Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #75: Gill1918 Project Presents Boo Schexnayder “Plyometric Training Part 2” at the Illinois Top Times Speed Lab
Transcript
- 0:00Hey Yank, pumped for this. Here we go.
- 0:02Back in August, Randy Anderson of the Illinois Top Time Speed
- 0:06Lad hosted A1 day track clinic featuring two of my favorite
- 0:10people in the entire world, Boushek Snyder and Vince
- 0:12Anderson. He was gracious enough to allow
- 0:15us to record those presentations for right here on the Gil 1918
- 0:18Project. So for the next six weeks, every
- 0:21Wednesday and Thursday Part 1 and Part 2, we're going to give
- 0:24you all those presentations from Boushek Snyder talking about
- 0:27hamstrings to Vince Anderson talking about Hurdle.
- 0:30Now, these were video in person type of presentation, so you're
- 0:33going to miss a little bit of not seeing the actual
- 0:35presentation. However, tons of value here with
- 0:38Boo and Vince every single week for six weeks in a row,
- 0:42Wednesday and Thursday, Part 1, Part 2, Vince Anderson, Booshex
- 0:45Nader, make sure you're listening, make sure you're
- 0:47sharing this. And again, shout out to coaches
- 0:49like Randy Anderson, who is providing value in coaching
- 0:52education to coaches around the country.
- 0:54Thanks again, Randy, we appreciate you.
- 0:56Enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Gill 1918
- 1:00Project, a podcast series by coaches for coaches powered by
- 1:04Gill Athletics. Think of this as the Ted Talks
- 1:06of track and field coaching. Short, insightful, and packed
- 1:09with valuable strategies to help you grow as a coach.
- 1:12We'll bring in the once a year track clinic straight to your
- 1:14ears daily. Interested in creating your own
- 1:17episode? Everyone's welcome to
- 1:18participate. Check out the show notes below
- 1:20For more information. Now let's get into today's
- 1:23topic. Our next category, Hurdle hops.
- 1:32All right, these are your basic hurdle rebounds that we normally
- 1:36do when we think of hurdle hops. This is a simpler form of hurdle
- 1:41hop, like a remedial form. Look at this, OK, it's freeze,
- 1:49bounce, bounce, bounce, big bounce, freeze, bounce, bounce,
- 1:54bounce, big bounce, freeze. And then this next one, big
- 1:57bounce, little bounce, freeze, big bounce, little bounce,
- 2:02freeze. I like those last two variations
- 2:08because they're really good to sharpen up starts, starts.
- 2:12If you think about a start, you start in a totally Sprint start,
- 2:16you start in a totally static position and then suddenly
- 2:19you're in a dynamic environment. This teaches them to kind of
- 2:21switch back and forth between static situations and dynamic
- 2:26situations more fluidly and more effectively.
- 2:29Like when I was doing like NFL combine stuff, getting those
- 2:32guys ready for NFL combine, like this is stuff that I would use
- 2:35with them to kind of sharpen up their starch right before they
- 2:38would take off for Indianapolis. So, so hurdle hops in short.
- 2:42Now let's talk a little bit about why.
- 2:45All right, every plyometric has a purpose.
- 2:48This one has a mult 2 purposes. 1 is, again, vertical force
- 2:51application. All right?
- 2:53You know, hurdle hops have that unique contact time, right?
- 2:56They're the most responsive thing that we probably do in the
- 3:00plyometric world. So if you stop and think about
- 3:02sprinting where you want your sprinters off the ground really
- 3:05quick, well, here's the plyometric exercise that really
- 3:08mimics that, that really develops that quality.
- 3:11The other nice thing about plyometrics, then hurdle Pop
- 3:15says plyometrics is that the athletes control their own
- 3:18intensity. There's what we call a governor
- 3:21effect. So if I have an athlete and I've
- 3:23got hurdles set up and they're going to do hurdle hops, if that
- 3:26athlete feels great and they're 100% healthy, they can boom each
- 3:30hurdle, right? But if they're a little tired or
- 3:32not feeling that good, they can kind of skim the hurdles.
