Plyometrics for martial arts

I would appreciate some info on this one,

Besides clap pushups for upper body and max-speed sprints for legs, what other plyometric exercises are excellent for training? Is there a need for jump exercises such as depth box jumps, etc?

And second question: If I did max resistance weight training one day with isometric stretching (which took 2 hours), can mentioned plyometric exercises be done next day, after technical workout, and right before endurance training (say 30 min. run)? Or should they be done on max strength day?

Thx again




Edit typos

 

There are soo many plyometric exercises that we do and never realised are actually plyo. Take a fast push up for instance, if you drop to a knee push-up and come up really explosively on the concentric, you're doing plyo as opposed to slow and less (?) dynmamic movement, really making it a whole different excerise. The same goes with abs and the same again virtually anything. Isos can also be a plyometric but a plyo is not always isometric. Plyo in definition is just explosive movement ( and aerial type movements as a stage 2 on that) . If you bare that in mind, I'm sure you'll come up with a whole range of new excerises you can do.
I'm looking at bringing in some plyos myself both in my hiit workout of a morning and then 3-4 x weekly with weights of an afternoon ( as in strapped knee ups ( and lateral for another variation ) , variations on kicks ( but you've just got to be careful to take the bulk of it in your larger groups as opposed to small joints) , dynamic squats on a nautilous piece, tris and so on. Loving the idea of ankle strapped plyo kicks as well, and I saw a great piece of fly cable equipment recently that I think is going to have me covered. THe "total gym" is another great piece of equipment and if you can get hold of one these ( co-incidently alsdo plugged by Chuck Norris), you should get a great workout for practically your entire body. Being big on core strength for my ma game, I also love ab machines and danoz direct does one called the ab-doer, in the US aswell by John Abdoe. The reason I like this, is because practically everything you do on it is plyo and if you get creative you can clock up some awesome muscular endurance at just about any conceivable angle or for any muscle group. There is a limit to the resistance though, although plyo is not so much about the actual resistance as what you do while in your most resisted state/length, and how you come back on your concentric. I see it as use the weight to lengthen / then open , put another stretch on the relevant tendon and come back in strong. So working more tendon as opposed to the muscle groups, although they benift differently becase of the fibres you focus on in plyometric exercise as opposed to lifting straight weights, which I'd do aswell, but just less often.
There's also alot of bwe you can do plyometrically and ( even burpees and jump squats and goodmornings or royal court can qualify ) again, your creativity the limit. If you can do it conventionally, there'll be an explosive variation you work for the same.

In plyos, you often change your rom on weighted exercises and different stress is used at different points as opposed to the weights where the stress and distribtion is more consistant throughout the whole range , so in working these for speed and explosivity, it 's really a different training game. I wouldn't do a full workout of both on the same day, but on alternate days, for sure.

Hope it helps a little.

Cheers and let s all know what you come up with.

Blooming Lotus

 

Depending on your art, I think bounding exercises would be great (I do TKD, so power in jumping/kicking is extremely important). If I had access to boxes for plyometrics I would definitely use them.

Your other question, sorry I can't answer, but I know who can. Check out Thomas Kurtz' website at Stadion Press.

 

I heard you're supposed to be pretty strong before you can attempt plyometrics, since they are so high-intensity that it's easy to get injured. Something like that. I belive I read Kurz saying that you shouldn't even start MA before you can squat 1.5 your body weight and things like that.

PL

 

That's rubbish. If that was the case, there would be many martial artists, GOOD ones at that, who wouldn't be around today..

I have heard however that you should be able to squat 2x your own bodyweight before attempting plyometrics.

 

Another thing- you shouldn't over-use them. The results are no better if you do them all year than if you did them in 3-4 week blocks spread over the year.

 

And another thing - try using the forum search feature - there have been several discussions that address this question.

 

Just what I was gonna say.

Noooooooooo. Nearly all machines = LAME. Exceptions for me include low cable row, the reverse hyper and the assisted dip/pull up machine if you are nowhere near full reps on either movement with bodyweight. An olympic set with bumpers is probably much cheaper than one of these total gym machines. In fact, I just had a quick look and you could get an amazing gym for the price of one of those things! Christ, I never knew they were that expensive. You could get a heavy olympic set, power rack with dip attachments, bench and all kinds of other good accessories like farmers walk implements, trap bar etc. This would be 50 times better than getting one of those total gyms.

Sorry for taking it off the subject, but those things are annoyingly overpriced

 

I agree with Adam, free weights are a far better option than a total gym.

On the subject of plyos be VERY careful. 1 more rep than you can handle can do damage.
Also with isometrics we wary, they can raise your blood presure

 

supposedly plyometric training (as in the whole jumping off boxes thing, not the theory behind it) does more harm than good. The massive stress forced on ur joints is supposed to overwhelm any positive effects gained from plyo.

 

I do plyometrics and I can't even squat 1 x my body weight.

 

Stop it then!

 

Not true. Anyway if it does damaged to your joints all you have to do is isometrics which will just repair that

 

I think not. Squatting strength and jumping strength are two different things.

 

Yup, but we recommend you be able to squat over your bodyweight before starting a plyometrics program. This isn't because you'll be physically incapable of doing it. Practically everybody can do plyometrics. They tend to injure themselves when performing a high volume of repetitve, explosive movements though.

 

Hi, this is my website - Deleted, the website contains inappropriate content. You have been warned about this before.

I am an xtreme martial artist and plyometric is a big part of my training regime, there is a beefy section I've devoted to plyometric and anyone wishing to get involved in xma.

Yours in martial arts,

Kid

 

Thx for replys,
and i don't believe you have to do 2x or 1.5x bodyweight squats b4 u can do isos - maybe thats yours exuse not to do it.

Anyhow, i ordered Kurz's Explosive Strenght and jumping book, hopefully that will resolve some doubts.
Any1 else read the book?

 

You say no and then go ahead and plug another machine??? Well okay then. I do think you have to be careful when using machines of anykind and particularly when in comes to plyos. The way you execute your exercise is going to make a big difference to both saftey and effectiveness, but for abs and getting deeper into that lower diaphragm for exapmle, I've NEVER in 20 or so yrs of training had a denser and more flexible core nor healthy spine. Each to their own and I respect you're a mod here, so I guess that's my $0.02 worth said.

Cheers.

Blooming Lotus

Oh and btw, on the weight you're meant to be able to lift before plyos, I've also heard it was only bwX1, but again, you're got to start somewhere and there's so many ways to skin a duck, you're right. No excuse not to start really.

 

That's cool. If you've seen results, then that's great. I wouldn't go down that road, because I could no way justify the price of those things, when I could get my dream gym and a bunch of other stuff! I feel you would have seen better results with that, especially if you had guidance from places like www.westside-barbell.com and www.t-nation.com
These places happen to be experts on powerlifting and functional strength to name but 2 areas, and they have a zillion and one great articles that might come as some surprise to you.

 

Ran this by another master trainer associate recently........... or two or several, but what we came up with was that weighted plometrics are sound, and more so when you do a really strong and slow eccentric and only make the concentric ( second part) of your movement the explosive part. Negative training is nothing new, and I guess this is just another way to exploit those principals.

Cheers for the links , getting around to it the moment I get a chance .


Blooming Lotus