What you should know before starting plyometrics

  One of the more overlooked aspects of fitness are plyometrics. Plyometrics refers to an exercise that is conducted with maximal amount of force in the minimal amount of time. As you can imagine plyo's are designed to improve production of force and power. During a true plyometric (more on that later) the body goes through a quick powerful stretch (eccentric movement) followed by a powerful concentric movement that uses elastic energy. This process is called the Stretch Shorting Cycle or SSC for short 

    Think of a rubber band with those paper hornets (do people do those anymore?) When you stretched out the rubber band you created elastic energy and upon releasing you generated enough force to propel the hornet. The bigger the stretch the bigger the release of energy. Pulling back a bow and arrow is the same process.

    I mentioned true plyometrics in the opening paragraph. Upper body and lower body plyometrics incorporate a true stretch of the muscle (using the SSC). Abdominal plyo's don't incorporate a full stretch of the muscle. Something to think about before incorporating plyo's into your training. 

    Since plyo's are max effort and such a high impact on the body it really depends on your training history. Lower body plyo's are counted in foot contacts-either one foot or both feet. 80–100-foot contacts are your beginner (6 months or less of training) 100–120-foot contacts for intermediate (6 months to a year) and 120–140-foot contacts for advanced (year plus experience) lifters. 120-foot contacts seem like a lot but consider a rep and set range of 5x5 (five sets of five repetitions). That would be 10-foot contacts per set times five (rep range) which would be fifty total foot contacts. That's halfway to 100-foot contacts. For plyo's less volume tends to be more considering the stress on the body. The best way to incorporate progression is to increase the intensity not necessarily increase volume. 

    In terms of rest cycles, we want to stay in the 1:5-1:10 range or for every one jump we rest five seconds with two to three min between sets. As you can see incorporating plyo's into a workout can be time consuming. However, plyo's are the best way to increase power production. In several studies it has been shown that vertical jump production can increase in as little as four weeks.