- 3:35They control their own density. If I take an athlete and put
- 3:38them on a pile box and they fall off, they have to take that hit.
- 3:42Whereas in and hurdle hops, they have control to some extent.
- 3:47So when there's a situation where an athlete might be a
- 3:49little tired or a little fatigued, or they ran a meet on
- 3:53Saturday and I don't know if they're fully recovered just
- 3:55yet, hurdle hops are a safer option than a lot of other
- 3:58things that you could do. All right, so, so when I do
- 4:02hurdle hops, I don't do many of them.
- 4:04These are the exercises that you just saw.
- 4:07And again, the most hurdles I've ever used are 6.
- 4:09My preference in most cases is 4.
- 4:12We only do 4 hurdles and I'm normally working from again.
- 4:16I personally am normally working in the neighborhood of about 30
- 4:20contacts or so. The most you should probably
- 4:23ever do maybe is about 60. My favorite hurdle hop workout
- 4:28is 8 * 4 hurdles. Short and sweet.
- 4:33One last thing is the hurdle height.
- 4:36I'm not a big like get the hurdles up high person.
- 4:39All right. What'll happen is if the hurdles
- 4:41get too high, the app, they get apprehensive.
- 4:45And what'll happen is not only do you have the fear factor, but
- 4:48they'll also, they'll start getting so panicky that they
- 4:52won't complete the push off of the ground.
- 4:54They'll actually pick their knees up early in order to get
- 4:57their feet over the hurdle and they're not pushing off the
- 5:00ground as well as they should. And that's not a good thing.
- 5:03So what I do is I tend to keep the hurdles conservative.
- 5:06A lot of it is done over, you know, wicked style hurdles or
- 5:11things of that nature or lower hurdles.
- 5:14And if I wanted to jump higher, I just scream at him.
- 5:17No, I'm serious. Like, I would rather, like, have
- 5:19the hurdles low. And I'm there saying get up, get
- 5:22up, get up, get up as opposed to having super high hurdles and
- 5:25that nature. All right.
- 5:26Nothing good comes out of it. Yes, Sir.
- 5:28Do you find that as athletes are able to drop the higher?
- 5:37Well, yeah, of course, yeah. Do you try to train the two
- 5:46together then? No, not really.
- 5:47They come at different times of the year. 1 precedes the other.
- 5:50I'm going to get into long term programming here in just a
- 5:52second. OK, All right.
- 5:54And my last category here, Dev jumps.
- 6:01When you take an athlete and you put them on a box or an elevated
- 6:03surface and they fall, gravity has more time to act upon them.
- 6:08So when they hit the ground, there is a greater level of
- 6:11impact there. By the way, this guy's a great
- 6:15athlete and these boxes are a joke to him.
- 6:17But, but, but we'll talk about box site here in just a second.
- 6:21The first thing to take from this is look at these exercises.
- 6:24Are they complicated or are they simple?
- 6:27They're simple, right? They're simple.
- 6:29Remember, you can be fancy or you can be intense.
- 6:33You can't be both. So here, if we want to be
- 6:36intense, we have to be simple. We got to be simple in these
- 6:40regards, OK? Every plyometric has a purpose,
- 6:44and the purpose of these jumps is very simple intensity.
- 6:49When you decide to do def jumps, you're saying I've done a good
- 6:52job with my athletes, they're prepared for something more
- 6:54intense, so I'm going to give them something more intense.
- 6:57That's what these are ultimately all about, OK?
- 7:00So this is not the stuff you do with your 9th graders on the
- 7:02first day of practice, right? This is stuff that you kind of
- 7:06build into eventually over the course of time.
- 7:08OK, Right. So advanced trend development is
- 7:12what this is really all about, OK.
