Plyometrics: Why we use them at Rise

Do you ever wonder why the Rise coaches program box jumps, depth drops, squat jumps, medball tosses, or any other seemingly odd explosive exercise into your workouts? Well, the answer is that all of these exercises can be classified as plyometric exercises. 

Plyometrics are exercises that focus on fast, explosive movements performed with the goal of improving an individual’s strength and agility. Plyometric exercises can be broken down into three different phases: the stretch, pause, and shortening phases. This is also known as the stretch-shortening cycle. 

The stretch phase occurs when your muscle is stretched under tension, causing it to stretch and lengthen. This allows it to store energy for you to use in subsequent muscle contractions. An example of this is the quick squat you perform when you prepare to do a squat jump. 

Next, there is a brief pause before your muscle shortens or contracts back to its original state, signifying the pause phase. 

Then, during the shortening phase, or when you are pushing off the ground to perform the squat jump, your muscle uses the energy stored during the stretch phase, which allows you to perform the squat jump quickly and explosively.

Doing plyometric exercises allows us to train your muscles to store more energy during the stretch phase and reduce the pause time, therefore being able to more quickly progress into the shortening phase of the stretch-shortening cycle.

Reducing the time between stretching and contracting results in increased power, which is your ability to move your body explosively in a short period of time. By training power, we can improve our speed, balance, strength, and help reduce the chance of injury. This is because plyometric exercises improve our joint stability, the strength of our tendons, and our body’s overall ability to handle force. 

These factors are all especially important as we get older. Plyometrics can help our body fight against some of the natural aging factors that happen over time. 

For example, if your muscles can react quickly to stimuli, that will benefit your reaction time. Plyometrics will train your muscles to move quickly and explosively, which can be helpful if you do something like trip while walking up the stairs and need to react quickly in order to catch yourself before falling. 

Finally, as a bonus, plyometrics typically involve less reps and time compared to other exercises (especially those performed during the endurance phase). This allows us to put full effort and intensity into every repetition so we get the most out of each exercise. 

If you’d like to learn more about the different movements and phases we focus on at Rise and the “why” behind each of them, we’d love to sit down with you. 

Get started with Rise today by signing up for a Free Fitness Consultation with one of our coaches. We can’t wait to meet you!