What place do plyometrics have in gymnastics conditioning?

[Raizen]

Coach has some interesting posts on upper body plyometric exercises, like that cool wheel pushup, but I was wondering how often gymnasts perform lower body based plyometrics. Ido explained that gymnasts get high into the air by means of rebounding, as opposed to having extreme vertical leaps, so I figure they must do some lower body plyo, as plyometrics are essentially about reactive(quick rebound) strength.

[Edward Smith]

well coach has posted on crossfit before about his pistol training and someone posted it here (I'm about to go leave for a trip so I can't be bothered finding it plus slow internet). I'm not sure how often gymnasts would perform lower body plyometrics.

coach's progressions go roughly like this:

- get proficient at freestanding pistols

- jump out of them (try to explode from the bottom not top)

- jump for length

- jump for height onto a box or something

- jump for both height and distance/length (not a 100% sure this was in there)

- start over with weights

like coach says if you have raw strength doesn't mean your gonna be able to jump high or rebound and if you only do plyometrics your gonna limit yourself so do both.

I asked about plyometrical exercises in another post (yet again not enough time to look for it, probably got some title just like plyometrical exercises in basic strength I think, look at my membership and go to view all posts it'll be a while back) and someone gave me a good website.

hope this helps,

Ed

and coach I've wanted to know about this for sometime, Ido said gymnasts are good at rebounding not vertical but with your progressions for pistols I thought your kids would have pretty good verts?

also I'll be gone for a week hopefully I'll have lots of good posts to come back to

[Blairbob]

Many coach implement depth jumps as well as jumping from box to ground to box in a series.

[Guest Valentin]

Raizen you are right... gymnastics leg training does involve a lot of plyometrics and it should also have a good strengthening component as well due to the high forces gymnast experience in take-off and landing of skills (on floor and other apparatus).

Plyometrics like you said is all about neural activation (which can be trained with moderate to good gains), muscle fiber type (which can't be trained, there is limited evidence to suggest that there is muscle type conversion with any means of training, as far as i know, and i would like to think that i am pretty up to date on this, but if not please let me know), and also absolute strength (as this establishes potential for greater relative strength gains).

The vertical jump, is a reallllly good test/measure for power (leg power). The higher your vertical the more likely you will be explosive and high rebounder, but its not the only factor. Arkaev quotes that the Russian gymnasts from around the 80'- to late 90's (maybe even 20's, as he doesn't specific when this data was collected to)...for men it was 60-65 cm (from spot with arm swing), for women 52-56cm (from spot with arm swing). However in gymnastics a vertical jump is not really trained, as its not really specific to most skill. Its applicable to standing skills, like standing arabian, standing back tucks, standing fronts, Onidis, standing fulls etc.. Thus is makes sense that the gymnasts would not have the greatest verticals. Tumbling is a purely plyometric action (which involves horizontal and vertical forces), a vertical jump is also a plyometric action but unlike tumbling its ideally done on the spot with as close to 0 horizontal momentum as possible.

A really good test between strength and power is the difference between a squat jump and a vertical jump. For squat jump, squat down till you are either at 90deg knee bend (torso as upright as possible) or as close as you can get, and hold this for about 5sec then jump up as high as you can (and like a vertical jump test (know as a counter-movement jump), reach as high as you can and make a mark on wall or something with some chalk). Then rest about 3min or so, and do a vertical jump test from the same spot using an arm swing, and mark your height. If your squat jump is higher then your vertical (counter-movement jump), then you lack plyometric training, if your vertical is higher then you lack strength training. If they are even then cool, you strength and power ratios are even (in the legs for that movement anyways)

Rebounding is a a combination of power, and muscle activation timings, in order to make the most of the stretch-shorten cycle. These are all trainable properties, but there are also individual caps which are very hard if not impossible to surpass. Hence why not everyone can do a triple back ( even though i am sure there quite a few doing them in practice, but due to risk of injury/catasrophy, sticking it, and fear they choose not to compete it). I think you will find that the best standing verticals probably go to either NBA basketball players, Olympics high jumpers, or Professional balette dancers (those dudes have HUGE!!!! jumps)

[Guest Ido Portal]

Actualy, highest verticals in sports belong to olympic lifters, hammer throwers and only afterwards sprinters. Hammer throwers and OLifters are also very fast for short distances. (upto 30 meters)

[Guest Valentin]

Ido Portal good call on the Olympic weightlifter shame on me for leaving them of the list, they do indeed have big verticals, however i don't quite see the the correlation between Hammer Throw and the Vertical jump.

Do you have a source for your info RE weightlifters having best Vertical norms out of any sport? I ask not cause i don't believe you, but cause i would like to know who has what. Certainly from a training point of view they definitely do most powerfull, on the spot, training, which does suggest that their vertical are massive.