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Plyometrics are probably one of the most effective and important exercises that an athlete should be performing on a regular basis in order to see the best speed and power development and see enhanced performance on the pitch.
Incorporating plyometric exercises into your weekly training routine regularly will help you reach your athletic potential, and help you to be able to sprint faster, jump higher, and be able to accelerate and change direction quicker on the field.
However, many people don't know how to train or incorporate plyometric training into their weekly routine, and how much volume they should use when doing them.
In this blog post, you will learn about the importance of plyometric exercises on athletic performance, and you will have a better idea of how to start training with plyometrics and how much volume you should be using according to your goals.
Plyometrics and Their Effect On The Body
Plyometrics can be defined as fast and explosive exercises that utilize your body's elastic potential energy as your muscles shorten and stretch, to exert power.
When you perform a plyometric exercise, your muscles shorten and compress on the eccentric portion (think about a sprint compressing and storing potential energy) and then the potential energy stored in the muscle fibers are released as force in your concentric portion.
These plyometric exercises also incorporate your neuromuscular system, which is all of the connecting nerves in your muscles and skeletal system. Your Central Nervous System (CNS) adapts to these explosive shortening-lengthening cycles and being able to react quicker to utilizing and releasing the stored potential elastic energy in your muscles when they are shortened.
By consistently training plyometrics, your body's central nervous system will over time adapt by recruiting more muscle fibers at a faster rate, which will translate to more elastic potential energy being stored, which will allow you to release more force in the concentric portion.
Because of this increased force production in the concentric portion, you will be able to jump higher, sprint faster, and be able to accelerate and change direction more quickly since you will have developed more explosiveness and the speed at which you are able to release large amounts of power.
If you're an athlete, it is extremely important to incorporate plyometrics regularly alongside traditional strength training in order to be able to more effectively translate that strength gained in the weight room, to more sports-specific movements, such as sprinting and changing direction.
Think about it this way, If you compare a soccer player to a professional powerlifter, there will be a HUGE difference in their movement efficiency and ability to absorb and exert force quickly. Your traditional soccer player will have a better ability to control their body and be able to produce force in a quicker fashion compared to a powerlifter, despite the large difference in traditional strength through weightlifting.
This is because the soccer player has trained to be able to translate that strength gained in the weight room into a more athletic and dynamic expression through the use of plyometrics and speed training, while the powerlifter lacks this additional component.
So although a powerlifter has more strength than a soccer player, put them on the field and they won't be able to apply that strength onto the pitch because of their CNS's lack of ability to recruit their fast-twitch muscle fibers.
Plyometrics serves as the bridge between traditional strength training, and speed. Without plyometrics, you won't be able to be as fast or as explosive as you'd like because you haven't taught your body how to translate your strength to a fast, more explosive movement.
The Benefits of Plyometric Training
There are many different benefits of plyometric training to your athletic performance. By following a program that consistently works on your plyometrics, you can see developments in different aspects of your athleticism. Plyometrics improves things such as your power and force production, your strength, your agility, your vertical jump, your ability to accelerate and decelerate, and your balance and proprioception.
Improved Power and Force Production
As a result of doing plyometric training regularly, your Central Nervous System is able to recruit more muscle fibers at a faster rate, which will allow your muscle to be able to store more elastic potential energy to exert in the concentric portion of the an explosive movement. As a result of this greater amount of potential energy stored, the more force you are able to push into the ground at a faster rate, which will translate to increased performance during your jumps, sprints, and any athletic movement that requires your body to push the ground away from you.
Improved Agility
Agility can be defined as your body's ability to be able to decelerate, adjust your body, and re accelerate into a different direction when reacting to external stimulus.
Agility in sports can be as simple as reacting to an attacker's step-over and having to react to that skill move and readjusting your body to defend the attacker.