- 7:14As I said, you got to keep it simple.
- 7:16If it's all about intensity, then it has to be simple
- 7:19exercises. When you watch Brian do those
- 7:21jumps, he wasn't rushing, right? I wasn't hollering at him to get
- 7:25going or whatever. Like he took a little bit of
- 7:28time on top of each box and whatever.
- 7:30The only thing that's really important is that fraction of a
- 7:33second when you're on the ground.
- 7:35Everything else, it's not a big deal.
- 7:37OK. Ultimately.
- 7:38Now, one key thing about this is that the heights of the boxes
- 7:43need to be individualized. OK.
- 7:45All right. Oh, by the way, quick.
- 7:47Let me knock this out quick. At the end, you saw a single leg
- 7:52that that's the most intense form of plyometric you can
- 7:55possibly do. I just promise you that nobody
- 7:58in this room is coaching somebody who needs that.
- 8:01I'm serious. You just you just don't.
- 8:05I have some athletes that progress to the where the Plio
- 8:09boxes are like this high. And what I'll eventually do with
- 8:12them is I will drop them down to low boxes and we'll start going
- 8:16single leg just because I don't have any higher boxes.
- 8:19And but but these are people that are like 2627 years old who
- 8:23have medals in their closet. OK, all right, now box heights.
- 8:27Here's my question for you. All right, when if I take a
- 8:32pretty decent athlete and I'll have him working on 12 inch
- 8:35boxes or 18 inch boxes, that's no big deal.
- 8:38You can do that all day. It's perfectly safe.
- 8:41What height of box becomes a challenge or what height of box
- 8:46do we need to start worrying a little bit higher, a higher
- 8:52height than they can actually jump?
- 8:54That's exactly correct. Here's my point all right, let's
- 8:58assume that we'd coaching a good talented young lady and her
- 9:02vertical jump is 24 inches. If I put her on a 12 inch box
- 9:06and she bounces on and off that thing, it's no big deal to her.
- 9:09If I put her on an 18 inch box, it's not a big deal.
- 9:12But if I remember her vertical jump is 24.
- 9:16If I put her on a 30 inch box when now when she hits that
- 9:19ground, she's going to experience a level of shock that
- 9:22she could not produce herself. That's when we start to get
- 9:27careful. So ultimately, if we're looking
- 9:30at true def jumping and challenging athletes, that's the
- 9:34threshold that we kind of have to be concerned with is that
- 9:37vertical jump height, whatever their vertical jump is.
- 9:39And your athletes have different vertical jump capabilities.
- 9:43So that means if you're going to do this stuff, you have to
- 9:45individualize to some extent. OK, this, these are the
- 9:50exercises that you just saw, but more importantly, let me show
- 9:54you this. This is a series that I
- 9:57typically do when I want to use box jumps.
- 9:59It's very simple. All right, notice the first
- 10:02exercise, fall off of the box and then bounce into a standing
- 10:05long jump. Second exercise, fall off the
- 10:08box, hop over a hurdle. So we do drop to horizontal and
- 10:12we do drop to vertical. All right, the next exercise is
- 10:17we go box to box, box, the standing long jump.
- 10:20The last exercise is box to box, box to hurdle hop.
- 10:24All right, That's the series that I typically do now the
- 10:28first time I do this series with athletes, all right, what I do
- 10:32is those two boxes, the low box is a foot below their vertical
- 10:38jump ability. The high box is 6 inches below
- 10:41their vertical jump capability. And we go through this routine
- 10:45and I teach it to them, all right.
- 10:48Then after they've learned it, typically it only takes a
- 10:50practice. The next time the high box is at
- 10:54their vertical jump, the low box is 6 inches below their vertical
- 10:59jump, and then we will go to work on that.
- 11:02And then they have to do it three times well before I'll
- 11:07allow them to go to higher boxes.
- 11:09And I always incrementally increase by three inches.
