Plyometrics

How do we categorise plyometrics? What benefits are we looking for when programming them? How do we fit plyometrics into weekly training? How much is too much? We try to answer those questions in this week's episode.

Transcript

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 0:00

back to Sprint Lab. So today's episode is going to be focused around, uh, programming plyometrics, um, effectively. Uh, we'll try to cover it in season and out of season as well. Um, different training cycles, different, um, levels of appropriateness. That's the general theme. Plyos today.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 0:19

yeah, this has sort of come up because you had another question again about someone, which is a very, very valid, very valid question in my opinion, um, is how am I supposed to fit in plyos when I'm sprinting so much during training and how are you supposed to sort of program this without Overdoing anything and I think that's a very good point to sort of get our teeth into so

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 0:44

Yeah.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 0:44

Yeah, I mean you are the coach if you wanted to how would you

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 0:49

Um,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 0:52

sort of go about

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 0:53

yeah. Um, no, it's, it's like, it's a complex one. Like, it depends how much you're sprinting. So I'd say the average person, um, definitely in the UK, I'm not sure about abroad, but they're probably sprinting three times a week. Um, Now, if you're doing that, say Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, um, then you've got Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday off. Now, the question is like, where do you, where do you put it in? Uh, most appropriately, if you're, if you're programming plyometrics, like where would you put it in outside of that? Um, I don't like putting it in outside of that really outside of that frame of time, like it's,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 1:36

outside of when you're running you mean

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 1:38

Yeah, plies are a difficult one. Like you only really know you've done too much when you hit a wall, like you either stop improving or you ever train or you get injured or something like that. So they're very delicate. Um, it's a very delicate training modality to, to program. Now, before we get too far into it, I want to define what like a plyometric movement

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 1:58

Oh, good point.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 2:00

I mean, if you type it, type it into Google, you see that all sorts of jumps, different hops, bounds, steps, whatever, um, being done. But in general, they are ballistic movements with ground contact times of less than 0. 25 of a second. Um, that's usually what people go with as a definition. Um,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 2:20

I think,

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 2:21

not sure if you've seen any that

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 2:22

I think I've always sort of learned it as you're taking advantage of the stretch shortening cycle. So you've got to have a count of the movement first. So like a box jump does not necessarily, or like a, like, yeah, a box jump doesn't necessarily apply a metric. That's an explosive. movement, but a plyo is if you're like, you've got a lower end phase associated with it, um, as well. So because you get stronger contracted with that eccentric portion. So that's all I'd add, um, on plyos.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 2:55

Yeah. Yeah. So a jump can be a plyo, but a jump is not always a plyo. Plyos are kind of a separate category. Yeah. So because the ground ground contacts are so short, um, and usually you're trying to express. Um, a significant degree of force within that window of time. Um, structurally, they're quite demanding on the body. So, um, that they're trying to use the muscle and tendons kind of elastic properties to absorb eccentrically and then return force, um, into the ground. Because there's an eccentric portion to those, to those movements structurally, they can cause a bit of damage. Um, And that's fine. We look for causing damage with training to then adapt to it later on. But the question then comes is, well, when am I going to recover from that? So, um, I usually start by sort of taking stock of where people experience plyometrics within their sort of regular training anyway. And a really, really obvious one that loads of people miss loads of people don't take into account is sprinting itself, right? So every single sprint, if you're contacting the ground for longer than 0. 25 of a second. Like you're going to look very weird. So, you know, that's like, you wouldn't be a sprinting. Um, Sprinting is plyometric extremely. So, so if you're sprinting two to three times a week, that's already two to three plyometric sessions that you're doing now, a lot of the time, um, people don't need to add another one on top, um, for, for various reasons, but the biggest one being over training, um, or hitting that threshold of over training quite quickly. Many, many people that haven't got a steep, uh, deep, sorry, training history, um, will not have the capacity to do more than that. Especially if they're doing like a fair amount in those individual sessions. Um, like, do you, how do you structure your way? Do you do an extra plyometric session on top of your running or

