Jump Training: What is it, When and Who Should Use It?

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I have found myself running into parents that are interested and are requesting that their athletes get involved in some type of jump training program designed to increase their jumping capability and prepare them for the sport that they are to participate in. As a performance enhancement consultant, it has been my experience that “jump” training better known by some as plyometric training or plyos, is one of the most requested forms of training by athletes.

Majority of the readers reading this article has heard a little about jump training and some benefits of its use in training. If you haven’t you wouldn’t be reading this or it wouldn’t have sparked any interest to you to read this article.

Plyometrics is the formal word that we in my industry use to describe jump training. It originated as a training method in the secretive eastern block countries where its common name that you are familiar with originated. As the eastern block countries rose to become powerhouses in sports, plyometric training was credited for much of their success. In the 1920s, the sport of track and field was the first to employ a systematic method of using plyometric-training methods. By the 1970s this methods of power development was being used by other sports that required explosive power for successful competition.

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; however, they are a series of events put together. They have an extremely high degree of central nervous system involvement. 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 not. Let me break it down with some illustration to help you understand what was just wrote.

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. A great illustration that I use with my youth athletes is to visualize a bed box spring coil. When someone pushed down on the coil the energy is stored in the coils ready to be released. When that person, releases their hand off the box spring, it explodes and pops up. It is that stored energy in the box spring coil that produces the force that causes it to spring up the way it does. The same occurs during plyometric training.

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”. In our box spring illustration this would be equivalent to the person pushing down on the spring and the energy being stored inside the springs. The faster and greater the load, the more powerful the reflex and subsequent contraction. In our box spring illustration, the more the person pushes down on that spring, the more height the spring will pop up when it is released from under the person’s hand.

Another good example of this is watching any basketball player jump. They jump higher when they take a drop step. 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.

Going back to our doctor analogy, 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. Remember our box spring, the energy has to be stored in the coil in order to generate power for the pop. 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!

By now you should have a better understanding of what constitutes a plyometric exercise. Hopefully, they are not as mysterious as you once thought they were. You should realize that everything we do fast has some plyometric component in it. That’s how come we can do it fast! This is why you parents are looking for it to be implemented into your child’s training regiment.

So, who can participate in plyometric training? The answer is everyone! With proper supervision and progression, everyone can partake in plyometric training, from children to the senior population. If you want to see the real kings of plyometric training, go to any playground and watch children play. Some of the athletes I train have performed many exercise “stolen” from six-year olds. Does the games hopscotch or hopping on one leg ring a bell?

Since I’ve harped on proper progression, let’s define it as it pertains to plyometrics. First and most important, the proper strength base must be developed to support the increased force production that results from the stretch reflex. Remember that the reflex involved in plyometric training allows you to contract your muscles with greater force then you could through a voluntary contraction. Therefore, we must make sure that the musculature can support this increased force production. Secondly, a higher degree of balance and stability are also needed for the quick loading phase. Although a specific body part may seem exclusively involved, the percussive shocks that bring about the myotatic reflex are felt throughout the entire body – all structures must have good integrity to support this training. Third and last, simpler skills must be mastered before progressing to more difficult exercises.

Jump training has received some bad press. Inappropriate use of plyometric training has been associated with various forms of “over-use” injuries, especially in the lower extremities (e.g. patellar and Achilles tendinitis and plantar faciitis). This type of training, especially when done at a very high intensity, is a high-risk endeavor (i.e. high returns but at high risk). Like any other high-risk maneuver, high intensity plyometrics should not designed or performed without the supervision of a professional overseeing the training, and response, to the exercise protocol.

Finally, everyone should understand that like speed training, plyometric training is a continuum. We are all involved in plyometric events everyday. Regardless of the level of intensity, the key to safe participation in plyometrics is proper progression.


Charlotte, NC Performance Enhancement Consultant