- 11:12All right, They don't really make boxes in three inch
- 11:16increments. Y'all have some Mike, Y'all do
- 11:21there you go buy the Gill ones all right, but my point is, is
- 11:24that if you don't have the three inch increments, the big do they
- 11:28even make big fat phone books anymore?
- 11:31Well, that's what I use is big fat phone books right, But
- 11:34here's my point is that notice here we start with the low box,
- 11:39all right and then we go low to high.
- 11:41I always go low to high because the low kind of stimulates you
- 11:44in preparation for the high box. OK, Now, if you do the math
- 11:49here, if I do each one of these five times, there's 30 total
- 11:53contacts here, 30 total contacts, and off of the highest
- 11:58box there's 10 contacts. So that's not much.
- 12:02It's not about quantity, it's about the intensity or the
- 12:06quality of the work in that scenario.
- 12:09OK, Now I do this with everybody.
- 12:12Everybody. Nobody ever gets hurt.
- 12:14I even do it with young kids, but remember I am
- 12:18individualizing the boxes. Young kids have low vertical
- 12:22jumps, therefore I'm individualizing it to the level
- 12:25where they're at at that particular time.
- 12:27So if you ever come out to my track and we're doing this,
- 12:29you're not going to see one set of boxes.
- 12:31You're probably going to see three sets of boxes.
- 12:33And different athletes are on different levels of boxes
- 12:36depending upon what they need to do.
- 12:40We OK here? Yeah.
- 12:41So that's ultimately the key thing here is just understanding
- 12:44the need to individualize. OK All right, hell, I make ACL
- 12:48patients do this, but the lowest, the high box might be 6
- 12:52inches. Again, it's all about those
- 12:55types of decisions. OK.
- 12:57And I think I said all of this stuff already.
- 13:00OK All right, so that's it. That's all I got for
- 13:03plyometrics. The only other thing that I
- 13:05might do every once in a while with very high level athletes is
- 13:08long bounding, like bounding 2030.
- 13:12But honestly, at the high school level, I don't like it.
- 13:15I don't even do it much with collegians, to be honest with
- 13:18you. It's way tougher than you think.
- 13:20And it's an extremely complicated skill from a, from a
- 13:23coordination standpoint as well. We do that way too often with
- 13:27kids and at the high school level.
- 13:29I really don't like to do that stuff all right.
- 13:32I like to keep the short horizontal bounds.
- 13:35All right, let's talk about programming.
- 13:36All right, you got your building blocks.
- 13:38How do we organize it into a program?
- 13:40This. That'll be our next discussion
- 13:43here. OK, I break all my plyometric
- 13:46progressions into 3 phases. All right, Phase 123IN phase
- 13:51one. All right, this is like the
- 13:53first few weeks of practice, you know, could be anywhere from
- 13:57three up to six weeks or so. I do three types of plyometrics.
- 14:01I do the in place jumps, I do the short horizontal bounds and
- 14:06I do the baby bound vertical stuff, right?
- 14:08Those are the three that I do. The reason why I do these three,
- 14:12the in place jumps, they provide the volume to my program.
- 14:17The short horizontal bounds teach athletes about horizontal
- 14:20skill. The vertical bounds teach
- 14:23athletes vertical skill, the ability to push in vertical
- 14:26planes. So those are the three exercises
- 14:28that I use. I don't use them all in the same
- 14:30day. We have days that are themed, so
- 14:33if I'm doing piles 3 * a week, typically on Monday, they'll do
- 14:37short horizontal bounds. On Wednesday they may do
- 14:41vertical bounds. On Friday we do an in place jump
- 14:44circuit. If you don't do piles 3 * a week
- 14:48because you can't or because it's cold and you're on a hard
- 14:50surface inside or whatever, and you only do them twice a week, I
- 14:54do something like this. Let's assume your plyo days are
- 14:57Monday and Thursday. On Monday I'll do the short
- 15:00horizontal bounds, on Thursday I'll do the vertical stuff, then
- 15:04come next Monday I'll do the in place jump circuit.
