Isos And Plyos...Combined

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Hey everyone, I just wanted to share something I recently stumbled across while trying to devise my own sort of training gimmick.

I have been reading a lot of different training material and came across a few important points. One, you can activate more muscle fibers with an isometric or eccentric contraction than a concentric contraction. Two, plyometrics are the best way to train for explosive strength. Three, combining resistance training and plyometrics into the same session increase the results of both.

Using this information, I devised the following routine.

Note: For clarification purposes, all ISO exercises below involve using as heavy a weight as possible and lowering the weight into the point of the lift with the worst leverage and holding it there for time.

Legs:
A1 ISO Squat 5 x 5-10 sec
A2 Depth Jumps 5 x 5
B1 Hang Snatch 4 x 2
B2 Standing triple Jumps 4 x 1
C1 ISO Split Squat 3 x 15-20 secC2 Split Squat Jump 3 x 8
D1 ISO Hyper 3 x 35 sec
D2 Release/Catch Hyper 3 x 10

Upper Body:
A1 Bench Press 5 x 5-10 sec
A2 Plyo Push Up 5 x 3-5
B1 Supported Row 5 x 5-10 sec
B2 Medicine Ball Slams 5 x 5
C1 ISO Military Press 2 x 35 sec
D1 External Rotations 3 x 8

I use an eight day work cycle, mon, wed, fri, sun, tues, thurs, etc.

So far, it’s been rediculously effective. My bench has gone up over 50 pounds in 4 weeks and my squat has gone up 20 in the same time. It would have been more, but a non-training related injury kept me off my feet for a while.

So, I’m open to comments or questions.

2

[quote]RJ24 wrote:
Hey everyone, I just wanted to share something I recently stumbled across while trying to devise my own sort of training gimmick.

I have been reading a lot of different training material and came across a few important points. One, you can activate more muscle fibers with an isometric or eccentric contraction than a concentric contraction. Two, plyometrics are the best way to train for explosive strength. Three, combining resistance training and plyometrics into the same session increase the results of both.

Using this information, I devised the following routine.

Note: For clarification purposes, all ISO exercises below involve using as heavy a weight as possible and lowering the weight into the point of the lift with the worst leverage and holding it there for time.

Legs:
A1 ISO Squat 5 x 5-10 sec
A2 Depth Jumps 5 x 5
B1 Hang Snatch 4 x 2
B2 Standing triple Jumps 4 x 1
C1 ISO Split Squat 3 x 15-20 secC2 Split Squat Jump 3 x 8
D1 ISO Hyper 3 x 35 sec
D2 Release/Catch Hyper 3 x 10

Upper Body:
A1 Bench Press 5 x 5-10 sec
A2 Plyo Push Up 5 x 3-5
B1 Supported Row 5 x 5-10 sec
B2 Medicine Ball Slams 5 x 5
C1 ISO Military Press 2 x 35 sec
D1 External Rotations 3 x 8

I use an eight day work cycle, mon, wed, fri, sun, tues, thurs, etc.

So far, it’s been rediculously effective. My bench has gone up over 50 pounds in 4 weeks and my squat has gone up 20 in the same time. It would have been more, but a non-training related injury kept me off my feet for a while.

So, I’m open to comments or questions.[/quote]

Yeah man, that seems pretty good. My only recommendation would be to keep the ISO stuff to under 25 seconds. Even that is a little high, but after that you are getting out of the strength-building range. I’m also curious why you are super-setting?

3

I would cut back on the number of jumps you are using. You have 25 depth jumps, 4 triple jumps (12 jumps total), and 24 split squat jumps; 61 total jumps per workout. I would try decreasing depth jumps to sets of 3 (15), maybe just do a standing broad jump (4), sets of 3-5 for split squat jumps (9-15); total of 28-34 jumps.

You would probably still make improvements if you just did the depth jumps and no other jumps.

4

Thank you both for responding, and as to the Iso over 25 seconds, those are me trying to add some more size to my hamstrings. They’re nicely developed now, but I would like it if they were a bit larger.

Also, I’m not supersetting, I’m alternating exercises, for example:
ISO Squats

3 minutes rest

Depth jumps

3 minutes rest

Iso Squats

Etc.

This is in line with Donald Chu’s complex training system.

Also, thank you, it felt like my jumping volume was a bit high.

5

RJ,

That makes more sense. That program seems pretty in line with a lot of programs I’ve seen.