Best plyos excercises for max speed

[fulkrum]

Which excersise do you recommend for developing and improve max speed ?
I’m focusing on improving starting strength (strength produced in 70-80ms) ; i feel that in plyos excercises like depth jump , jump onto box the ground time contact is to long .They works better for RDF,power . What do you think?
Rauno

[VitaminR]

plyos with a reactive component, ie depth jumps from a low enough height, rabit hops, hurdle hops, are good for assisting with max speed.

[stylee]

Could you explain rabbit hops for me? I’m new to the whole plyos thing

Also, how low is “low enough” for the depth jumps you’d suggest? Should you do a lot more reps at this height to improve max speed?

I’m sure these are all newbie sounding questions.

[dafydd]

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0001.htm

in this study, they utilise the use of plyometrics with added weights.

[Wu_Gong_Heng]

Have you heard of sprint bounding? Check elitetrack.com… they have a file about it… Basically you sprint for a few meters… then start bounding. This is really specific to sprinting because of the faster ground contact time, the range of motion pretty much the same, etc.

[lkh]

See PJ’s comment about Verkhoshanski’s work early in the Lactate Threshold thread:

@Pierrejean

My reference to Verkhoshanski’s experiences is for example an article published in Legkaya Atletika in 1974, i sum-up the experiences: 3 groups: Group1 uses “short jump” training (acyclic, short distances), G2 uses “long jump” training (cyclic, long distances), G3 uses combinaison of the short and long jumps. Here are ths results after 9 months: for 30m (accel), G1 had the greatest improvements, followed by G3 and poor result for G2. For flying 30m (max speed), G3 had the best improvements, then G2 and G1. For Flying 60m (SE), it was G2, G3 and poor results for G1. For the whole 100m, clearly the best results came for G3, followed by G2 and G1. Interesting, isn’t it?

Short jumps would be things like squat-jumps and CMJ, possibly depth jumps (all acyclic) short cyclic jumps like bounding drills and 3-5 bounds. Long jumps would be 25-50m bounds and some strength endurance drills.

I’ve had good results combining bounding drills (5-10 contacts) and 5-bounds during Phase 1 (this can be done during warmups for speed/SE sessions if total contacts are kept under about 20), and then stretchiing the bounds up to 10-20 during phase 2 (while still doing some of the acyclic short jumps for reasons of Verkhoshanski’s results), generally following CF short-long philosophy.

[Goose232]

@lkh

See PJ’s comment about Verkhoshanski’s work early in the Lactate Threshold thread:

Short jumps would be things like squat-jumps and CMJ, possibly depth jumps (all acyclic) short cyclic jumps like bounding drills and 3-5 bounds. Long jumps would be 25-50m bounds and some strength endurance drills.

I’ve had good results combining bounding drills (5-10 contacts) and 5-bounds during Phase 1 (this can be done during warmups for speed/SE sessions if total contacts are kept under about 20), and then stretchiing the bounds up to 10-20 during phase 2 (while still doing some of the acyclic short jumps for reasons of Verkhoshanski’s results), generally following CF short-long philosophy.

What do you mean by acyclic? Does that mean a puase beteewn each jump?
When you say “cyclic” do you mean continously jumping without puase between reps? (such as when somebody does bounding for example.)

[lkh]

@Goose232

What do you mean by acyclic? Does that mean a puase beteewn each jump?
When you say “cyclic” do you mean continously jumping without puase between reps? (such as when somebody does bounding for example.)

To me, acyclic jumps are those with a rest period for maximum power, such as 15-30 second rest for CMJs or squat jumps, also single SLJ or triple jumps from a standing start. Depth jumps would be in here, but I avoid them because of the injury risk.

The cyclic jumps I do are 5- and 10-bounds (increase from 15 meters to 25-30 meters to emphasize max speed more), and bounding drills.

PJ pointed out that Verkhoshanski had best results with a combination of the two approaches.

