Double leg hops and jumps are always the safer option vs bounding
Deep knee bend jumps up- (box jump up, box jump up and off, stair jumps, jumps up a hill) transfer more effectively to acceleration due to the kinematic motion about the knee being similar and associated longer ground contact times
The range for my skill players for these jumps ranges from 10-50 per session depending on the training block
Slight knee bend jumps (hurdles and depth rebounds from .5-.75m drop) are more reactive/elastic and thereby transfer more effectively to max V/upright sprinting; again, due to the kinematic motion about the knee being similar along with the associated shorter ground contact times
The range my skill players stay in for these is similar to the acceleration phase jumps regarding hurdle hops and for depth variants the absolute maximum they will perform is in the 20-30 rep range per session
In all cases the repetitions per set ranges from 3-6 on average with full recoveries between in order to remain alactic
As you see the jump variants are complimentary to a S-L program in which the jumps up are placed earlier in the training year with the more reactive variants coming later
Always, always, always, remain conservative in jump volumes and work from that point. Speed work comes first. Find the lowest effective volume of non-essential training elements and consider it a success when you improve the primary objective- speed.
While they enjoy the occasional challenge of seeing who can jump up onto the highest box, from a training standpoint, I have them jump onto the highest box they can while landing no lower than a parallel squat position and under full control (softest landing possible).
Thus, the box height differs from one athlete to the next.
The highest box used in training is usually 48" with the lowest being in the 30-36" range.
I should note, however, that I rarely, if ever, have my skill guys perform a single box jump up. Instead, I prefer multiple response so we typically jump up stairs or up hill; and now that I have landing mats again we will use the boxes for jumps up and off into the mat.
The correlation to the biodynamic structure of skill positional maneuvers is minimal as the structure of the singular box jump is primarily explosive and minimally reactive/elastic.
While the singular efforts may be performed with more reactive/elastic emphasis by speeding up and shortening the amplitude of the countermovement they are more appropriate for down linemen as their positional biodynamic structure begins static then ballistic void of countermovment. Thus the box jump up may be adjusted to begin without countermovement and it then more closely matches the structure of downlinemen exploding out of their stance.
So Buddy has his guys use the box jump up as part of their standard exercise pool while my guys are regular with multiple response in order to remain close to the reactive/elastic element.
So, while we don’t do this because we have stairs, hills, hurdles, if I were to use a single box for reactive/elastic work we would perform multiple response sets on the same box by jumping up onto it then immediately rebound off it down to the start position and repeat for the desired reps; focusing on short contact times both on the box and on the floor.
whats the need to even do box jumps? They are quite dangerous if you ever want to challenge yourself. Single and double leg speed and power hops are better don’t you think?
I love box jumps, but I’m afraid to do them since that year in college when I had the accident of not making it all the way up, which left me with two identical oval marks on my shins, that even Charlie once spotted and couldn’t believe the stupidity of the trainers for their thoughtlessness in prescribing such height, after such session we had done. In group settings, it’s dangerous, and hard to know how tired each athlete is at that point.
(the pain of hitting the shins was so intense to the point of vomiting) - so be careful… :rolleyes:
are plyos one of those things that that the better one is at jumping, the harder they are on the system?
like in sprinting a 14s 100m guy could probably run speed like 5 days a week and be fine, but a 10 sec sprinter has to be much more careful.
in stefanie’s post it has advanced athletes doing a higher workload than beginners, but im assuming someone with a 40" vertical counts as adavanced, and each jump has to be much more tolling if its 40’ high as opposed to a beginner jumping like 20". does recovery need to be longer and volume less for better jumpers?
It makes sense to think that the quality/stress of the jumps of an advanced jumper will be higher per unit of work. Hence, the same or more volume vs. an intermediate jumper may cause him more harm than good. Charlie used to say that NBA players (should) do no jump work during the season, because they jump all the time in 1-2 games per week -and they jump good! No need for more of the same… Similarly, for a sprinter you should save quality for the track work and use supplementary elements as needed.
so in other words, if one is already a good jumper, its not really worth concentrating too much on plyos because doing high intensity plyos would interfere with the sprinting
The greater the athlete’s output levels, regarding CNS intensive activities, the more stressful those forms of training become for the organism to endure.
Thus, the higher the level the speed-power athlete, the less volume (breadth) of CNS intensive work they necessitate due to the ever increasing height of their outputs; and the greater the need for highly strategic planning and recovery/regenerative efforts.
I see it like this… Like how it took Ben Johnson 5 years to do a session of 30x60s (6x5x60s, if i’m not mistaken, but something like that). We all know sprinting is like a plyometric, and Ben definitely was putting in more intensity AND volume by the 5th year.
I know the above is considered special/speed endurance, but perhaps this brings up the question of plyos being used as strength endurance, in the similar sense of Charlie’s 120m running A skips in the 400m template.
If I turned all this into one big mess, feel free to attack :o
