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In episode 136, Matt McInnes-Watson, Performance Coach and Consultant, joins us.
Specifically Matt will be looking at:
- How to program plyos for younger and older athletes
- How he classifies plyometrics
- How to apply plyometrics for elite performance
Do you have zero jump game but want to upgrade to NBA-level hops? These massive explosive outputs are the pinnacle of many sports, but training to get them can be really tricky.
That’s why we asked Matt McInnes-Watson to join us on episode 136 of the Science for Sport podcast.
McInnes-Watson is renowned for his plyometric coaching talents through his company Plus Plyos, he even combines his love for speed and power with a self-funded PhD investigating plyometric exercises and their application to sport performance.
Before we dive into the depths of plyometric training, it’s important to define what plyometrics are.
“My term for plyometrics now is becoming more and more simplistic in that it’s a landing and take-off based action that’s pretty fast,” McInnes-Watson said.
Easy right? Well, there’s just a little more to the story.
“It’s it has that elastic and reflexive nature to it. And we’re able to use a lot more of the tendon’s ability to give us a bit more of a snap back as opposed to more of a muscular base movement that might be a bit slower and more of a kind of concentric effort to get out of the bottom of the movement,” McInnes-Watson said.
But why are plyometrics so important? Well, they underpin athletic performance in a range of movements, not just jumping.
“I think that it’s all part of the foundation of movement that we use within sport. How many sports use landings and take-offs regularly? Are you running well? If it’s yes, then you’re probably using some sort of plyometric ability,” McInnes-Watson said.
Despite the use of plyometric type movements across a wide range of sports and sporting movements, when the majority of coaches think of this type of exercise, they go immediately to ‘shock training’ made popular by the Russians in the nineteen eighties, however, McInnes-Watson believes that this type of training isn’t necessary to elicit adaptations in the majority of athletes.
“I think realistically we have probably 95% of athletes that just need to learn how to land and take off effectively using typical ground-based locomotion,” McInnes-Watson said.
So how does McInnes-Watson plan plyometrics? Well for beginners, he keeps things simple.
“They’re going to start with more general capacity-based plyometrics and realistically that shouldn’t leave that program throughout the year. They’ll have a sprinkling of high-intensity stuff, but the likelihood for them to be able to handle a high volume of more intense stuff is a lot lower,” McInnes-Watson said.
As athletes progress, he uses increasing amounts of higher-intensity plyometrics. In this case, he increases that to approximately 40 % of the program.
“We want to get to a stage where we’ve got advanced guys that are getting more exposure to higher demanding movements. It still might only be up to 40 % of the program. That’s is where I’ve got to with a junior international athlete,” McInnes-Watson said.
This begs the question, what exactly are these higher-intensity plyometrics?
“If I can get them to be doing more things for height, hops for speed or distance. If I can do more of that in the whole of their year, that ultimately becomes my goal,” McInnes-Watson said.
So there you have it, a glimpse into how McInnes-Watson programs ground-based plyometrics for sport performance.
It’s interesting that he tries to save the higher-intensity plyometrics until they really need it, and just gradually increases the volume of these as the athlete progresses.
If you want to hear more from McInnes-Watson, be sure to check out the full podcast using the link below, which includes a detailed description of how he uses a four-tier system for planning and progressing plyometrics.
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