution of plyometric exercises.
Learning refers to learning how to absorb forces and efficiently use the elastic energy that is stored in the muscles and the muscle-tendon complex for the plyometric action.
An improvement for a novice athlete can be somewhere between 10 – 20% over 6 to 10 weeks. As an example, a novice athlete with a vertical jump of 30 centimeters, with an improvement of 10 – 20%, which is 3 to 6 centimeters, can result is a vertical jump of 33 to 36 centimeters after 6 to 10 weeks of training.
As an intermediate athlete, you can look at an improvement of 5 – 10% following a training for 6 to 10 weeks. A vertical jump (countermovement jump) of an intermediate of 40 centimeters can improve to 42 to 44 centimeters after following a structured plyometric training program for 6 – 10 weeks.
The better you become, the less the magnitude of progress.
A high-level athlete with a vertical jump of 55 – 60 centimeters can expect 2 – 5% improvement following a structured plyometric training plan over the span of 6 to 10 weeks.
That means if you have a vertical jump of 60 centimeters, you can expect these 60 centimeters to improve somewhere to 61 to 63 centimeters.
From these examples, you can see, that the scope of improvement you can expect of plyometric training decreases over time. That’s the Law of Diminishing Returns in action.
Check out the example of diminishing returns, which I have detailed in the article How much Strength Training do I need? how the returns diminish in the process of athletes getting stronger.
Image credit to the article http://sustainablebalance.ca/the-diminishing-returns-of-strength-training/
For more detailed information on how Plyometrics can increase your vertical jump, check out the interview with Dr. Jeremy Sheppard How to Increase Your Vertical Jump
From my experiences, I have seen, that there are areas, where you can see quicker improvements with Plyometrics. I found, that the influence of plyometric training on movement efficiency can reap quicker returns. Especially, if you look how well an athlete can move with specific footwork patterns.
In some sports, the footwork patterns of that particular sport are very plyometric in nature, such as Boxing or Tennis. There are certainly more sports, but these are sports, that I have worked with and I have seen the influence of plyometric training on improved movement efficiency first hand.
With an appropriate plyometric training program, you can see improvements in the efficiency of these footwork patterns in a shorter time span, like 10 – 21 days.
These adaptations are not structural adaptations to the system, however, you can see it teaches the athletes and their movements being more smooth and effortless.
The biggest returns of plyometric training you will get from high-intensity plyometric exercises. In order to be able to perform these high-intensity exercises, you need to have a training history of multiple years.
On the flip side, the more advanced you are, the lesser the magnitude for performance improvements.
If you use Plyometric Training to improve movement efficiency and the effective use of elastic energy you can expect quicker performance improvements.
The post How much do Plyometrics help appeared first on Christian Bosse.
How do you structure a plyometric training program for basketball? What are the right plyometric exercises to increase your vertical for basketball?
This plyometric training program video review is the answer to a question I have received.
In this video and article, I discuss
Let’s start with a short disclaimer: I don’t know the exact context of the training, many ways lead to Rome, so I can only give my opinion and take you through my thought process.
The plyometric training is aimed to increase the vertical for a 16-year-old basketball player.
The plyometric training program looks like the following
Nine different plyometric exercises with three sets of 25, with the exception of exercise seven, which is three sets of 10 repetitions.
My first question is to think about the energy system, that is required for plyometrics to be successful, which is the ATP-CP system.
I have outlined the different energy systems and how they relate to Plyometrics and Power Training in the article 3 Steps to Develop your own Power Training Method
The ATP-CP system provides energy for a very short period of time with a high amount of energy. If you are performing 25 repetitions, you are not working in the ATP-CP system, from that standpoint, my first question would be why the number of repetitions is so high?
I would much rather advise lower repetitions and if you want to increase volume add more sets.
The plyometric training volume seems very high, a total training volume per session of 400 jumps can be considered as extremely high.
It is always difficult to determine exactly how many jumps actually should be done.
There are a few guidelines from Don Chu and Radcliffe, and they advise a total plyometric training volume between 80 – 150 jumps.
I also know that these numbers are debatable, but it gives you a good indication that these 405 jumps are actually ‘quite high’ to ‘very high’.
Let’s have a look at the information this training program does not provide.
For a plyometric training to be successful you need to consider a few things.
There is no mention of weekly progressions or monthly progressions. Any good training program needs to be progressive. Progression can come in volume or intensity.
In general, a training program starts with a low intensity and increases in volume, at a later point volume decreases and intensity increases.