- 15:07Then the next Thursday I'm back to short horizontal bound.
- 15:10So I just take those three types of piles and I just rotate them
- 15:14between those two sessions. OK, If my athletes start getting
- 15:19shin splints, I continue to do the same stuff anyway.
- 15:22I just do it less often. Am I being clear?
- 15:25The biggest mistake we make in cold climates when we have hard
- 15:29floors and things of that is that we give up, all right?
- 15:32When shins, plants start to hit, you don't give up.
- 15:35You space the workouts out further apart.
- 15:38That's the answer to that particular problem.
- 15:40Because then if you cut it out altogether and they come back,
- 15:43then you're worse off than you were before.
- 15:47So that's phase one is addressing these.
- 15:49And again, depending on who they are and how long they are, it's
- 15:52going to be several weeks, you know?
- 15:54But if you're dealing with real young ones, it could be a year,
- 15:57you know, and you just do this and you're perfectly fine.
- 16:00OK, Because all three of these are fairly low in intensity.
- 16:03They're all safe. Nobody's going to get hurt doing
- 16:06this stuff unless you go nuts on the volumes right now.
- 16:09The second phase, the second phase is when I start to
- 16:13introduce the DEF jumps. And again, they're
- 16:16individualized. The Bach Heights are
- 16:18individualized. I never do the DEF jumps more
- 16:20than once a week, Once a week at the most.
- 16:24They're higher intensity. Higher intensity means that they
- 16:27have to have more time in between the practices.
- 16:29OK, now the other thing I'll do is I'll continue in between
- 16:34those dev jump sessions to do the easier stuff.
- 16:37That's what I mean when I say I'll review the short and
- 16:40vertical bounds. OK, All right, so drop the
- 16:43pencils. Just follow along with me for
- 16:44just a second. So in the earliest state, let's
- 16:47assume that you're doing 2 plyo days a week.
- 16:51In the earliest stages of training, I'm rotating the short
- 16:55bounds, short horizontal bounds, the vertical bounds, and the in
- 16:58place jump. OK, eventually I'm going to
- 17:01introduce dev jumps. So maybe now I'm doing the dev
- 17:05jumps, let's say on the Thursday, the Monday, I go back
- 17:09and I review the short horizontal bounds or the
- 17:12vertical balance. So those things never really go
- 17:15away because those are your skill drivers.
- 17:17So now in phase two, I have an easy plyo day and I have an
- 17:22intense plyo day. Makes sense.
- 17:25And again, if kids are starting to get shin splints, what do I
- 17:27do? I don't quit.
- 17:29I spread them apart, right, if I can.
- 17:32If I can't do twice a week and it's once a week, that's fine.
- 17:35I'm still better off doing once a week than not doing them at
- 17:38all. OK, That's the mistake we make
- 17:40all the time is we try to back off completely or get out of it
- 17:44completely when we really need to spread those workouts further
- 17:47apart. OK, The third phase is normally
- 17:51in season and that's when I prefer to use hurdle hops in
- 17:55season. Hurdle hops are my go to because
- 17:57they're quick and also athletes can control their own
- 18:00intensities, as I said with the hurdle hops.
- 18:03And then that would be our more intense day.
- 18:05I don't do the real high intensity dev jumps in season.
- 18:08OK, Now I understand that you may have a really short
- 18:11preseason. If you do and you can't progress
- 18:13through that, that's fine. But just remember we just don't
- 18:16want to take athletes into zones they're not ready for we.
- 18:21OK, All right, so this is kind of the progression and it
- 18:26doesn't matter if you're like a jumper or a sprinter or hurdler
- 18:30or a thrower or a football player basket of whatever.
- 18:35This is kind of how I take you through plyometry phases.
- 18:38Doesn't really matter. It's not sport specific.
