You may have heard of plyometrics…but you might be confused or unaware of their actual purpose.
In today’s blog you will learn:
What plyometrics are
How to use them
The importance of plyometrics for children and youth athletes
Plyometrics are any activities that include an element of rebound, or what strength and conditioning coaches refer to as ‘ground contact time.’
Athletes who produce more force, in less time, with these rebound type exercises tend to sprint faster, jump higher, and punch harder than their opponents.
Perhaps more importantly for a child, however, learning to hop, skip and jump, and stringing this together with an element of rhythm (aka rebounding) improves a child’s understanding of where their body is in time and space.
Building competency in these tasks develops a base level of coordination and confidence in children, opening the door up for them to be able to engage and enjoy sports such as basketball, netball and volleyball.
Strength Training & Plyometrics
Whilst strength training improves how much force an athlete can produce, plyometric training can help athletes produce this force more quickly.
This is important because a large number of actions in sport occur within fractions of a second, and plyometric exercises give athlete’s the opportunity to express force at more sport-specific speeds.
Whilst phrases like ‘you need to train fast to be fast’ sound like they make intuitive sense, the reality is no one cares how quickly an athlete produces force if they don’t produce very much of it.
We need athletes who produce lots of force (strength training), and we need to produce that force quickly (plyometrics)
Think of a boxer with lightning fast hand speed whose rapid punches do little to discourage an aggressive opponent…this is because although they produce force quickly, there is not that much of it in their punches
If you want to learn more about how to program plyometric exercises for boxing check out episode 17 of the Platform to Perform Podcast with Tommy Munday
But what about endurance sports that don’t necessarily rely as heavily on explosive efforts?
Well not only have plyometric exercises been shown to improve athlete’s ability to produce more force in less time, a key determinant of success in elite sprinting (Morin et al 2015), but sufficient exposure to appropriate plyometric exercises has also shown to improve efficiency in well-trained distance runners (Turner et al 2003), and performance of block starts in adolescent swimmers (Bishop et al 2009).
Plyometrics for the Youth Athlete-Where do We Start?
With young athletes we need to develop their braking ability (i.e. learning how to land well) and enhance their sense of rhythm and timing, before we worry about getting children to jump higher and faster.
This is a topic I covered in more detail in my missing gaps in plyometric program post
“Plyometric training is no different to driving a car, learn to steer it at low speeds and make sure you know how to use the brakes, before you worry about seeing how fast you can go”
As well as focusing on landing mechanics, which probably deserves a blog in its own right, we can give children and youth athletes a really solid foundation to plyometrics by developing:
the co-ordination involved in a hip hinge pattern, which forms part of our take-off position
stability and strength in single leg tasks to help absorb force on one leg
strengthening their squat pattern to help prepare for more advanced landings and rebounding exercises to come
Once kids have developed co-ordination in the above tasks, landing exercises such as snapdowns, altitude landings and perturbed landings are much easier to teach, along with the rhythmic action required for skipping with a rope or completing low-level reactivity exercises such as mini hurdle hops.
In part 2 of this plyometric post, I will be discussing
The difference between plyometrics and jumping…and why this is important
How to classify plyometric intensity
How to program plyometric training for the youth athlete
References
Bishop, D. C., Smith, R. J., Smith, M. F., & Rigby, H. E. (2009). Effect of plyometric training on swimming block start performance in adolescents. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 23(7), 2137-2143.
Morin, J. B., Slawinski, J., Dorel, S., Couturier, A., Samozino, P., Brughelli, M., & Rabita, G. (2015). Acceleration capability in elite sprinters and ground impulse: Push more, brake less?. Journal of biomechanics, 48(12), 3149-3154.
Turner, A. M., Owings, M., & Schwane, J. A. (2003). Improvement in running economy after 6 weeks of plyometric training. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 17(1), 60-67.
Todd Davidson is a UKSCA accredited strength and conditioning coach and qualified P.E Teacher who has gained experience with scholastic athletes Olympic athletes and everyone in between. Todd's passion for improving the physical literacy of the next generation, and athleticism within adults, comes from his belief that strength and conditioning should not be a service that is solely reserved for the sporting elite. If you would like discuss anything in the content presented, or have any questions relating to your own performance goals, please get in touch.