Hi again, guys!

For my first workout share, I told you about how my team did different dryland workouts on different days, and I shared Mondays Core (Ab) workout with you. Today, I’m going to show you the plyometrics (plyo) routine with you. This is a challenging little workout that should have your body sweating and your heart pacing by the end.

Plyo is an exercise designed to improve the functions of the nervous system and improve performance in sports by using fast, powerful movements. For swimmers, these exercises help us with our starts and turns. Starts need to be fast and powerful; you want to quickly be off the blocks to give you an edge when you hit the water. You also want a lot of power in your starts, because the water pressure slows you down. With turns, you want to have that same power and reaction off your walls. By practicing fast, powerful movements on land, you can guarantee muscle memory in the water. Swimmers can lose a lot of time in their races by not having very fast turns. Runners can also benefit from these exercises; they need fast starts, too.

If you are not the athletic type and only workout to stay fit, then this routine will help build muscles in your leg, work on your endurance, and help you when you are doing other exercise routines, like the leg workout I will share with you in a later article.

As with the core routine, begin with a warm-up of some sort. Either do 30 seconds of jump rope, 50 jumping jacks, or a ten-minute run-walk to warm up your muscles. Also, begin with 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off before increasing to 45 seconds on, and don’t do each exercise for more than a minute.

Here you go. This is the workout my team typically did on Tuesdays:

• Tuck jumps – Start in a standing position; jump up, tucking knees to chest
• Squat jumps – Start in a squat; jump up; when landing, return to squat
• Tuck jumps w/ ¼ turn – Do a tuck jump while turning to the left, then one back to center, then one to the right; repeat
• Depth jumps – Stand on something high than the ground; jump down into a squat; jump up; step up back onto what you jumped off of
• Step up with knee drives – Standing with one foot on something higher than the ground, drive the other knee up as high as possible; switch legs halfway through

Repeat once.

When you’re done, don’t forget to stretch out and drink some chocolate milk to replenish what you’ve lost in your workout. This routine would be a great addition to any workout, but can also stand alone if you are looking for something short and sweet.

Enjoy!

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