I’ve been reading a lot lately about the importance of including plyometrics into a program for athletic power development, and as a rugby player this is essential for my conditioning!
A few articles I’ve seen suggest not to do Olympic lifts because of the steep learning curve associated with those lifts.
However, I was coached in the Olympic lifts quite early in my training career and feel very comfortable with performing them. If this is the case, would performing Olympic lifts purely for power development be more beneficial than performing Plyo’s? Or are plyometrics more superior when looking to develop maximal power?
I understand that because of genetics we only have about a 25% threshold to increase power, but as a young aspiring lad I want that whole 25% damn it!
Looking forward to hearing what you think, cheers!
Plyo (real plyo, depth jumps, not just hops and bounds) works super rapidly (significant power gains in 2-3 weeks) BUT doesn’t give you much more gains if you extend their use. I feel that after a 4 weeks block, they do more harm than good.
And I believe that if you are skillful at the olympic lifts, there are no better ways to train for power.
So you can include depth jumps 4 weeks out of a 12 weeks cycle and focus on the olympic lifts to increase power.
And I don’t believe in the 25% potential for power improvement. When I was 19 I ran a 5.32 seconds / 40 yards sprint and had a 23" vertical jump… and I did train a lot back then, but mostly on basic strength work and bodybuilding exercises.
I started training only for olympic lifting and at 22 I ran a 4.54 / 40 (without ANY sprint training) and jumped 40" (without much jump training).