- 18:40It's not event specific. OK, here are some key principles
- 18:46to remember #1 avoid fall back workouts.
- 18:49This is when you get into trouble with Plios and getting
- 18:52people hurt. It's like, oh man, we haven't
- 18:54done, we haven't done the short bounds in a long time.
- 18:57We need to do them. We haven't done them in a while.
- 18:59No, you don't. You don't have to do them.
- 19:01There's nothing you have to do. All right.
- 19:03My point is, is that there are certain things in your
- 19:06plyometric program that are going to serve a purpose at a
- 19:08certain time of the year. And then when you advance beyond
- 19:12that purpose, you don't need it anymore, throw it on the shelf,
- 19:15you don't need it until next year.
- 19:17So in place jumps, for example, their purpose was to establish
- 19:20our volumes at the beginning of the year, correct?
- 19:23So once my volumes are established, I don't need them
- 19:26anymore. I won't see them again until
- 19:28next year. That's OK.
- 19:30My point is, is that some coaches will say, oh, we haven't
- 19:33done in place jumps since early season.
- 19:35We need to know you don't have to do them.
- 19:37That's my point is don't fall into that trap.
- 19:39Remember, the keyword is P, right, purposeful.
- 19:43All right, using the ply metrics for the purpose for which
- 19:45they're intended. It's not what are we going to
- 19:48do? It's about what do I have to
- 19:50accomplish? Then you decide what you're
- 19:52going to do based upon that. OK, But you have to be power
- 19:56output has to stay high, meaning that if they're explosive at the
- 20:00beginning of the workout, and this should be, then they have
- 20:02to be explosive at the end of the workout.
- 20:05So if they're not explosive at the end, you've picked something
- 20:08that was too hard or you pick something that was or you did
- 20:11too much, one of the two. So again, they have to be
- 20:14explosive at the start and the quality still has to be present
- 20:17there at the end of the session. When is the best time to do
- 20:21piles? It's when athletes are fresh,
- 20:23right? Would you agree?
- 20:25No doubt. You know, personally, me, what I
- 20:28do is I train hard for three weeks and then I take an easy
- 20:32week. All right, So this has been
- 20:35remarkable for me as far as getting training quality and
- 20:39preventing injury. So what I'll do is I pretty much
- 20:43do most of my player work early in that cycle.
- 20:46So we work, keep in mind we work hard 3 weeks and then the 4th
- 20:50week is an easy week. When are they going to be their
- 20:53freshest? In week 1, Correct, after the
- 20:56rest opportunity. So I do lots of Plios in week 1,
- 21:00not so many in Week 2, just a little bit in week three-week 4
- 21:04I don't do any. So it's, you know, normally we
- 21:07think of going up as time goes on, but Plios were better off
- 21:11going down as time goes on. So if you're teaching athletes
- 21:14to be bouncy, do Plios when they're at their bounciest, when
- 21:18they're at their freshest in that regard.
- 21:20Does that make sense? Yeah.
- 21:21And by the way, that deloading is a big deal.
- 21:24I don't care who you are or what sport you play or what event you
- 21:27are, every 4th week in my program, you're not doing any
- 21:31play OS That's that's key. Yeah.
- 21:34I don't have shin splints in my program anymore.
- 21:36I I do a lot of things to kind of manage that.
- 21:39I don't have any shin splints in my program and that's a big part
- 21:42of it. You know, in week 1, no shin
- 21:44splints. Week 2, no shin splints.
- 21:46Week 3. You might have a couple of
- 21:48athletes that are kind of starting to feel it a little
- 21:50bit, but it's not a big deal because what happens in Week 4,
- 21:53that's your deload week, you see, yeah, if you're just trying
- 21:56to go, go, go, go, like you can't conquer that.
- 21:59You're not going to take that hill.
- 22:01That's not a battle you're going to win.
- 22:03And then remember, your athletes moving well, sprinting well is
- 22:07largely dependent upon vertical and horizontal stuff.