Since plyometrics train your ability to be able to effectively absorb force, and then reproduce that force through explosive movements, you'll see improvement in your ability to decelerate, and absorb that force when decelerating, then be able to adjust your direction and apply force into the ground to re-accelerate.
Additionally, plyometrics work on your CNS's reaction time, since you are reacting every single time when your foot comes into the contact with the ground. This will allow you to be quicker off the mark and be able to adjust your feet quicker and apply force when changing direction.
Improved Vertical Jump
Although your vertical jump power isn't as important in football as it is in a sport like basketball, it's still very important for you to work and train, especially if you're a defender or a striker, who's job it is to be able to jump high and win headers.
By training with plyometrics, your body will be able to exert more power into the ground by releasing more stored elastic potential energy. This energy that is released pushes against the force of gravity, and the more you train your body to produce more power, the more force you will be able to push gravity away with, which will propel you higher as a result.
Improved Proprioception
Proprioception is your body's ability to be aware of itself and it's position related to it's surroundings, and it's ability to control it's movement based on the different environment around it. This is pretty much your ability to balance, stability, and joint awareness.
As you train your central nervous system through plyometrics, you are training your body to recruit certain muscle fibers and relax others in order to be able to complete the exercise, which is an important part of your proprioception, since your body needs to be aware of the muscles it incorporates to keep itself in equilibrium.
This is especially applicable if you practice unilateral plyometrics (or single-leg exercises).
How Much Volume Should I Use For Plyometrics?
Plyometrics are a very high-intensity and a very taxing practice on your body. Thus, you need to be smart when incorporating Plyometrics into your training.
Depending on your experience with plyometrics, and what your goals are, you can program plyo's into your training routine in a variety of ways.
If you're looking to increase power, then you'd want to stick with a low number of reps (anywhere from 3-6), and focus heavily on being able to absorb and re-exert force effectively. To progress, focus on increasing the number of sets and the amount of resistance you're pushing against (slowly adding weight over time)
Generally, you'd want to stay around the same reps range in order to make sure you are solely incorporating your Neuromuscular system, and not your metabolic system. If you go for higher reps, you are no longer just focusing on improving power, since you are now recruiting your body's metabolic system (the process of burning more carbs) to be able to fuel your muscles to push back against fatigue.
If you're looking to improve your conditioning and the rate at which your body is able to produce force when under fatigue, then focus on lower load (so don't overload too much on weight and don't do extremely high-impact plyo exercises), and go for higher reps and lower rest time. By training this way, you are challenging your body's anaerobic capacity and how you're able to produce force when fighting fatigue.
Since plyometrics are heavily taxing on your body and your central nervous system, don't overdo them. At most, you should be performing explosive plyometric work 3 times a week. Here are two sample workouts for your desired goal. Perform them 2-3 times a week alongside your normal football and strength training.
Sample Plyometric Workout for Power:
Single Foot Bounds 2-4 x 8 -12 Reps ea.
Squat Jumps 4-8 Sets of 3 - 6 reps ea.
Lunge Knee Drives 4-8 Sets of 3 - 6 reps ea.
Knee Sweeps to Tuck Jump 4-8 Sets of 3 - 6 reps ea.
Bench Knee Drives 4-8 Sets of 3 - 6 reps ea.
Sample Plyometric Workout for Endurance / Conditioning:
Burpees x AMRAP x 20 Seconds
Squat Jumps x AMRAP x 20 Seconds
Alternating Lunge Jumps x AMRAP x 20 Seconds
Tuck Jumps x AMRAP x 20 Seconds
High Knee Drives x AMRAP x 20 Seconds
*AMRAP > As many reps as possible.
Repeat Circuit for 3-5 Rounds with 2 minutes to 1 Minute of Rest in Between Each Round.
Click here to check out a visual representation on the GoGrind Soccer Instagram Page.
For More examples of plyometric exercises you can try to build your speed, check out this video by 7mlc on Youtube:
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Thanks for Reading! I hope this helps
Get Up. Go GRIND.
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