Mid-season plyos

It’s about mid way through optional season and lots of gyms are trying to balance keeping their gymnasts healthy with keeping them fit and competition ready. One of the things I think gets lost is plyos. We often try to limit pounding by taking them out almost completely but I find that those quick twitch muscles can be lost so easily.

My suggestion is quick bursts (don’t do 10 full minutes of jumping onto and over panel mats) – with adequate rest and make sure they are working quickness not just endurance!

I really like this plyo cycle. It has some of your standards in there, but also some that aren’t used as much. Make sure you’re watching for full extension of the feet especially on things like the single leg jumps.

These are your more standard panel mat jumps. They are always, ALWAYS worth coming back to in my opinion. Focus on knees and feet is important and you can often see where gymnasts struggle just by doing a few of these.

This warm-up is FILLED with different plyo exercises. If you’ve been doing panel mat jumps forever and want to mix it up there are some great things here. The speed ladders are some of my favorites.

I love this video because it has great (and super simple) variations of your normal panel mat jumps. The ones where they go up and then straddle to two mats is a fantastic way for kids to start understanding really taking their punches up – which often gets overlooked in plyos and they start turning into jumps.

Credits:

Video 1: Houry Gebeshian

Video 2 and 4: Mary Lee Tracy

Video 3: Midwest Elite Gymnastics

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