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What Can Plyometrics Do For Your Speed And Agility Training


The purpose of this article is to function as an introduction into the relation between speed and agility training and a practice known as Plyometric training. 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.

Let’s define plyometrics
Plyometrics are simply a type of exercises whose purpose it is to link strength with speed of movement in order to create a lot of power.The theory goes like this: if you use the same strength, faster, the power will improve. If you use more strength, faster, the power will be geometrically higher.Let me give an example: in basketball plyometric training is used to increase the running vertical jump.
Plyometric execises are simple in purpose, they are meant to:
– harnessing your bodies ability to absorb and store force;- releasing that force quickly (resulting in spetacular power output);

The sports that can derive the most benefit from plyometrics are those that involve either throwing, kicking, jumping and lifting. Ex: football, basketball, soccer, power lifting, dick throwing etc.

Speed and Agility are Improved by Plyometric Training
Plyometric training makes your body better able to absorb force (by building up your muscles and joints) and it also allows you to control and use that force (by conditioning your nervous system). These side effects allow speed and agility to be quickly improved — especially if you already have well developed musculature.

The conditioning of the nervous system is the reason plyometric training produces very quick results. Due to this it is very important that you pay close attention to following instructions (this will proove to YOU that this type of training produces resulsts and you are more likely to follow it and experience the long term gains as well):
never train unless properly rested
you must train with intensity and presence
* keep the rep number low (no more than 20 regardless of the exercise used)do not perform more than 3 sets per training session (no matter the difficulty of the particular exercise)

Drill this into your head: Train HARDER, not looonger.

Long term gains with plyometric training will result more from changes in body composition — a focus on good nutrition and avoidance of injury is very important to the results you see with plyometrics. 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.
Nuts and Bolts of a Plyometric Movement:

* 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)
* your body releases this energy in the opposite direction

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 and agility training and strength
The question is: how do I adapt the principles of plyometric training to my speed and agility training? The answer is, and you aren’t going to like it, by tailoring your plyometric training to the specific speed and agility requirements of the sport that you are practicing. This is a long discussion and goes way beyond the scope of this article. Learn more here Speed and Agility Training

This article has discussed:

* 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

You should also check out this awesome exercise for speed and agility training .

  • What Can Plyometrics Do For Your Speed And Agility Training
  • What Can Plyometrics Do For Your Speed And Agility Training
  • What Can Plyometrics Do For Your Speed And Agility Training
  • What Can Plyometrics Do For Your Speed And Agility Training

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