Motocross Racer: Caden Mitchell Photo: Zachary C. Bako Joel YounkinsHigh Performance Coach Plyometrics might be one of the most misunderstood topics in all of training. Not just in motocross training, but all across the board in regards to physical performance...
A lot of people perform plyometrics incorrectly for improving sprinting and jumping. What they believe is a true plyometric, is not always the case. Many times, if they do perform a true plyometric exercise that they found on YouTube or Instagram that their favorite athlete is doing, they jump right into the deep end with very advance exercises without the preparation or progression it takes leading into them. And quite simply, people just don't have a clear understanding for the purpose behind plyometrics and why they actually work. Some people outside of the athletic development world, also use plyometric exercises as a means for conditioning and burning calories while others believe they help your body "tone up." So as you can see, if the topic of strength training can be confusing for many to truly understand, then plyometrics just makes things way more interesting... Lets get into what plyometric training is really all about and how it can help a racer perform better on the bike! Background in Plyometrics Plyometrics were first invented back in the Soviet Union by a professor named Dr. Yuri Verkhoshanky. He originally named them as "shock training" later being called plyometrics in the western training culture. He called it shock training because you need to be able to provide an actual shock to the body to get the true benefits from them. No, not an external electrical shock, but a shock that is generated by landing off of a higher object or receiving force like a medicine ball being propelled towards you. The act of absorbing the force, teaches your body to better properly handle and manage forces that are sent into your muscles, tendons, and nervous system. When you can absorb more force (kinetic energy), this means you can produce more force. Think if you have your suspension set up with really low compression or soft valving. When you go to hit a jump, the suspension will blow through the stroke and there will be no hold up, you will lose that pressure and your rebound won't give you enough lift off of the jump. This is what happens in your body too if you don't train your body to absorb force, the shock of the track will just blow right through you and your body will have no hold up. If you don't properly execute the plyometric exercises, you won't get the most out of them either. If the intent isn't to absorb the force, minimize the isometric time frame (the space between the down and up phase) and then apply as much force as possible, that energy/forces that you receive from the ground, will dissipate and you won't train this specific quality. This is why things like box jumps and vertical jumps aren't actually considered plyometrics. It's jump training. You can use jump training as a way to prepare for true plyometrics (shock training), I do this often with my racers too, but it's technically a different training quality because there's no shock to the body. The soviet union wasn't using these exercises for motocross racers. They used them for their track and field athletes in attempts to dethrone the United States in the Olympics to empower their communism cause. However, like with a lot of things here in the United States, we learn about something that is good and that works, and then it gets misinterpreted in many forms and sold in different fashions. And something good starts to morph into something else. That's why people don't have a solid understanding of this topic. Plyometrics in Moto I began utilizing plyometric/shock training as soon as I began studying it heavily right when I graduated college and began my coaching career. Between working with team sport athletes and racers, I saw how the same exercises that could help an athlete sprint faster and jump higher, could have a significant impact to a riders performance on the bike. If the rider can at least absorb more force, they can better maintain their technique on the bike. Pair that with a proper strength training program, and you have yourself an extremely confident racer. Your bike has suspension, but the reality is, it's only able to do a certain amount of work for you. The faster you are, the more you'll need from it. And to help yourself out, if you properly train your body to absorb more forces, you will help yourself out even more by becoming a more efficient rider, limiting mistakes, and saving overall energy on your bike. Plyometrics were invented to sprint faster and jump higher. We don't need to worry about how fast you are or how high you can jump off of the bike, we just need to make sure you can ride faster and jump, further (higher maybe if you do freestyle). The main component that we need to prioritize is the absorption phase of plyometric (shock) training. If you can train your body to absorb more force, the forces acted upon you on the track will have less overall effect on you. This is really the end goal, to help you withstand and absorb the forces from the bike and ground alike. Levels to Plyometrics Like with all things training, there's levels to the game. You can't just read this blog, get all excited and hop right into the most aggressive forms of plyometric training. You won't get the most from it, and you could potentially get injured. First and foremost, you want to develop basic general strength abilities in your lower and upper body. We want your legs, arms, and torso to have enough strength to be able to handle any sort of violent forces. If you don't have good strength, you'll have no foundation to absorb anything in the first place. You want to have a solid frame and not be a wet noodle or you'll have no hope. Secondly, you want to start off on what we call, low intensity extensive plyo's. These are things like Low Intensity Plyo Jumps for your lower body and Medicine Ball Chest Passes for your upper body for example. This teaches your body to develop a contract/relax rhythm of being able to turn your nervous system on and off faster while absorbing low level shocks to the body. For the muscles and tendons, this will develop the capacity to be able to handle higher intensity forces later on in training. The third part is to be able to absorb forces in a high intensity nature. Here we are simply working on force absorption and we do this by placing maximal emphasis on the landing phases. For the lower body, Altitude Landings work great, and for the upper body, exercises like Altitude Push Ups work fantastic too in the sport of motocross preparation. There are other variations and exercises you could perform for these but these are best to get started. When you land these, you want to stop as fast as possible and hold these positions for 2-3 seconds to allow your body to feel the position and to be sure that you're absorbing the fall. If this is how far your plyometric training takes you, you're already 90% further along than your competition. And lastly, once you master the absorption part, you can begin training with true plyometrics. You can absorb forces and then also be able to produce forces. I know that I said that you don't have to worry about sprinting or being able to dunk a basketball (those are bonus points if you can), but when you can absorb forces and you can turn around and produce it, you can teach your body to contract (absorb) and relax after you produce the force (jump in the air). On the bike when those forces hit your body, you obviously need to contract and get tight for a split second, but it's important to be able to relax again right away so that you don't continue to ride tight. The best athletes in the world and contract and relax faster than everyone else. This is why they looked so relax when you watch them...Two exercises that are really solid for motocross and off road racers to perform would be Hurdle Jumps and Bench Plyo Push Ups but not limited to just these two. Shock Yourself True plyometrics/shock training is really some high level stuff in the training world. I have all of my racers from all ages and all levels perform some sort of form of plyometric/shock/jump training variations. And don't let some of the boring visuals of falling from an 18-24 inch box fool you. The magic is happening inside of your body, not in the entertainment value of you mind. Some of the best training that we can do as athletes, looks the most boring. But when you start to implement low intensity plyo's, landings to absorb force, and then true plyometric exercises, you will begin to feel your nervous system come alive and you feel more and more athletic on your bike.
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