What are TRUE Plyometrics?

What are TRUE Plyometrics?

If you are an athlete looking to make your potential excel to the top of your game, you need to ‘Strength Train’… Period. So many sports have precursor lifts in the gym, meaning that a maximal 1RM back squat is related to a sprinters speed and a 30* Bench Press is related to a Shot Putter’s throw.
So many young athletes are excelling at their sport, but could be so much more productive with their training and development if they applied correctly structured training. Most young athletes never reach their full potential due to the fact they leave their strength training and remedial gym work till it is to late.
When you look at professional development, 90% of athletes are discovered by the time they are 17 years old, or earlier. So why not make their peak advantage before it is to late. Developing freakish levels of strength is going to take your performance to the next level. Not only does developing structural strength decrease the chance of injbury but will improve your overall speed capability and power output, making you more explosive and faster.

Strength & Conditioning training is not Body Building

Remember that correct Strength & Conditioning training is not Body Building. They are at two completely different spectrums of gym work.
A simple way to explain it is that Body Building is a form of training where you stimulate as much muscle growth as possible by hypertrophying the muscles to give volume and shape. Functional Strength Training on the other hand is to stimulate muscle growth that will dictate a performance goal. It is not for an aesthetic purpose and tries to stimulate as much possible strength, but develop high amounts of strength to weight ratio.
A great way to improve strength and speed performance is plyometrics training,
Recently I completed my Lv 4 Poliquin Strength and Conditioning Coach certification in Rhode Island in the United States. With over 40 hours of travel time there and back, including flying and transfers, the information I attained is invaluable in developing true athletes to reach their genetic potential.

Hot Topics

As we discussed advanced training techniques to develop vast levels of strength and speed, plyometrics was a hot topic.
The topics covered were:

• History of Plyometrics
• Physiology of Plyometics
• Goals of Plyometrics
• Warm Up’s and Appropriate Progressions
• Integrating Plyometrcis into Annual Training Plans

 
“Plyometrcis may involve jumping, But not all jumping is plyometrics”  Dr Michael Yessis.
We need to understand what plyometrics really are and what are the correct parameters for training.

What Plyometrics Really Is?

Firstly, what you might now about plyometrcis is incorrect. You see people jumping onto a box from the ground, stepping down and then repeating over a number of times. This is not true plyometrics.

• True Plyometrcis must not last longer than 10 seconds per set.
• You must not have longer than a 0.5s contact with the ground between jumps.
• You must jump as high as possible every jump.
• You should not hear your feet touch the ground.

 
Secondly, you need to understand the purpose of plyometrics.
Purpose of plyometrics:

1. To be able to transfer weight room strength into usable power and speed for sport.
2. To utilize the stretch shorting cycle in training to apply a greater speed in change of direction as rapidly as possible.

 
Without correct plyometrcic training, you will not be able to transfer that strength from the weight room into a display of rapid speed development.

Taking it deeper…

True plyometrics must involve a involuntary contraction. A Shock HIT or impact method are true plyometrics . Plyometrics are not pure muscular movement but rather a stressor to the CNS (Central nervous System). This means that Plyometrics need to be done fresh at the start of the workout, as it is a CNS response to the training stimulus rather than a neuro muscular out put.
Repeating box jump after box jump is not the way to train true plyometrics. After about the 6th or 7th  jump the training stimulus switches to a nero muscular contraction not a CNS adaption.
An example of a plyometric for the lower body could be a Depth Jump. This is where the trainee jumps from a specific height to have contact with the ground for less than 0.5 sec, to reload and jump again to maximal height.
An upper body example could be something like a clapping push up. As I mentioned previously, a less than 0.5 sec contact, and no more than 5 reps. Rather than increasing reps you would enable a trainee to try and get more clearance with less reps.

In summary…

So the phases of a plyometric program should entail 3 things

1. Eccentric Landing – i.e a deceleration.
2. Ammortization – a switch between an eccentric and concentric action i.e deloading then loading again.
3. And a concentric take off, accelerating with as much force as possible.

 
If you don’t apply these three phases, then your plyometric training could be offering diminished returns or is simply not plyometric training. In either case, the effort you are putting in is not leading you to progress towards your training goal of improving acceleration, change of direction speed and vertical jump height.
Warming up before your plyometric workouts is a must and you need to do a specific warm up for the Achilles tendon. If the Achilles tendon is not ready for work then your performance will be extremely diminished. The reason of this is because the Achilles tendon is involved with the involuntary and voluntary contraction and is what perceives the load. You need a specific dynamic warm up so the tendon knows the concept of frequency and then tendency of range.
Remember that plyometrics places a lot of demand on joints and areas of impact. Completing an all year round plyometric phase would be unbeneficial and also lead to a high chance of developing injury’s . The individual trainees strength level and structural balance must be a priority.