Good list, Alan. Do you agree that strength and stability training need to come before power moves? Sure, the posters here could go straight to this, but not everyone can do a split jump starting from scratch. If bodyweight squats are Move 1.0, plyos would be Move 2.0 or 3.0.
I love box jumps! But I don't do them near anything I could fall into. I've fallen doing box jumps and wound up 15 feet away from the box!
What plyometrics would you suggest that most people could do inside their homes? Squat jumps are good... what else? Maybe something could be done while holding a table or counter top for balance?
In terms of strength training:
Power before Strength before Higher Reps.
Box Jumps: Make sure it is actually a box jump and not just how high you can bring your legs up. 18-24in is just fine for a box jump.
Depth Jump: Step off a box. Land. Jump up!
Single leg variations: Very difficult. Box should be low. 6-12in is more than enough.
Jay Johnson actually had some videos that showed a lot of nice plyos and specific strength exercises like a loaded quarter squat done very quickly. This was maybe 10-15 years ago? I have the DVDs somewhere...
Alan
Fisky, what you are going to do is take an otherwise able-bodied runner and put them into them into the doctor's office with injuries.
You don't push away from having been seated at a desk for at least an hour or more and start leaping up on things or leaping into the air at all. And do that all day long. It would require at least a little warming up and stretching or something will tear or get strained. It's foolish, frankly.
And that is not to mention the idea of the time you need for rest and recovery between the focused, targeted, more comprehensive workouts, as another poster mentioned above.
Do things, do them well with the proper preparation, and do them at the right times so as to maximize the potential benefit within your plan and cycle. To do the warm-up and stretching necessary to start performing most of these exercises like box jumps, squat jumps, etc., would make them unrealistic as exercises that would done realistically several times a day as one pushed away from their desk for a few minutes. They are workouts, and can be short workouts, but they aren't just thrown into your day (or do so at your own risk).
Here's what I do instead (and I mean besides doing some of those things everyday within a structured workout). While at my desk, I use a sit-stand desk. I use an exercise ball for sitting, At the recommendation of a physical therapist, I try to spend a little more of the day on the ball than standing. While standing, i occasionally put one foot up on a box or chair to stretch the glutes. SImilarly, I have a wood block that i stand on with my toes and do calf stretches gently. I do other stretches as I think about it.
Another thing I have done is to take a 10# weight, hold it in one hand, and go for a walk for about 10 minutes, switching hands when the side holding it fatigues - very good for building core stabilization. I've heard of people doing this exercise on the treadmill, btw.
When I walk the dog late at night, (it's dark, late, no one sees me.) I do a full dynamic range of running stretches and things like lunges, alt. leg kicks, alternating toe touches, heel kicks, etc. and sometimes I do this with a set of 10# ankle weights.
And in terms of incorporating these things into one's overall plan, I have found that many of us have a problem because we have hard workouts (including the running and gym workouts) and then we have days that are largely comprised of being still. That leads to being uncomfortable most of the time since the two are simply too different. In order to feel better in general and perform better, I find it is necessary to introduce into your day a middle ground of light activity that bridges the two extremes. And then I feel better in general, with better attitude, and can perform better as I ease into the workouts.
I think that you are actually on the right track by starting with bodyweight squats. In addition to using them to build some strength and muscle endurance, the squat is arguably the fundamental movement for mobility. They are a safe exercise for just standing up from one's desk and knocking out a set, which is why they make a good warmup movement for other exercise.
If you happen to keep a kettlebell or two next to your desk, as I do, you could knock out a set of bodyweight squats, then a set of goblet squats. And then you could add some swings...
Ok, I did 1600 squats yesterday, distributed in batches every hour. Didn't break a sweat, so definitely doable in street clothes. Each set took only a few minutes.
But those squats didn't work my calves much. For speed, I would think that FOX fibers in calves would be the critical factor. I don't know of any exercise that triggers use of FOX fibers that doesn't make you break a sweat. You could modify those air squats by doing them on an inclined surface, and finish each movement with calf raises, perhaps? I doubt that that would get the Fast OXidative fibers into the game - not in short sets that don't make you sweat. I read a long time ago that the 'bracing' action in the knee joint is primarily a fast twitch fiber effort, and knee tendon stiffness definitely helps, by limiting the hysteresis (mis-timed stretchiness) in the knee joint muscles. Doing hundreds of low sweat exercises would be fine for slow twitch fiber development, but wouldn't help train your precision timed knee joint fast twitch fibers.
Ok, I did 1600 squats yesterday, distributed in batches every hour. Didn't break a sweat, so definitely doable in street clothes. Each set took only a few minutes.
But those squats didn't work my calves much. For speed, I would think that FOX fibers in calves would be the critical factor. I don't know of any exercise that triggers use of FOX fibers that doesn't make you break a sweat. You could modify those air squats by doing them on an inclined surface, and finish each movement with calf raises, perhaps? I doubt that that would get the Fast OXidative fibers into the game - not in short sets that don't make you sweat. I read a long time ago that the 'bracing' action in the knee joint is primarily a fast twitch fiber effort, and knee tendon stiffness definitely helps, by limiting the hysteresis (mis-timed stretchiness) in the knee joint muscles. Doing hundreds of low sweat exercises would be fine for slow twitch fiber development, but wouldn't help train your precision timed knee joint fast twitch fibers.
I'll have to look up FOX fibers and how to train them. Thanks.
Meanwhile, it's seems obvious to me that a person who struggles to do 3 sets of 10 reps on Day 1 is going to benefit more from 30 days of squats than the person who can do 1600 on Day 1. I'm not sure how to write about that. Maybe this is something that the high volume squatter would skip and move on to something more challenging?
Anyway, I've identified some baseline tests to track improvement over the next 30 days.They include steep hill sprints for distance, vertical jump height, dumbbell squats with 100% bodyweight, 10x broad jump w/no rest between jumps, 30m sprints, beep test, and 200m time trial. Anything else you'd suggest for before/after testing?
I expect improvement in all areas due to exercise familarity... I don't know how to avoid that, but with n=1, if my 200m improves, then it works for me.
I can't advise you about before and after tests. But I'm sure the over-distance (1200's or 1600's) are going to develop your fast oxidative fibers optimally. As a seasoned runner, the research results that I've encountered won't apply to you. My bias is that three workouts per week will be too much of a good thing. There are diminishing returns on all the boney grissly bits when volume gets too high. Now that you are an official 'old guy', I worry that you will be assuming too big of a risk with all those workouts. But you are an age-defying outlier, so maybe you'll do fine. Good luck!
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