Everyone knows the benefits of jump training (shock training or plyometrics). Jumping, bounding, hopping, sprinting, skipping and so on, have serious carryover to your and your athlete’s abilities to recruit motor units / muscle fibers and improve their explosive power (starting strength, explosive strength and reactive strength). Basically jump training will improve your ability to express power quickly, this is called rate of force development (or RFD).
I also like to say as an athlete improves their RFD, they become more neurologically efficient at recruiting motor units.
Strength training, exercises that develop explosive (high RFD) power and SPP (sport skill development) will develop more complete athletes.
How Are Jumps Incorporated into the Workout
- In Isolation – prior to the workout or during an additional training session
- Complex training - logically paired strength training / plyometric means, ie. squats followed by squat jumps
Jump Considerations
- perform early in the training session (or during an additional training session prior to the strength training session)
- monitor (daily, weekly, microcycle) volume and quit set when form and speed diminish
- land softly, try not to make a sound
- absorb landing with hips back and force distributed across hips, glutes and hamstrings
- work toward minimal ground contact time
- full recovery between sets or efforts (3-5 min)
Options for Jump Training in a Commercial Gym
- jumping over bench
- starting in full squat then jumping over bench
- depth jumping from dropping from bench to ground and exploding upward, vertically
- depth jumping from dropping from bench to ground and exploding upward, horizontally (ie. broad jump)
- jump rope variations
- alternating split jumps
- bodyweight squat jumps
- burpees
- seated bench jumps vertically
- seated bench jumps horizontally
- lateral hops over dumbbell
- barbell squat jumps
In this video you’ll see some jump training we did before our last lower body day. We show three different jump variations; seated box jump, depth jump and running jump. Each have their respective benefits and similarities.
Running Jumps
Seated Box Jumps
Jump Training for Power