Check out How much can Plyometrics increase your Vertical? where I outline the importance of a long-term plan and longer horizon of expectations for plyometrics to increase your vertical.
Training frequency
The next one is the training frequency; how many sessions are supposed to be done in a week or a month? There is no mention of the training frequency.
Check out How often should you do Plyometric Training? where I discuss the training frequency, as well as training intensity and training volume.
Rest periods are very important for plyometrics, and rest periods can be distinguished between
The rest period within the set. For example, if you look at exercise one – the depth jump and exercise no. 8 – the single leg Box jumps, there are intra-serial rest periods, because if you do a depth jumps, you are on an object, jump down with a short contact onto another object. After that, you need to get off that object, walk around and get back onto the object you are jumping off. This is the intra-serial rest period. Whilst if you look at exercise like no. 9 – Continuous squat jumps, there will be no intra-serial rest.
The rest between the sets. After the completion of set number one and the initiation of set number two, how many seconds or minutes should you rest?
Also, check out the article How many reps for Plyometrics? where I explain the relation between intra-serial rest periods and inter-serial rest periods on the number of repetition for plyometric exercises.
How long do you need to rest after you have completed three sets of 25 depth jump, when do you start with exercise number two?
Basketball is a sport that has a high jump volume, the nature of the sport entails a high number of jumps in the basketball training. These can be maximal effort jumps or sub-maximal effort jumps.
With a plyometric training program for basketball, you need to think about, that the plyometric training program needs to set an additional stimulus.
As an example, if you do 200 jumps in your basketball training for rebounding or layups or whatever you are doing, how much will these additional jumps of your plyometric training program actually do?
You need to think about these jumps, that they need to be either at a higher intensity or you perform jumps that you don’t do in your basketball practice.
Bottom-line, I can’t emphasize that enough think about the additional stimulus that the plyometric program needs to provide, that you don’t already get from your sport-specific training, in this case, the basketball training.
Check out How to Increase Your Vertical Jump for Volleyball – an Interview with Dr Jeremy Sheppard, an in-depth piece with one of the brightest minds in the world of strength & conditioning, where he discusses exactly this principle, of how to make plyometrics work for a sport that already involves a lot of jumping.
Age has to be a consideration, not only because in this example, it is about a 16-year-old male, but also training age is an important consideration for plyometric training programs.
Biological age
With 16 years of age, you are most likely at the end of the pubertal period (if you are normally developed and not an early developer or late developer). Within the pubertal period (between 12 – 16 for males) the body experiences a rapid acceleration of growth, but also rapid deceleration of growth.
That means, that the body in this period, is very susceptible to niggles and small injuries. Consequently, if there is a period during your development, where you need to be careful with training intensity and training volume, it is this period.
During puberty, you need to cut down on volume and intensity to allow the normal adaptations and normal growth process to occur.
Training age
Not only for plyometric training, but the loading also needs to be based on the development, as well as the so-called training age.
If you really want to consider high plyometric volumes like the jump volume in this program, it should be later in the athletic life, if you have a well-adapted athlete and you want to set an additional stimulus by high training volumes, through some shock micro-cycle how some periodisation models would call it. A short period of high training volume with the goal to elicit adaptation.
The rep ranges of this training program seem to be very high, which will not only utilize the ATP-CP system.
The total training volume seems to very high with 400+ jumps in one plyometric training session.
The program does not provide information on progressions, such as weekly progressions or monthly progressions.
There is no information about the training frequency, how often it needs to be done. And no details with regards to the rest periods, such as intra-serial rest, inter-serial rest or the rest between the exercises.
The post Q & A: Plyometric workout for basketball reviewed – How to Increase your Vertical for basketball appeared first on Christian Bosse.
You have heard about the benefits of Plyometric Training and are wondering how much do Plyometrics help?
What is the return you can expect from Plyometric Training?
This article and video discusses
There are different applications of Plyometric Training, most often Plyometric Training is used to increase explosiveness and power, so that you can jump higher, run faster, kick and hit harder, throw faster, whatever applies to your sport. Check out the whole list of benefits including scientific sources in the article Plyometric Training from Science For Sports.
However, there are also other applications for Plyometrics, where it can help with your strengths efforts and endurance efforts.
Another long-term adaptation of Plyometrics is that it helps to strengthen the muscle-tendon complex, which has a positive effect on your strength efforts or endurance efforts.
Why is that?
