Plyometrics

This workout reminds me of basketball practice. Since I haven't practiced basketball since, like, college it stands to reason that I'm pretty sore this morning. I actually did quite well. I was dizzy a few times but not alarmingly so and kept up with everyone, which I can't say for any of the other workouts yet. I even thought, for a minute post-workout, that I might not be too sore but later on in the evening I began feeling heavy and getting out of bed this morning wasn't particularly easy. Paying dues is always fun.

I had a couple of thoughts during my session. First was that maybe this is why I added both a basketball and baseball element to my challenge in 03. I mean, I played baseball for many years, and even in college, but never really liked it that much. But it's always nice to see that you still have it to some degree and those pitching movements probably got me thinking of that.

I also thought of Leigh Miller who used to work at Beachbody. He was similar to me in that he had a lot of oddly varying interests that didn't seem to relate to each other, which meant that we related very well. We did a lot of the 90x workouts to test them as they were being designed, including Plyo for the first time. We hadn't shot any video so we'd do them off of Tony's proposed work sheets and had to try and figure out each move. We didn't always get them right and often made the workouts even harder. He also had this really cool and funny picture on his desk of he and his fiance that was similar to this pic of my wife and I. I thought the pic showed a special connection between them and was envious he'd found someone like that. I know it shows a special connection between us; and now I know that I was right to be envious. I haven't heard from Leigh in a while but am sure he's doing great. He's the type who will always do great.



Anyways, I love Tony's introduction to Plyo where he distills the meaning of plyometric exercise into "jumping." Well, yeah. But a slightly more scientific reason of why plyometric training is helpful is that it eccentrically forces the stretching of a muscle prior to its concentric action. This action causes is high level of muscle cell motor unit recruitment. This recruitment action is what determinds a muscle's effeciency, or the absolute strength of a given muscle, and is absolutely vital for sports performance. Without any type of plyometric training it's impossible to reach your body's potential for performance.