Thursday January 28th 2010

WOD:
Power Clean 3-3-3-3-3-3

Fundamental: Power Clean

Challenge: Box Jumps (Max Height)

Play: L.O.B. Burpee Long Jumps followed by 20 Frog Hops – rest 30sec. (3 rounds)

PALEO BRUNCH 1-30-10 at 10am – POST TO COMMENTS IF YOU ARE COMING

Hawk and Jason both working their way up on some back squats on Tuesday. Lot’s of you at OC are hitting PR’s right now, what are you doing that is helping you hit those high numbers?

Read a part of this article below about Plyometrics… For the full article click HERE

Plyometrics comes from the Greek word “pleythyein” (i.e. to augment or increase).  However, the actual word plyometrics was first coined in 1975 by American track coach, Fred Wilt.   Based from the Latin root words “plio” (i.e. more) and “metric” (i.e. to measure).

Plyometrics can best be described as “explosive-reactive” power training.  This type of training involves powerful muscular contractions in response to a rapid stretching of the involved musculature.  These powerful contractions are not a pure muscular event; they have an extremely high degree of central nervous system involvement.  The event is a neuromuscular event!  It is a combination of an involuntary reflex (i.e. a neural event), which is then followed by a fast muscular contraction (i.e. voluntary muscular event).  Sound complicated?  Well, it’s really not.  We all have seen it, experienced it and continue to use this type of “reactive” movement pattern to develop power.  We all do it everyday.

For example, every person that has been to a physician has experienced a plyometric event.  When the doctor tapped under your kneecap, causing your leg to jerk, what do you think he/she was checking?  The tapped caused a sudden stretch of the tendon that connects to all of the quadriceps (i.e. the muscle involved in extending the knee).  Small receptors within the quadriceps create a stretch reflex, which makes the quadriceps responded by contracting explosively.  The stretch reflex that caused the leg to extend is called the “myotatic reflex” and is the basis of plyometric physiology.  The most common human movement, running, is completely a plyometric event.  Other common plyometric events include throwing, swinging a golf club/bat, jumping and skipping!

This stretching of the muscles, prior to the explosive contraction that follows, is often called “loading”.  The faster and greater the load, the more powerful the reflex and subsequent contraction. A good example of this is watching any basketball player jump.  They jump higher when they can take a few steps before the jump.  The reason for this is that the few steps create momentum.  This momentum is used to create a bigger and faster “load” on the leg plant prior to jumping.  The response to this greater load is a greater contraction by the legs and a higher jump height.  The same phenomenon exists with all explosive actions.

Many times people confuse some forms of power training for plyometrics.  Plyometric training is only one form of power training.   A true plyometric exercise must contain a very fast loading phase.  That is, for the stretch reflex (i.e. myotatic reflex) to invoke a powerful contraction, it must occur extremely fast.  If the doctor pushed on the tendon below the kneecap, instead of quickly tapping it, would the knee involuntarily jerk up?  Of course not, no matter how fast the doctor pushed on that tendon.   Therefore, a jump (i.e. from an athletic position) onto a 24-inch box is a power exercise, but not a plyometric exercise.  To make it a plyometric exercise one can jump off a 6-12-inch box, hit the ground and immediately jump onto the 24-inch box.  The landing from smaller box loads the legs quick enough to create the stretch reflex needed in plyometric training.   This is very demanding – don’t try it without consulting a professional!