"Plyometrics" What are they? and will they give me BUNNIES?

All my life I’ve wanted to jump higher. I grew up competing as a gymnast, with my favourite skills being flips on the floor. I competed in Little Athletics, specialising in High Jump. My gymnastics lead me to Springboard Diving…more jumping! In my late teens, my love for basketball and more specifically dunking blossomed. As a lifelong Melbourne supporter, I loved the high-flying antics of the Wiz, Liam Jurrah and Jeremy Howe. Jumping has always excited me, so naturally I always wanted to know how to do it at a high level.

Some people are under the impression that what they’re born with is what they have. Luckily for the vertically challenged among us, that’s not the case. I came across the term “plyometrics” when I was in high school doing some research on how to add centimeters to my leap. So, what are “plyometrics”?

In simple terms, Plyometric exercises are explosive in nature. They are designed for individuals to express force as quickly as possible, thus engaging the elastic properties of the muscle/tendon unit. They were first implemented by a Soviet Union Athletics coach in the mid 70’s. He proposed that they could be used to bridge the gap between the weight room and the athletics track.

Plyometric exercises include things like countermovement jumps, drop jumps, long jumps, skipping, hopping and bounding. But they can be used for upper body power as well.

There is a continuum of difficulty, that generally increases as you increase the repetitions, the continuity of the movement, the height and the direction, and you should have a Strength and Conditioning Trainer supervise your progression along this continuum to progress efficiently while avoiding injury.

Your Strength and Conditioning Trainer understands the technique of the three phases of a plyometric exercise: The eccentric or stretching phase, the concentric or shortening phase and the amortisation or coupling phase.

Let’s break down an example of a plyometric exercise, like a drop jump.

It involves an athlete dropping from a height and trying to jump off the ground as quickly as they can, after making contact. The shock an athlete experiences from making contact with the ground quickly forces the muscles to stretch (the eccentric phase) and then rapidly shorten (concentric phase) to propel them back into the air. The time it takes to transition from the stretch to the shorten phase is called the amortisation (coupling) phase. The quicker and more forceful this coupling phase occurs, the greater the potential energy an athlete can produce during the concentric phase of the exercise, thus the higher they will propel themselves. It has been suggested that a coupling phase lasting longer then 25 milliseconds see’s reductions in energy output during plyometric exercises. So if we can train athletes to produce their force quickly, they will maintain more elastic energy and express their movements in a more athletic manner.

Without getting too in depth on the mechanisms behind plyometric exercises, it is abundantly clear that using them in training can help to improve power output. Not just in jumping but in any form of explosive movement. Studies have shown that plyometrics alone are not the key to athletics performance though. Only when done in conjunction with heavier weights training, do athletes realise the true benefit of plyometric training.

In a six-week study; it was found that when compared to baseline measures,

subjects who focused on squatting only improved their vertical jump by 3.3cm on average.

Subjects who focused on plyometrics improved their vertical jump height by 3.81cm on average.

Subjects who completed a mixture of both heavy squatting and plyometrics improved their vertical jump height by 10.67cm on average. That is an improvement of at least 180% more than the next best option (BUNNIES).

So, where do I sign up? Well, some practitioners recommend being able to squat 1.5 times your own body weight before starting plyometric exercises, due to the large forces put through body in doing them. Whilst that is a great baseline of strength to work from, we at C3 suggest starting with learning to control your power before creating it. That means working on landings!

Check out our Instagram (c3_fitness_melbourne) for some examples of landing progressions to build up to plyometrics.

Once you can control your limbs during various landings, we up the intensity to single jumps.

From there we add in jumps in different planes of motion and then we add in some height. If an athlete can consistently control all of these variations then we add in more continuous jumps and single leg variations like bounding. So, if you want to get started on these at home, work on your landings first! In the meantime, work on improving your squat strength and single leg control, to start your journey to master plyometrics. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to message us on our Instagram or email (curtis@c3fitness.com.au) to download your FREE

curtis@c3fitness.com.au Track My Progress: “Plyometrics: Strength and Conditioning Program CHART

References

Adams, K., O'Shea, J.P., O'Shea, K.L. and Climstein, M., 1992. The effect of six weeks of squat, plyometric and squat-plyometric training on power production. Journal of applied sport science research, 6(1), pp.36-41.

Chu, D.A. and Meyer, G.C., 2013. Plyometrics. Human kinetics.