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 4:56

Yeah, so I basically, I don't have a separate day for them. Um, yeah, that's, I just sort of program them into warmups. Um, so I sort of use my warmup as, uh, exposure to players such as Pogos. Um. If it's a, if it's like a, a nice day and you can get on the grass, like every now and again, I'll do like more extensive pliers, like bounds and stuff, but to be honest with, well, we'll get into like how our seasons went at some point, but like being injured and stuff, I've sort of not hidden from them, but I've not been able to build them up as, Much as I'd like, um, which is probably about that the wrong way, but yeah, um, looking back in hindsight, uh, what about you?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 5:44

yeah. Yeah. Let's split them into those two branches then. So, so you kind of touched on it there. There's intensive and extensive plyometrics, um, that you can perform. So an example of an extensive plyometric would be, you know, they're characterized by, you can program a lot of them, like many, many contacts, but they are lower. Force output. Plyos, um, and then intensive plyometrics are still, you know, short ground contacts, but they are maximal force output movements. So you're trying to, you know, jump the furthest or jump the highest that you possibly can, um, in the window of time that you've got now that sort of feeds into my answer to this question. I tend to do like you a fair amount of extensive plyometrics in like warmups and things like that. You, you tend to accumulate those contacts through, like pogos, um, like actual. Sprint drills, um, like dribbles and things like that are all plyometric. If you're hitting the ground with enough force in a short period of time, they're still, they're still plyometric. Um, and then obviously that moves into kind of an intensive plyometric state in the actual session. You know, the sprints, um, I don't program them outside of those. Those sprint days, I do do, um, ballistic or, or dynamic movements in the gym. So I've done loaded jumps. I've done unloaded jumps. I've done max effort, you know, box jumps, broad jumps, triple broad jumps, stuff like that, but they have all been movements that are above, you know, a quarter of a second contact plyos.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 7:18

I think the important thing with pliers is like, um, the intensity comes from decreasing ground contacts or decreasing that time of the eccentric cycle, like rather than jumping as high as you can as well. So that you can increase the work amount, but the amount of work you're doing, um, in different ways. And you can kind of be sensible with hitting all different forms, um, to sort of balance out what you have and haven't done,

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 7:49

Let's go into, um, what those two types of plyos actually give you then, because we've kind of done. Why training picture looks like, you know, we, we don't really do an awful lot of them outside of running days. Um, but you know, why so extensive plyos, um, we touched on this last episode, but they kind of condition the body to operate within a shorter window of time and the tissues to kind of be, um, rigid when they need to, but relaxed when they need to as well. That's the, that's the main goal of extensive plyos. It's to condition the, the mainly the feet and ankles. Um, although you can do them with the upper body as well to, to interact with the ground in an appropriate way at the appropriate angles. Um, Pogo's are a great example for this. They're really simple, just bouncing up and down. Usually you're trying to bias, um, using the foot and ankle to get that elastic recoil out of, out of the lower limb. Um, but there will be a little bit of knee bend in that motion as well, usually. Um, but that, that usually. You just aim to contact the ground for a shorter period of time as you can and spend as much as reasonable time in the air as possible without putting max intent through the ground. Um, and you just accumulate a set of healthy contacts to condition the foot to be able to take those contacts and apply more force through them later on. Um, that would be the goal for extensive plyos.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 9:06

and do you have a number associated with how many ground contacts like based obviously dependent on the intensity of them, but for like a low intensity player, for example, a double, a double leg Pogo, how many would you say? If you're sprinting as well, would you say to sort of maintain or is it age age and training training age dependent as well?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 9:30

yes. It is definitely. Um, so it, it depends on like prerequisite strength. So if you've, if you've already got a fair amount of like muscle mass or development between the tendon and the muscle or the tendon and the bone as well, like all sorts of things play into it structurally, um, Training age, uh, stage of development, everything like that. But if you're experienced as an athlete, if you, if you train for, you know, a number of like three plus years, and you're looking at incorporating, um, some extensive pliers into your, into your pre, um, running preparation or even between sessions. Um, I wouldn't ever go for more than like a, a 10 to now. I'm not going to say more than that. I w I wouldn't ever change your current plyometric volume by more than 10%. Um, between kind of micro cycles, so weeks or, or maybe fortnights. Um, but I would aim for probably somewhere between like 60 and 120 contacts. If you're doing say a pogo hop, like two legged pogo, the most I would do is like one 20, but that's, that's like top end. And that's only if I'm running like twice a week at that

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 10:39

yeah, okay, it's very easy to overdo on the extensive ones because it's such a individual one feels like nothing. You know what I mean? Very easy to overdo. Um

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 10:53

yeah. I also need to expand on that. I'm not doing all of those at once, like I'm not stood there doing 120 Pogos back to back to back. They're split into reps and sets with appropriate rest as well. Um, that's something that's something else entirely.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 11:06