- 22:10All right, The balance there between those two things, they
- 22:13have to have opportunities at both.
- 22:16They have to have opportunities at both.
- 22:17What you're going to find if you pay close attention is that most
- 22:21athletes are not as good at vertical stuff as horizontal
- 22:25stuff. You know, not to be
- 22:27controversial, but our hip, we pretty much have this.
- 22:30If you look at the bone structure of our hip, it's
- 22:32pretty much the same as a horse or a dog and they're running
- 22:35around on 4 legs and we're standing on 2.
- 22:37You know, we're just not that good in vertical stuff.
- 22:40So I've always found that you have to work a little harder on
- 22:43the vertical stuff than the horizontal stuff.
- 22:46But your athletes are going to move goofy.
- 22:48They're going to not. They just won't accelerate well,
- 22:51Sprint well if you don't address both of those.
- 22:54So that's why the vertical and the horizontal skill building
- 22:57become very important as well. OK, All right, questions.
- 23:01Yes, Sir. I just want to point out because
- 23:03some people think that they like to measure kids vertical jumping
- 23:13to a box. Yeah, that's a very good point.
- 23:31The vertical jump has to be a true vertical jump, not a
- 23:33fantasy 1. All right, like, but it doesn't
- 23:37have to be perfect. All right, I'll do this like
- 23:39literally hey, just jump up as high as you can and I'll just
- 23:43and and when they jump, their legs are going to be straight.
- 23:45If you don't, if there's no box or anything distracting them, I
- 23:48just look and see how high the hips, the feet get off the
- 23:50floor. It looks like your feet got up
- 23:52up by that high. There's my box, so it doesn't
- 23:55have to be perfect, but it's got to be ballpark.
- 23:57And by the way, those mats, some of them are not accurate, right?
- 24:01They're good for testing because it's always referred to the
- 24:04same. Everybody's jumping on the same
- 24:06mat. So you can compare kids and keep
- 24:08data, but a lot of times they tend to cheat for them a little
- 24:11bit. So just make sure the vertical
- 24:13jump is in the ballpark there. All right, I saw another
- 24:19question. Yes, ma'am, so you might.
- 24:21Been doing Monday Thursday like that first week on like the
- 24:26third week. When would how would you space
- 24:28out? The the third week like and you
- 24:31said like. First week, second week and then
- 24:36third week you said there's problems like.
- 24:39When would you? Oh, then maybe I'll only do
- 24:41plyometrics once that week and then I'll skip it and I'll try
- 24:44to get back on the next week, you know, So I mean, there's no
- 24:47hardcore formula for that other than I just know I need more
- 24:51time in between these sessions. You know, when I travel up here
- 24:54in cold weather climates, when coaches are having to go in
- 24:57hallways and things like that to practice, that's always an
- 24:59issue, you know, And the bottom line is you can do anything
- 25:05inside on the hard surface that you can do outside.
- 25:08And ultimately you have to train.
- 25:11The adjustment always needs to be less training frequency per
- 25:15SE. All right.
- 25:16And again, I can't give you exactly what, but spread it out.
- 25:19If it's still there, spread it out some more.
- 25:22All right, I'll tell you a true story.
- 25:23True story. Just to give you an idea of how
- 25:25things can work. All right, one time I was, well,
- 25:28I wasn't coaching her there. We had a sprinter in our program
- 25:31who was doing very poorly. She was injured all the time.
- 25:34You name an injury from the waist down and she had it all
- 25:37right. Like, you name it, she had it
- 25:39all right. At some point in time, she had
- 25:40it, OK. She was like, you know, the
- 25:42case, the doctors, whatever. Anyway, after her not being able
- 25:46to train, they just gave her to me and said, Boo, see if you can
- 25:50rehab her or whatever. So I, she was a sprinter.
