One of the most frequently asked questions from coaches is about getting started with plyometrics. And my first response is to pose a question back regarding the group or individuals they work with…developmental, well-trained, return from layoff or injury? Traditionally, you would expect that events and team sports that have jumping as a core skill would be using plyos regularly, but that isn’t always the case. In recent years, the value of plyos has risen as a variety of sports and gym fit groups have discovered that the elastic strength benefits from a couple of sessions per week has real value in terms of performance and injury reduction.
One of the issues with introducing plyos into a training schedule is that there are few good models to utilise when looking at popular media. And there is a lot of misconception and misinformation regarding how plyos look and are defined…jumping up onto a stack of boxes is not a plyo, for example. Those of us who grew up with plyos even carry some of the misunderstandings forwards. One of the biggest issues is a case of too much, too soon. My first plyo session was brutal in hindsight…several hundred landings, much of it explosive and/or low hip postures…walk down the stairs backwards due to muscle soreness kind of overloads. When I do a workshop, I can still be a bit guilty of higher overloads because I want to offer a variety of options as examples within a limited time.
So, how do starter sessions look, and how many landings at what intensity are we looking at? First, ignore almost all the plyo examples you see on social media because they show performance levels that require several seasons of background to be useful. Then, scale back the intensity by using higher hip postures and easier rhythms. Try keeping the total number of landings to less than 100 per session – the 800+ landings stuff is for another season and level of performance. And remember that muscles adapt quickly, connective tissues like tendons more slowly, and plyos are mostly about entraining tendons to be better elastics.
At the beginning, the focus is on rhythm, precision, stability, and landing management. One of the reasons plyos are so good for sports skills is that time on the ground is shortened. The two phases of ground contact are Load and Unload – absorb and takeoff need to be competent in how they use the forces of gravity and leg actions. By increasing that effectiveness and reducing any extra pauses or imbalance wobbles, a better takeoff that uses less energy is produced. To get there, the plyos allow the athlete to establish a landing that is less variable and more consistent. The sensation of rhythmical plyo landing are what our bodies remember, not physical cues.
Take a look at one of the
Poly2Plyos exercises from the programme
Beginning Plyometrics 1 (#50) in
The Plyo Zone category: it is a
Rhythm Leap that doesn’t emphasise height or distance as it bounces along for 10-12 reps. Over time, athletes will find that there is no need to ‘try’ for height or distance; it evolves as the factors that are draining energy away from the load-unload dynamic are reduced to a minimal level. At a brain level, there is no conscious thinking about how to bounce – there is a new pattern formed that can be used repetitively and expanded to a hundred other variations without much energy waste or tension. All from an easy feeling, bouncy leap. Sure, many of us can do this anyway, perhaps from childhood, but to be consistent for 10, 12, 30 reps, there needs to be a pattern set up that feeds performance and protects the movers and stability supports.
That’s a better way to begin…