But an intensive player then, besides actually sprinting, which is a, Very high, highly loaded single leg plyo, I guess. Do you, are you careful with how much you set people's sprints in terms of reps and sets?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 11:22

Yeah, I wouldn't say I never do those types of plyos. It's just, I usually do them in a, like a period of lower sprint load. Um, so for example, now where we are currently in the calendar year, I'm in the off season, I'm running, I'm sprinting on track in spikes once a week. And I'm running one other time in the week, but it's not in spikes. So. Right now, um, just to maintain the degree of kind of specific, um, skill and physical, um, demand in my program, like I might incorporate some intensive plyometrics, but the volume pretty much slices by, well, more than a third. To be honest, it's, it, you want to be aiming for probably like the same, the same number of intensive pliers you might do in a, like a max effort sprint session. I would, I would probably take between anywhere between like three and 12 to 15, um, like efforts of max intensity and intensive plyometric. Like that's, that's off the top of my head with my own experience and ballpark figures. I don't think you can say precisely for everyone there will be research statistics and whatever to. Kind of back up, um, or maybe like refute that from my standpoint, but you know, that's, that's usually what I aim for.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 12:45

Okay, nice. What sort of, um, I guess exercises and in this sort of period for you, would you be doing like, is it stuff like single leg hops, single leg bounds or, um, stuff you're doing in the gym?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 13:00

I think it depends on your goal as an athlete really. Um, so you can have quite horizontal focused, um, plyometrics. You can have more vertical focused plyometrics. So you can have like, uh, I've done like a drop to a broad jump before where, you know, like you're dropping off a box, say it's like 18 inches and you're trying to perform a max effort broad jump. As soon as you can off ground contact, that's, that's, um, a massively demanding or horizontally focused player that can help with your acceleration. Um, of course you can, you can be doing, um, like single leg bounds, alternate like bounds, those types of things can help with, um, both max velocity and acceleration. Um, and you can do stuff like drop jumps and depth, depth jumps, um, which focus more on kind of vertical aspects of, the game. Running mechanics and force production. Um, so those are the kind of three main areas, but really, to be honest, exercise selection, it depends on your goal. And like we said in the last episode, the type of plyometric that you should select does depend a little bit on your, your event. You need to be a bit more specific than you do with kind of strength training and those kinds of aspects, because you're conditioning the body to operate in a dynamic way at certain angles. And those angles need to relate to your, to your sport.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 14:17

That's exactly what I was going to touch on then as, um, sort of like what we talked about last episode about, we kind of touched on that in the gym, some people can like strength training, people can over specify. Oh, what's the word? Specify.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 14:34

Yeah,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 14:34

Makes certain movements overly specific, um, but they don't have to be. However, Plios is something you sort of, you do need sort of specific focus with. Okay, what exactly are we trading here? Um, what was, what is the aim with these players to improve? For example, if it's a horizontal focused Plio, If you're doing that, that is obviously going to be training acceleration, in which case you're going to want slightly longer ground contact than like a, like a pogo hop, um, because during acceleration, ground contact slightly longer and horizontal. So these are sort of ones where you do need to be specific and that sort of leads you on to, it's not something that an individual athlete, unless they like have the knowledge, obviously should just one week be like, Oh, I was going to do this today. Um, it's all it needs to be programmed for them.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 15:30

yeah.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 15:30

you see it or not?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 15:31

even tell you the amount of athletes that I've worked with that come to me and this is where a relationship breaks down. Right. As a coach, cause I do a lot of my coaching remotely. Um, there's a lot of trust that needs to be there with an athlete, um, for me to program them. Stuff and for them to stick to the plan. Um, I've had a number of athletes that have like said to me, oh yeah. Um, one week on a call. Yeah. Pliers are, pliers are good for sprinting. Right. And I've been like, well, I mean, I can be, yeah. Oh yeah. So I've been doing, uh, like 45 minutes of plyometrics after all, all my, all my sessions this week, and I've just been like, look, this isn't going to work. You know what I mean? Like you give them the talk at the start of a, uh, start of an arrangement. Like, look, this is the program. I'm trusting you to go away and follow this to the T, uh, whatever, you know, all that spiel where, you know, you need to be, you need to be honest with the person and say, look, if you don't follow the program, you're not, you can't hold me accountable for your results. You're just doing it on your own. Then you might as well not pay me the money and, and leave me alone. This person said to me, like, well, these people have said to me, yeah, I've done X, Y, and Z extra and I've been like, oh my God, really? Like,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 16:38

