When I get bored, I like to read through some of the old threads on the Charlie Francis website. There are a lot of really knowledgeable coaches who post there and the discussions get really interesting.
I was reading through one of these old discussions when I noticed the user Christian Thibaudeau who was posting in 03 in his pre-T-Nation days.
The discussion was about the frequency of training for the olympic weightlifting teams of bulgaria and the other eastern bloc countries.
According to Thibs, one of the primary reasons for their style (multiple sessions per day) was as follows:
2. Increased synaptic facilitation. There is evidence that motor learning is improved more by frequency of practice than by volume of practice. By training 2-3 times per day, event at equivolume, the motor learning effect is greater.
Vertical Jumping is a motor skill just like lifting weights is. So wouldn't doing jump training multiple times a day on a training day be more beneficial?
I assume for a recovery standpoint it wouldn't be good to train every day but on training days this suggests that the optimal amount would be several (2-3) shorter jump sessions. This should lead to better/faster results.
Thoughts on this?
I think for someone who lacks efficiency at jumping, it could definitely help to accelerate motor learning, as long as it's not maximal for every session throughout the day. For all others though, I think maximal jumping mutliple times per day has some problems. The most glaring issue I think it has is overuse. Maximal jumps are really intense on the joint surfaces, achilles, patella, and quad tendons. If you jump 2-3 times per day, maximally, at a somewhat high frequency (3-4x/week), I think your risk of overuse injury sky rockets. The stress placed on the joint articular surfaces of the ankle, knees, and spinal column is far greater than isotonic lifts. This is why I think you could squat/oly more safely, multiple times per day @ at high frequency, than jump multiple times per day at that same frequency. If you are "shut down" following the first session of the day, the 2nd and 3rd etc will be alot more risky. I personally feel like i've run out of certain "neurotransmitters" following a max effort jump session, hard to explain.
Beyond that, I think staleness is a huge issue. It's alot easier to push through staleness on oly's/squats etc, since you have a far greater time to display force. Also, lifts result in far greater "testosterone production" than jumps. If you are stale during jumps, you will have no motivation to actually jump. I imagine one would get stale fairly quickly jumping multiple times per day+high frequency. In these examples though, keep in mind lifts aren't ABSOLUTELY MAXIMAL during high frequency/multi session days, they usually are held back via heart rate/percentages/whatever, there's not usually a considerable psycheup... jumping maximally requires some psyching up, this would mean you have multiple psycheups per day, which just would result in way too much fatigue imo.
if the jumps are submax, for a motor learning goal, then it's doable, but max jumps, I just don't see it being effective.
peace man