I have outlined the story of Dorian Yates tearing his tendon, and raised the idea, that a stronger muscle-tendon complex could have helped to prevent that.
How can Plyometrics help your endurance efforts?
One example is, if you think about running, a stronger muscle-tendon complex can increase running efficiency. The stronger the muscle-tendon complex, the more the muscle contracts isometrically and the elastic energy is stored in the tendon. Hence there is less energy demand on an eccentric-concentric contraction. Check out the article The Science of Plyometrics: Key Questions on Jump Training from Freelap USA that outlines the increases in running economy due to elastic contribution.
Back to the question, how much can Plyometrics help?
There are a few important considerations.
For Plyometrics to be effective, you need to engage in higher intensity plyometric exercises.
In order to do higher intensity plyometric exercises, you need to have a certain training history and experience with plyometric training. That means, it requires a training history and a structured plan of multiple years.
The long-term plyometric progressions start with lower level plyometric exercises in the beginning stages and progress through more advanced higher level plyometric exercises at later stages.
I have outlined the idea of a multiple years builds up in the video below from minute 0:50
I guess you want some quantifiable numbers, right?
Quantifiable numbers are always difficult, as the magnitude of progress is multi-factorial and difficult to generalize. So, please treat the following numbers, that I outline with care, as they are not written in stone, but can serve as a guideline.
The simplest way to look at improvements in Plyometrics is to look at a vertical jump, like the counter-movement jump.
Let’s have a look at possible improvements in a countermovement jump following a structured plyometric training over the span of 6 to 10 weeks.
Why 6 – 10 weeks?
If your goal is to improve performance, you will target improvements in neural efficiency and efficiency of the efficiency of movement, which takes a minimum of 6 weeks.
For a novice athlete, the main goal should be learning the correct execution of plyometric exercises.
Learning refers to learning how to absorb forces and efficiently use the elastic energy that is stored in the muscles and the muscle-tendon complex for the plyometric action.
An improvement for a novice athlete can be somewhere between 10 – 20% over 6 to 10 weeks. As an example, a novice athlete with a vertical jump of 30 centimeters, with an improvement of 10 – 20%, which is 3 to 6 centimeters, can result is a vertical jump of 33 to 36 centimeters after 6 to 10 weeks of training.
As an intermediate athlete, you can look at an improvement of 5 – 10% following a training for 6 to 10 weeks. A vertical jump (countermovement jump) of an intermediate of 40 centimeters can improve to 42 to 44 centimeters after following a structured plyometric training program for 6 – 10 weeks.
The better you become, the less the magnitude of progress.
A high-level athlete with a vertical jump of 55 – 60 centimeters can expect 2 – 5% improvement following a structured plyometric training plan over the span of 6 to 10 weeks.
That means if you have a vertical jump of 60 centimeters, you can expect these 60 centimeters to improve somewhere to 61 to 63 centimeters.
From these examples, you can see, that the scope of improvement you can expect of plyometric training decreases over time. That’s the Law of Diminishing Returns in action.
Check out the example of diminishing returns, which I have detailed in the article How much Strength Training do I need? how the returns diminish in the process of athletes getting stronger.
Image credit to the article http://sustainablebalance.ca/the-diminishing-returns-of-strength-training/
For more detailed information on how Plyometrics can increase your vertical jump, check out the interview with Dr. Jeremy Sheppard How to Increase Your Vertical Jump
From my experiences, I have seen, that there are areas, where you can see quicker improvements with Plyometrics. I found, that the influence of plyometric training on movement efficiency can reap quicker returns. Especially, if you look how well an athlete can move with specific footwork patterns.
In some sports, the footwork patterns of that particular sport are very plyometric in nature, such as Boxing or Tennis. There are certainly more sports, but these are sports, that I have worked with and I have seen the influence of plyometric training on improved movement efficiency first hand.
With an appropriate plyometric training program, you can see improvements in the efficiency of these footwork patterns in a shorter time span, like 10 – 21 days.
These adaptations are not structural adaptations to the system, however, you can see it teaches the athletes and their movements being more smooth and effortless.
The biggest returns of plyometric training you will get from high-intensity plyometric exercises. In order to be able to perform these high-intensity exercises, you need to have a training history of multiple years.
On the flip side, the more advanced you are, the lesser the magnitude for performance improvements.
If you use Plyometric Training to improve movement efficiency and the effective use of elastic energy you can expect quicker performance improvements.
The post How much do Plyometrics help appeared first on Christian Bosse.