can't

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 16:39

weeks later that they're complaining at me about, you know, an injury or they haven't improved or something like You can't,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 16:45

put it on me. Yeah, you can't put it on me if I've not told you to do that. Yeah.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 16:49

you cannot mess around with massive increases of plyometric volume. It's so

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 16:54

yeah, yeah. It's such, it's such a sprint thing that, um, more is not better. Sprinting and pliers. It's just, if you're coming from the mindset of grind and hard work gets results and whatever, then that's just like, that's just, you need to be drilled out of that if you're going to be an improvers printer. Um, and that's just, it's quite like the hard truth. If you're coming, if you're anything like me, I'm coming from sort of workers background, you know, like cross country and doing the miles, but I like that. Feeling of fatigue, but it's just not good for sprinting. Um,

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 17:32

Yeah. There's a few exceptions to this, but in general, like before you start a rep, you should not be going into that rep with the mindset of, um, the, the fatigue I'm currently feeling or how tired I currently am is going to limit the performance of my next rep. Like, that shouldn't be a factor in your thinking when you're doing plyometrics or

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 17:55

good way of thinking.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 17:56

pure speed work.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 17:58

that's as simple as that really It's just I don't know. I think people are waking up to it, but it's just sort of I don't know It's hard to do if you if you

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 18:09

It's still about.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 18:10

because thingy. Yeah, if you join a sport to feel like a workout You know, I don't think that's The two don't go hand in hand as well as people think.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 18:22

No, I think if you're, if you're joining the sport to feel like taxed and really work hard in a given session and leave it feeling really, um, like sweaty and on the ground and whatever, like just. Go do it sometime. Go to CrossFit, man. Okay,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 18:37

That seems to be what everyone

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 18:38

go on the distance squad, something like that.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 18:40

I always, I don't, I don't, want to not cross fit because I probably end up doing it when I'm older, but

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 18:45

I do.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 18:46

I, Oh, I, I have very strong opinions on it and I think it's for people with no talent, so that's so bad. I can't say that, but yeah, I feel like,

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 18:58

going in. We need clicks.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 19:00

yeah, God, I was going to get people coming for me. I genuinely like. It doesn't take much talent, skill, it's just a lot of a Work or sort of mentality to get good at that. And I think anyone can do that, you know. Um, I think being patient is harder. Um, and like,

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 19:21

It's a different kind of difficult. Yeah.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 19:23

The skill of training speed is actually like The good thing is it's a skill, because skills can be trained and improved. But also the bad thing is it's a skill. It's not a Mentality sort of thing. It's well, in a sense, it's not like a do as much work as you can do as many plies as you can do this extra 45 minutes at the end of a session. Hell nah, you need to chill out. Like, a lot of people probably that you hear all the time, or the fastest person in the team, or the fast, but the laziest, they do the least. And it's not by coincidence that that is the case. It's speed is very, speed is a very limited sort of, um, Energy source. So

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 20:05

yeah, you can't, you can't go into, um, a session like either plyometric or sprint based or anything like that and, and switch the brain off and just do it. Um, you can to some extent in like much more extensive sessions, but you, you can't really in a, in a max effort. Um, sprint or plyometric sense. Like it's not that, it's not that kind of sport. Um, I, I'll tell you a funny story now. So I got a call last night from one of my friends, um, from uni and he's a rugby player and they're in their last kind of, kind of stages of preseason right now before they start their season. And so, um, they haven't sprinted at all. Uh, at this point in probably two months since the season ended, basically. So in like early June, late May, they haven't sprinted. Um, our S& C coach comes in and they do like back to back to back to back all out sprints, um, as like a finisher to their

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 20:59

how many injuries?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 21:00

um, at three hamstring tests,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 21:03

I mean, it's just

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 21:04

one of which, one of which is my friend. So he calls me and he goes, I've just told my hamstring and I go, how? And he explains this situation. I'm just like, mate, what, what has

