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Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Weight Vested Plyo's
« on: August 13, 2015, 03:56:05 am »
Doing weighed vest plyos increases the GCT (ground contact time). What that means is the muscle load is increased and the "tendon contribution" decreases (in other words, the movement becomes more "muscled up" and less "springy" or "reactive"). Even more, there's a tendency to "break" more (at the hip, knee or ankle).
One "advantage" would be to see where you "break" but then it's a matter of understanding if the breaking is occuring due to lack of strength or too much dominance (for example, if breaking at the knee is a matter of lack of quad strength (knee collapses and goes forward) or too much quad strength relative to the posterior chain, so the quads are preferentially recruited when the load is heavier and therefore, for the quads to express their "strength", the CNS "wants" to move the knee forward to get quad range of motion). It's tricky to figure out what the case is (well, not really, look at your squat numbers to figure that out).
I used to do the other way around for my reactivity - donkey ankle bounces. I would support my chest on something (usually a trash can) and take away a lot of my upperbody weight. Then I would jump up and down while being UNLOADED. That would allow me to be VERY reactive since I'm weighing like half my bodyweight.
Looks funny but is efficient:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwu5U3gSCDU
One "advantage" would be to see where you "break" but then it's a matter of understanding if the breaking is occuring due to lack of strength or too much dominance (for example, if breaking at the knee is a matter of lack of quad strength (knee collapses and goes forward) or too much quad strength relative to the posterior chain, so the quads are preferentially recruited when the load is heavier and therefore, for the quads to express their "strength", the CNS "wants" to move the knee forward to get quad range of motion). It's tricky to figure out what the case is (well, not really, look at your squat numbers to figure that out).
I used to do the other way around for my reactivity - donkey ankle bounces. I would support my chest on something (usually a trash can) and take away a lot of my upperbody weight. Then I would jump up and down while being UNLOADED. That would allow me to be VERY reactive since I'm weighing like half my bodyweight.
Looks funny but is efficient: