Social media is flooded with elite athletes demonstrating extraordinary feats of jumping and plyometric athleticism.
Yet there is a huge difference between the type of work it takes to develop a physical quality, and what you see on social media when that physical quality is demonstrated.
In today’s blog, I am going to discuss the missing gaps we often don’t see on social media.
When I spoke with Tommy Munday, of Boxing Science, in episode 17 of the Platform to Perform podcast, he explained how he would start athletes’ plyometric journey with low level contacts (e.g. pogos, skipping rope).
In contrast, I have previously stated I would start the journey with landing mechanics.
So should you start by teaching kids to land first? Or should you be coaching your youth athletes into developing their rhythm with low-level foot contacts first?
I would argue the answer actually lies somewhere in the middle.
For example, I’ve coached many children who have never been exposed to the rhythm and coordination required to use a skipping rope, as well as youth athletes who demonstrate impressive rhythm, yet have all the stability of a bambi on ice when it comes to landing tasks.
At the Child to Champion 2019 conference, Howard Green demonstrated the concept of developing rhythm perfectly by having the strength and conditioning coaches in attendance skip to a metronome.
Besides considering the development of rhythm into your child’s plyometric program, since the forces incurred during landing are inherently more stressful than the jump itself, the missing gap and often overlooked aspect of any plyometric program should be landings.
With this in mind, I believe children should be exposed to landing challenges that involve:
Landing on one leg and two legs
Landing in all directions (side to side landings, up and down landings, rotational landings)
Landing with and without cognitive fatigue (for example, landing after heading a ball)
Landing from progressively greater heights (snapdowns from tip toes to altitude landings from higher box heights)
Landing onto different surfaces (gym mats, grass, an athletics track etc)
In a 2015 paper, balance after kicking, and landing after heading were 2 of the 3 most likely mechanisms of devastating ACL injuries in professional football (Waldén et al 2015). Besides teaching kids how to land efficiently it makes sense to do this on both legs, from various heights and with some added perturbations courtesy of a partner for good measure.
Once athletes have developed rhythm and landing proficiency, then we can focus on developing more explosive qualities which will be discussed to parts 2 and 3 of this plyometric blog series
Key Take Homes:
Landings are the missing gap in most plyometric programs
Expose children to various landing challenges (a variety of directions, using different surfaces, on both legs, with and without perturbations, and eventually with some element of cognitive fatigue)
Developing rhythm will make more advanced plyometric variations inherently easier…a skipping rope and a metronome may be one of the simplest ways to develop this
References and Resources:
Waldén, M., Krosshaug, T., Bjørneboe, J., Andersen, T.E., Faul, O. and Hägglund, M., 2015. Three distinct mechanisms predominate in non-contact anterior cruciate ligament injuries in male professional football players: a systematic video analysis of 39 cases. Br J Sports Med, 49(22), pp.1452-1460.
Building Boxers in Lockdown – Tommy Munday