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 21:14

university level SSE. Like what? What?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 21:18

this is higher. This is semi pro. So he's not, he's not uni anymore like me. So he's in, in a semi professional setup and that's happening still. Um, it's crazy. So that, that is not the mindset you can go into, uh, sprints or plyometrics with. Now we're crossing over a little bit into, into sprint territory, but the same applies, you cannot use them as like a workout finisher, you can't get someone finishes as part of their strength training or something like that. You just, it's just stupid. Um, so yeah, that needs to go straight out of the window straight away. If you're, if you're thinking of using it as a fatigue inducer, um, plyometrics are not that they're, they're tissue conditioners and they are, um, they're building up the stretch shortening cycle, which is something that, you know, relies on freshness.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 22:11

right. Then I've got some another direction. We can point this in that before we wrap up. And that is sort of measuring. Um, performance repliers, and this can sort of be a whole other podcast really, but so we're touching it really briefly, but sort of like, obviously, return to sport from injury, you can kind of use players. And if you've not got access to stuff like force plates or opto jumps, and you can just use your eye, the eye test. Um, if you know what you're looking for, but what would. What would you be looking for as a sort of key performance indicator for someone who's ready? And like, would you ever do a sort of plier session at start of winter, mid of winter, and see if they're progressing using the program or, or do you just sort of just trust that gradually increasing it is going to be enough?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 23:09

Yeah. Um, I think this is a really interesting topic because there's so many like situations that you could potentially give a different answer for. Um, so if we're talking about return from injury, um, and being accurate in the way that you like progress and measure performance, um, there's a few kind of affordable options that you can use. So my jump is an app that you can download from, I'm pretty sure it's on. Um, The, like whatever Android equivalent is, but I've got it on my iPhone that just, it literally just my jump or one word. And you can measure, um, all sorts of different plyometric, um, tests through that app, it's got loads of testing protocols and it's like a subscription. So you pay like four pounds a month, five pounds a month, something like that. If you want that, then it's really cheap. If you don't have access to force plates, the next sort of step up from that would be any type of like jump pad or like those portable, um,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 24:07

The laser based systems,

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 24:08

labs a lot of the time. I don't think they're massively expensive by way of equipment

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 24:13

Nah. A lot of S& C sort of gyms will have them. If you're at university, you can probably ask to use them. Like, you've got things like jump mat, which just measures when you're on the mat and off the mat. So you can sort of And then opto jump, which is like Sends lasers across, sends lasers from one, one beam to another beam. And obviously when you break the laser, you're in contact with the floor. Do that. They're pretty much, they've been validated against force plates and stuff. Um, but then, yeah, obviously some force plates, you can do the X, Y, and Z sort of direction of force as well. So it's quite useful for, but if you're coming off of a, off of an injury, um, on your left side, for instance, are you loading? more horizontally on your left side, like that, that sort of thing. When, like, I think for like a return to sports sort of case and you want to get into high detail, then obviously try and get your hold of like a tri axis force plate if possible. Um,

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 25:14

Yeah.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 25:15

but I don't know, I don't want to complicate things because a lot of the time you can tell if you're gradually building up, like with pliers, like if you're gradually increasing the amount you're doing, like the body's very adaptable. If you're doing it gradually enough, you will just be able to just return to sport without stressing about measuring everything. Um, but there are certainly like different levels to how well you can measure.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 25:36

Yeah. I was, I was actually very close to an interesting, like, case study, um, for return to injury and, uh, return to injury. Return to performance from injury. Um, one of my, one of my friends that. Based in Leeds, like I am, um, ruptured, well, we believe he ruptured perineal tendon or some sort of ligament in his ankle somewhere around that. It was kind of the, it runs under the sticky out bone on the outside of your ankle. Um, there's definitely a technical name for that. That I've forgotten. I think it's calcaneus,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 26:08

Yeah.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 26:11

All right. Okay. There you go. Um, anyway, he ruptured one of the ligaments and or tendons that was that runs under that bone. And so he was faced with a long, long recovery from that. Um, And the first thing that you have to establish, actually, once he built back, you know, the structural, um, part of the thing that he snapped, um, was his mind's ability to kind of put force or put intent through the injured area again. So a lot of what he lost was, um, around like how much force can I put into the ground, like voluntarily.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 26:50

psychology.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 26:51

before you, yeah, before you even consider going to plyometrics and really stressing the body in a. In that kind of context, you've got to, um, if you, if you've got an injured area, I would go isometric before,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 27:04

Yeah. So, yeah, especially with tendons and ligament damage, like you really need to be sort of maxing out that collagen building stage, which is. best through isometrics and strength and then, and then, uh, I mean, I would argue though, like you want to get to the elastic sort of plyos as quickly as possible. If you want to overdo, you don't want to lose that sort of, that sort of loading. Um, because it, like, as I'm finding out, it's, if you do a little bit too much, time away from it, it's such a pain building up from zero because even the