[Charlie_Francis]

@fulkrum

Which excersise do you recommend for developing and improve max speed ?
I’m focusing on improving starting strength (strength produced in 70-80ms) ; i feel that in plyos excercises like depth jump , jump onto box the ground time contact is to long .They works better for RDF,power . What do you think?
Rauno

If strenght is general to the whole organism, what is the implication in regards to the search for specific exercises?

[Charlie_Francis]

@lkh

See PJ’s comment about Verkhoshanski’s work early in the Lactate Threshold thread:

Short jumps would be things like squat-jumps and CMJ, possibly depth jumps (all acyclic) short cyclic jumps like bounding drills and 3-5 bounds. Long jumps would be 25-50m bounds and some strength endurance drills.

I’ve had good results combining bounding drills (5-10 contacts) and 5-bounds during Phase 1 (this can be done during warmups for speed/SE sessions if total contacts are kept under about 20), and then stretchiing the bounds up to 10-20 during phase 2 (while still doing some of the acyclic short jumps for reasons of Verkhoshanski’s results), generally following CF short-long philosophy.

Here is the problem with such studies. You have only the choice between three methods of the plyo approach, since, in order to have a study, all other H.I. paramenters are constant. Yet changes in the sprinting or weights might have a far greater effect, with the plyos kept constant.
Since weights and sprints compete less for CNS and physical resources, while plyos compete more directly with both, especially sprinting, great care must be taken to ensure that a high plyo content doesn’t take over and become the ONLY, and more limited, route to higher results.

[pierrejean]

I’ve used the Verkhoshanskiy’s study for the last past 3 years, but always doing the jumps after the sprint workouts (before is not an appropriate warm-up to prepare sprint) and with what would be very low volume for many. I counted as short jumps the shot throw forward or backward which is actually a jump more than a throw for the sprinters. For the sprinter who uses this approach, i’ve seen constant improvement in the distances for these exercises over years which obviously didn’t came from practice (or lack of), so i guess it mirrors something else… Out of meetings period, the guys like when i plan these as tests because they need competition and see how good they are, they have fun especially when they break PBs it gives motivation and confidence with not much risk.

I would warn you about doing the “long jumps” when you need the speed at training, because we noticed a drop during about a week. Also, alternative leg boundings is dangerous, and double foot boundings for several contacts too, because they can rip and get injured, especially when they are ready to do the first jump over 3m. Only guys coming from long training history with a typical European approach can handle it but my guess is that too high volume of this work would stand on the road of speed improvement. Please introduced safely any of these kind of plyometrics for the sprinters.

[Charlie_Francis]

@pierrejean

I’ve used the Verkhoshanskiy’s study for the last past 3 years, but always doing the jumps after the sprint workouts (before is not an appropriate warm-up to prepare sprint) and with what would be very low volume for many. I counted as short jumps the shot throw forward or backward which is actually a jump more than a throw for the sprinters. For the sprinter who uses this approach, i’ve seen constant improvement in the distances for these exercises over years which obviously didn’t came from practice (or lack of), so i guess it mirrors something else… Out of meetings period, the guys like when i plan these as tests because they need competition and see how good they are, they have fun especially when they break PBs it gives motivation and confidence with not much risk.

I would warn you about doing the “long jumps” when you need the speed at training, because we noticed a drop during about a week. Also, alternative leg boundings is dangerous, and double foot boundings for several contacts too, because they can rip and get injured, especially when they are ready to do the first jump over 3m. Only guys coming from long training history with a typical European approach can handle it but my guess is that too high volume of this work would stand on the road of speed improvement. Please introduced safely any of these kind of plyometrics for the sprinters.

By doing the plyos after the speed, you regulate the plyos to an amount that will support the speed work you have in place (of course you already know that- I’m talking for others)

[pierrejean]

And possibly even not doing plyo at all when speed workout is enough!

[Pioneer]

This may have been mentioned(if so, sorry) before but I seem to remember that Yuri V’s reccomendations were to perform short jumps(slj’s etc.)prior to sprinting and longer jumps(bounds) after sprinting.