Today I’m going to take you through a typical pro level plyometrics training session that I’d use with my elite athletes. This series focuses on a progression of skill by starting out with lower level modalities that eventually build in both complexity and speed. Always start off with a solid warm-up… you should actually be warm before starting any of the specifics.
Dynamic Warmup
This is where the athletes are going through various ranges of motion to increase body temperature and get ready to perform movement throughout the training session. This includes a series of movement prep drills which help the athlete absorb and produce force in our power session.
You’ll see a lot of lower limb movement focusing on how the foot and ankle make contact with the ground. This works up the chain eventually focusing on the hips so as to prepare them for the more complex movements you’ll be performing later on.
You can find a solid warm-up session to go through here.
Horizontal Power
I always like to begin a training session at the lowest level or the least neurologically demanding. Plyometrics training will usually include both some single leg work and unilateral work. I also like to have my athletes take off of a single leg broad jumps to land on two feet. This will eventually progress to an alternating bound with both legs. It’s important to be skilled in your movement through multiple planes and ranges of motion, as well as learning to produce power off just one foot. You never know what your movement will be like in a game time setting so it’s best to be prepared for just about anything.
Next we’ll work on a single leg double broad jump to connect the two. Finally we’ll get into the most complex movement of horizontal power or single leg bounds. This really teaches the athlete to work on that single leg cycling action which they use at top speed.
Check out my favorite drill for developing advanced horizontal power.
Vertical Power
After this we’ll take a quick break and then get right into a bilateral series which really focuses on vertical force. Just like with single leg work, we’ll start off with some less aggressive movements and build up to the most intense. First and foremost we’ll start off with the hurdle hop where both feet are planted, focusing on landing mechanics. From here we’ll enhance that by going into a seated jump. From seated we eliminate the stretch-shortening reflex and focus on force development to be able to produce force, get up and over the hurdle to land.
(How to increase vertical jump to dunk)
Finally there’s a progression which focuses on the stretch-reflex and stretch-shortening reflex with rebound hurdle jumps. These require you to step off the platform, have minimal ground contact time and be able to produce as much energy needed to get over the hurdle. Reducing your time on the ground is key for training yourself to have non-stop powerful steps during a game whenever necessary
Competition
At the end of our jumping session, we always reintegrate all the things we’ve been working on by just letting the guys loose to compete. We might do this by using the hurdle jump which is a max effort jump: only focus being to get over it. You’ll see that in the right setting guys will really start to compete and continue to raise the bar really elevating their performance.
Pro Level Plyometrics
Follow along with our pro level plyometrics training session here:
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