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 27:41

it's slow.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 27:41

the tiniest amount of pogos, tiniest intensity pogos, you wake up the next day with some soreness and you're like, great.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 27:50

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the ways of building kind of an isometric, um, Base of strength or, uh, even a traditional strength training base of strength is like, you've got to, you've got to condition that the tissue to operate eccentrically first a little bit before you then move on to especially intensive pliers. Um, I think even by digressing into kind of people with a lower training experience, I'm thinking more towards like youth athletes, whatever, if they get thrown into plyometric sessions, um, too early or like too much, too early. Um, I think there's so many offshoot issues that can, that can arise from that. You need to, you need to progressively overload as you would do with any training modality, but plyometrics are so much more delicate. So you need a much more expert hand to guide you through that.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 28:40

It's interesting with children, they're like, if you're running around a lot, you know, when you're a kid, you run around on the playground and everything. Like, those are unorganized plyos, really. Like, it's like the movements you're doing, jumping off of rocks or whatever. That's a plyo. Um, it's just, it's not a structured plyo, but it is good. It's like exposure to plyometrics, which a lot of people just lose as you hit a certain age when you stop running around as a kid. Yeah. You get into structured sport. So, um, it's quite interesting. You see like a lot fewer injuries and kids, even though they're doing. A lot more, it seems, you know what I mean? Mm

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 29:19

Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, like there's, there's so much backing behind a multi sport approach for youngsters coming up. Um, so not specializing too early, playing a variety of sports, variety of planes, um, that you move through, a variety of different demands, like it's so much. Benefit from when you're younger, just doing everything. Uh, not obviously everything, not, you know, over training applies to kids, but doing a wide variety of things when you're younger and not, um, not putting your, all your eggs in one basket because yeah, like your tendon development either completely ceases or slows down a lot after the age of about 17. Um, so before that age, you really need to be doing. A lot of unorganized players, like you were saying, it's, it's, it's just stuff that you would do naturally in a sport that you wouldn't think about, um, that would then be a more formal training, um, plan later on.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 30:19

Yeah. I mean, we've kind of digressed away from the original discussion, but I guess before we wrap then, um, what would be like your biggest key take home message for anyone who's listened this far and wants to remind us where we started?

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 30:37

key takeaway about players. Um, once you realize you've done too much, it's too late by about 10 times. Um, so I would probably. like you always want to operate in the bandwidth of, um, being concerned at how little training you're doing and wondering whether it's actually going to have an impact because that's probably around the level you want to stay at.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 30:58

I mean, if I was to add anything, I would just say, yeah, just have enough rest.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 31:04

yeah, yeah.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 31:06

sprint in his pliers as well, just remember that as well.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 31:09

Yeah. Sprint is plyometric. You don't need to overdo it with like additional plyometric work. It's not, it's not really worth it almost. It's just, you know, it's stacking stress on stress on stress. So enough is enough. Just yeah. Like, yeah, we've said it so many times. Less is more.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 31:28

yeah, yeah, I guess there is an argument, I mean, I might cut this bit out, there is an argument that, like, someone who's, I don't know, some sort of freak who's just able to sprint three times a week and do plyos, sort of, and they've just done it their whole life. There's an argument to say like, okay, don't do less now because like, if they're like 18 year old, maybe, um, I mean, if they're not going to have any issues, it might, there might be that they never have issues. Um, And it might just be like a sort of genetic freak, but I basically, I don't want to be saying to people to like, who have no issues ever to do less and then start getting issues when you try and ramp it up again.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 32:10

Right. So that's been, um, plyometrics and also kind of bits and bobs of other, other topics as well. But, um, we'll try our best to stay on topic maybe in future weeks. I don't know. I don't know if I could be bothered to do that. If I think of something I want to say, then

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 32:26

Yeah,

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 32:26

to

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 32:26

I think it blows still. It wasn't, it wasn't too far off. It's just, didn't think I'd be talking about that before.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 32:33

Alright, so, speak to you soon, on the next episode,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 32:37

Yes. Cool. Right.

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 32:39

share it,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 32:40

Yeah. Keep

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 32:40

it to everyone,

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 32:41

keep liking and bye. Yeah, get us some awareness, please

kieran_2_08-28-2024_141137 32:46

goodbye.

alex_2_08-28-2024_141136 32:46

Yeah, see you later guys