"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."
i wanted to know the examples of short jumps you did with them, or was it just over head medball throws and forward throws?
Jumps into sand pit (single, triple, double, seldomely 5).
Multi bounds
Hurdles Hops (space ? heights ?)
Straight leg series (on stairs, on box)
Throws (medicine ball or shot)
I’m coaching 3 sprinters who were 100m national Champs of their respective countries and give them have very different work for plyo : one only does throws and jumps on mat, one does all the exercises except multi bounds and only once in a while the jumps into sand pit , the last one does all of them except jumps on mat.
Injury history, current health and training period guides my choices.
Jump into mat is a jump landing into a high jump mat (squat jump, counter movement jump, with or without hops or walking run-up, various mat height, from 1m to chest height, holding medicine ball or not, etc).
Example of injury : One of the guys broke a heel bone some years ago, and now anytime he jumps he feels pains in that area. He can only do throws and jumps on mat.
We never used more than 100 contacts, which is for mutli bounds, only done during GPP. We use moslty 10 to 50.
This has to be balanced with the other apsects of training, the guy who doesn’t do much plyo is the only one to do Olympic lifts. The one who does the least plyo is the fastest of the group.
Abdominal/adductor issues in the past haven’t helped either.
PJ, just out of curiosity and in a fantasy world, would you expect some more/different plyos helping a(ny) specific part of His race? That’s a genuine question. Thanks!
Without his long injury list, this athlete would have been able to do more plyo and especially less afraid to do them.
At his age there’s no way we can change his caracter and for the few years (months?) left in his career, the best is to use the safe way which will be enough to reach, hopefully, our goal for this season.
Plyo would assist start, accel and top speed development, but his body and mind is saying “no, please!”. The current plyo menu he has is enough to keep him out of the medical room, and is however less responible in his slight improvement in his action from starting blocks than the correction of butt-kick like step pattern he had earlier this year.
As you saw, i ask him to do movements in medicine ball exercises as well as in the gym look faster and more explosive than the other 2 guys, but also does it in less volume per workout than them. He really is a strange fish, coming from middle distance running with little tolerance to high intensity sprints regarding CNS ressources.
Plyo then serves mainly as a prolongation of the limited sprint work, in order to reach a decent volume of high intensity work, this us maintain moslty for the while year, while for OF, during SPP, it sometimes serves as an alternative for sprint workouts when he has to keep away from it for 1 or 2 workout.
I think that’s a good analysis of his situation and hopefully the best possible strategy has been followed, bearing in mind his (excessive sometimes) self-protecting mechanism. It’s a fine balance though and so far he seems to be doing well (keeping out of trouble, etc) given his training circumstances. I certainly wouldn’t push him into anything new/different, when it comes to plyos, as it has always been a small portion of his training plans. I fully agree on the “strange fish” comment, too!
On another note, three posts from the end you say: “We never used more than 100 contacts, which is for mutli bounds, only done during GPP.” Were the 100 contacts or the multi bounds used during GPP? If the latter is true, examples of such multi bounds, please? Thanks!
R, O, and ???