- 25:53So I said, look, it was Friday. I said in my office, look,
- 25:57Monday be ready to Sprint. And she looked at me like I'm
- 25:59crazy, like I don't think I can Sprint.
- 26:01You know, well, you're a sprinter, right?
- 26:03So we're going to try. So she came out on Monday, she
- 26:06warmed up, didn't feel too bad. She was able to do like three
- 26:0940s. That's all she could do.
- 26:11After three 40s, she was trashed, hurt.
- 26:13We had to stop. She wasn't ready to Sprint again
- 26:15until like Saturday, but on Saturday we did like 3 Max
- 26:20velocity efforts around 80 meters or something like that.
- 26:23It was, it was OK. She couldn't done more than
- 26:25three if it didn't matter after three she was trashed.
- 26:28Then she wasn't ready to Sprint again until like maybe the next
- 26:31Wednesday. But she sprinted well, she did
- 26:34like maybe six 40s, you know, out of the blocks and did them
- 26:36pretty good. My point is, is that we didn't
- 26:39Sprint nearly as often as most coaches would want to.
- 26:43But you know, after doing that for about 5 or 6 weeks, she ran
- 26:46APR. So what's not important is not
- 26:49how often you train, it's how well you train.
- 26:53When you do train, people ask me, well, why do you sprinter?
- 26:56Why didn't you lift or what? Because she's a sprinter.
- 26:59If I was going to, if I was going to fail, I was going to
- 27:02fail. Doing something we have to do,
- 27:03not something that was optional, you see.
- 27:06But that's the point I'm making and hopefully I'm not making.
- 27:09But you see, what I'm getting at is that when I trained that girl
- 27:12that first day, I didn't know for sure when she was going to
- 27:15be ready. It took me a while to learn
- 27:17that. And you're just going to have to
- 27:18make that decision based upon your athletes and your program.
- 27:23There was one other hand, yes. Can they do the barefoot?
- 27:32I mean, would you recommend? That well, keep in mind, the
- 27:34barefoot stuff I was talking about was in the sand.
- 27:37All right, Now I probably wouldn't be doing a barefoot,
- 27:39you know, but do remember also that your actual Plios, they
- 27:44have to for power strength, they have to be a fairly firm
- 27:48surface. You know, I have no coaches who
- 27:50failed because they did all their Plios in the sand and
- 27:53there was never any real quick reactive type of stuff going on.
- 27:57So, so keep that in mind too. OK, Yes, Sir.
- 28:00With the sand, could you also get the same type of effect
- 28:03doing it on turf? When I do piles, the the simple
- 28:08in place jumps in the sand, that's for foot mobility.
- 28:11I really want those toes to be moving independently and the
- 28:14ankle to be moving in three planes.
- 28:16The ankle won't move in three planes very well on turf.
- 28:20All right. Better than concrete, not as
- 28:22good as sand. Yeah.
- 28:23And in the sand jump, my one rule is if the sand gets hard
- 28:26where you are, you have to move to the soft spin, soft sand.
- 28:30It's all about, remember, your athletes spend all of their time
- 28:33in padded shoes on flat surfaces.
- 28:36And that's not how we were built to operate from an evolutionary
- 28:41standpoint. You know, we want those tools
- 28:43wiggling individually. We want that ankle to kind of be
- 28:45rocking in all three planes better Nothing though.
- 28:50Yes, Sir. Not in normal situations, but
- 28:58with very high level athletes, I do a little bit of assisted and
- 29:02I also do some loaded jumps, like weighted down jumps, but I
- 29:06consider those more as part of my weight training program than
- 29:09my plyo program. OK.
- 29:11So yeah, in unique situations I do the the thing that I do with
- 29:16the loaded plyos or the weighted jumps, like kids jumping with
- 29:19dumbbells in their hands, you know, things of that nature.
- 29:22When I'm in season and I don't want to do that heavy slow squat
- 29:25stuff anymore, I'll start doing some stuff like that.
- 29:29Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
- 29:33episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
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