Plyo Prep 1 to 1

Attention: Athletes

What?

This plyometric prep drill can be used as a warm up or to help with your return to play protocol. The main goal is to teach landing mechanics, introduce controlled deceleration and to get the CNS firing. If the athlete is recovering from an injury, be sure to start with softer landings in a ¼ squat position. If the athlete is healthy, you can demonstrate an aggressive attack into the ground.

How?

If you’re progressing into more dynamic plyometrics, like a single leg hop or lateral bounds, I would add in 2 sets of 3 on each leg to remind the athletes what a good stick feels like. If you are doing these as a return to play protocol, be sure to start on two legs (2 to 2) and then progress to 1. Start to track the contacts per leg and progress from there.

Simply start in triple extension and finish in a triple flexed position on 1 leg. Just like a squat, you want to see that the chest is parallel with the tibia and the hips are driving back to get the hips involved. Please notice the side view on the video above.

Why?

Our goal is to add effective drills on a daily basis that target key positions such as triple flexion. Field and court based sports require anterior and posterior loads of the lower body, so this drill can serve as a starting point to communicate with the body that it’s time to start decelerating. Controlling this eccentric action will allow us to progress to drills that require the management of 2-3 times their body weight in future drills in the training day or training cycle.

Yours in Performance,

Coach Nicole Rodriguez