Secret sauce ingredient in speed and agility training? Plyometrics You will learn what plyometrics are, what role they play in your speed and agility training. You will also learn and what are some of the benefits you can expect when corectly introducing plyometric drills into your speed and agility training.
Just tell what plyometrics are already!
Simply put plyometrics are a form of exercise. The purpose of these sort of exercises is the linking of strength to speed for the improvement of power.The objective is to be able to use more of your strength — faster — thus producing more power.An example of application of plyometrics in a sport that requires a lot of speed and agility is doing a vertical jump for height in basketball.
Plyometric exercises focus on just two things:
– your bodies ability to absorb and store force;- the efficient release of that force (producing a motiong that has a lot of power);
If your sport of choice involves any throwing, kicking, jumping or lifting, then plyometric training can benefit you. Some examples of sports like these are: soccer, power lifting, basketball, football, baseball etc.
Speed and Agility are Improved by Plyometric Training
The effect of plyometrics is twofold: it not only strengthens your joints, tendons and muscles, but it also trains your nervous system to react more efficiently. Speed and agility can be developed very quickly with such practices – the best gains come if you have already strengthened your muscles and tendons.
To put it another way, the quickest benefits to speed and agility that stem from the incorporation of plyometrics are due to the conditioning of the nervous system. Because of this pay special attention to these guidelines:
* only perform when rested
* perform with maximum concentration and focus for each rep
train harder not longer (no more than 20 reps REGARDLESS of exercise used)* keep the set number low (no more than 3 sets regarding the exercise)
Drill this into your head: Train HARDER, not looonger.
Good nutrition is very important for the long terms gains that come with the practice of plyometric training. This is because these long term gains are based on modifications in your body structure. Changes in muscles and tendons will occur.You should be aware that practiced over a longer period of time, the results of plyometric training will make your muscles and tendons and make them have more spring.
I’d like to know exactly how a plyometric movement works!
* first the body absorbs and stabilizes the force from a negative (eccentric) contraction
* as it does this, it loads up your muscles and tendons with force (think of it like a compressing a spring)
* the spring unloads and the body (for legs) or an object (for arms) is propelled with astounding speed
Here’s an example,when you cock back your arm to throw a rock the natural thing you do is to first cock your arm backwards. The effect of this is that the muscles of your arm and shoulder muscles lock, forcing your tendons to stretch thus storing a lot of force in those tendons and essentially turning them into loaded springs. When you throw, the stored force is released, allowing the rock to be accelerated at a rate which is higher than your normal rate of force development.
What really popularized plyometrics back in the seventies was the fact that it produced results and soviet athletes started to dominate many athletic fields. The beauty of plyometric training is that it allows you to make your muscles and tendons behave more like elastic bands or springs — storing force and then releasing it. And the fact of the matter is that before this, there was no known way to train for these aspects — leading many people to believe that such acts as a running for height jump were completely genetically driven abilities.
To summarize, plyometrics kill two birds with one stone: they teach your nervous system how to correctly perform movements at higher speeds and they condition your tendons, ligaments and muscles to aquire more spring-like characteristics allowing for greater acceleration. These benefits directly translate into gains in general speed and agility.To further support this process you should also learn about:speed,agility and protein
How do I adapt the principles of plyometric training to my sport specific speed and agility needs? You have to take the basic movement you want to improve and inflic a pattern of force absorbtion and controlled force release upon it. I know that this isn’t a totally enlightening answer, but the truth is that the answer depends on the sport in question. I have provided a link though. Click here to learn more about: Speed Exercises
In this article you have learned:
* what plyometrics are
* how plyometrics work
* the role of plyometrics as part of your speed and agility training
* the benefits you can expect when introducing plyometric drills into yours speed and agility training
I also recommend you check out this article and learn this very usefull exercise for speed and agility training and decreasing chance of injury
Tags: agility training, speed and agility, speed and agility training, speed exercises
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