Plyometrics

davyjose

I thought i'd put start a new thread asking about this. Anyone know of any good plyometric exercises that I can incorporate into my routine. t-ha mentioned they're a good way of working fast twitch muscles (as I work-out alone, >100% 1 RM exercises are probably not a good idea).

yomchi

Hi Davy,

What sport are you involved in? There are a few good sprinting web sites that have clips of actual plyometric exercises. I think this is one, i'm not sure if the link will work as its been a while since I looked it up: www.biggerfasterstronger.com

Plyometrics is listed on the left hand side nav bar as far as i can rememeber.

For martial arts, the exercises I like to use are the squat jump, clap push ups and bunny hop leaps etc

davyjose

TBH I don't really play sport - a bit of 5-a-side soccer now and again is all. But my sport is going to the gym. I figured it might be an added way of staying in shape though.
Cheers for that.

yomchi

davyjose wrote:

TBH I don't really play sport - a bit of 5-a-side soccer now and again is all. But my sport is going to the gym. I figured it might be an added way of staying in shape though.
Cheers for that.

I wouldn't consider it just to stay in shape, thats just my opinion tho!
It really is sports specific, for example sprinters and Rugby players might use it for them explosive movements. Martial artists use it for faster kicking and jumping. You need a good degree of fitness also to start using Plyo techniques.
If you're interested in building strength while lifting, then maybe consider Olympic style lifts?

thirtyfoot

I'd second the caution about doing plyometrics. When overdone or done too early can cause injuries. A good starting point for being able to do plyos is being at least able to squat 1.5 times your body weight.

t-ha

davyjose wrote:

t-ha mentioned they're a good way of working fast twitch muscles

Just to clarify, they do engage fast-twitch fibres but very briefly - they function as part of a muscle-tendon unit, preventing your heel from smashing into the ground when you drop from a small height, for example, and thus creating alot of elastic energy in the achilles tendon. This type of training though, only leads to size gains when you first use it if you are not used to it & gains are limited. You basically don't get big with plyometrics. You simply don't have the volume of work/time-under-tension to make big size gains (nor should you, this type of training is hard on your body & connective tissues in particular and you don't want to do more than a few plyometric exercises maybe once a week, and even then only do it for a few weeks as a time after building a decent starting strength base.)

Hanley

For an exercise to be "plyometric" it's got to have a pre-loading effect. Most of what people consider to be plyo's, aren't in fact plyos at all. Jumping up and down repeatedly is NOT plyometric.

Depth jumps ARE plyometric.

I wouldn't go near any for of intense true plyo stuff for any more than 2 weeks at a time.

I've never gone balls to the wall doing plyo stuff, but even just doing a few casual depth jumps I could feel how fast it could beat me up.

I'd look into trying tthe olympic lifts and their variations. They're a much safer (in that you probably won't fudge yourself up as quickly) alternative to plyos.

Leon11

just one thing regarding plyometrics, if your new at doing them allow plenty of recovery time, ie about 12 days they really eat you up. If your well conditioned ie ail j1 rugby player, athletics etc give yourself 7-10 starting off and at least 5 days when you get use to them.

From my experience they're primarily used during pre season