Speed And Agility Training And Plyometrics

This article will teach you what the benefits of plyometric training is as far as improving your speed and agility goes. I'm going to talk about: plyometrics -- exactly what it is and what it is supposed to do, the general benefits you can get from it and finally, ways in which this sort of training can be used for the purposes of speed and agility.

Just tell what plyometrics are already!
Originally popularized in the Soviet Union and adopted worldwide to its spectacular training effects plyometric training has the purpose of linking speed of movement with strength resulting in greater power.To put it simply: plyometric training increases your power output by training your body to use more strength with higher speed.In basketball for example plyometrics are used to increase an athletes running vertical jump.
To achieve results plyometric focuses on:
- your bodies ability to absorb and store force;- the efficient release of that force (producing a motiong that has a lot of power);

The sports that can derive the most benefit from plyometrics are those that involve either throwing, kicking, jumping and lifting. Ex: football, basketball, soccer, power lifting, dick throwing etc.

Purpose of plyometrics as part of a speed and agility training program
The first thing that plyometric training does is strengthen your muscles and tendons. The second thing is that it improves your nervous control over your body. These aspects directly influence speed and agility allowing you to make very quick gains -- such gains are even more powerfull in the case of athletes or other people who already have well conditioned muscle and tendons.

The conditioning of the nervous system is the reason plyometric training produces very quick results. Because of this pay special attention to these guidelines:
never train unless properly rested
concentrate on what you are doing -- perform each rep with the same dilligence
train harder not longer (no more than 20 reps REGARDLESS of exercise used)always remember to keep the set number under 3 (no more than 3 reps of a given exercise per training session)

Drill this into your head: Train HARDER, not looonger.

Gains in the long term will rely on body composition — this is why a focus on nutrition and avoidance of injury are critical with regards to plyometrics. Changes in muscles and tendons will occur.Plyometrics change your body in the sense that they make your muscles and tendons take on elastic properties.
Plyometric movement works like this:

* first the body absorbs and stabilizes the force from a negative (eccentric) contraction
* as it does this, it  loads up your muscles and tendons with force (think of it like a compressing a spring)
* the spring unloads and the body (for legs) or an object (for arms) is propelled with astounding speed

Here’s an example,when you cock back your arm to throw a rock the natural thing you do is to first cock your arm backwards.  The effect of this is that the muscles of your arm and shoulder muscles lock, forcing your tendons to stretch thus storing a lot of force in those tendons and essentially turning them into loaded springs. When you throw, the stored force is released, allowing the rock to be accelerated at a rate which is higher than your normal rate of force development.

The reason plyometric training was so big when it came out in the 70 ’s is that it allowed athletes to specifically train their muscles and tendons to be more spring-like. You naturally use plyometric movements but before plyometric training came out there was no clear cut way to train for this. That is why it was thought for so long that jumping for height for example was an innate ability.
To summarize, plyometrics kill two birds with one stone: they teach your nervous system how to correctly perform movements at higher speeds and they condition your tendons, ligaments and muscles to aquire more spring-like characteristics allowing for greater acceleration. These benefits directly translate into gains in general speed and agility.To further support this process you should also learn about:speed and agility training and protein
How do I adapt the principles of plyometric training to my sport specific speed and agility needs? You have to take the basic movement you want to improve and inflic a pattern of force absorbtion and controlled force release upon it. I know that this isn't a totally enlightening answer, but the truth is that the answer depends on the sport in question. I have provided a link though. Click here to learn more about: Speed and Agility Training

To summarize this article:

* what plyometrics are
* how plyometrics work
* the role of plyometrics as part of your speed and agility training
* the benefits you can expect when introducing plyometric drills into yours speed and agility training

I also recommend you check out this article and learn this very usefull exercise for speed and agility training and preventing injuries.