Plyometrics boost power and agility

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      Fitness competitor Nyla Nguyen didn’t develop a hot body just by pushing weights. In fact, she confessed to the Georgia Straight, she hates using machines to pump up different muscle groups. “I do a lot of outdoors training, plyometrics,” she said. “I’m well-rounded. I can do martial arts. I can do the Grouse Grind.”

      Plyometrics are exercises that force muscles to reach their maximum force in the shortest amount of time, usually through jumping. According to Nguyen, this boosts a person’s athletic agility, power, and speed.

      Strength and conditioning specialist Mike Bozek has been running a plyometrics class since August at Steve Nash Fitness World and Sports Club on Kingsway. He told the Straight in a phone interview that it’s important to screen participants so somebody doesn’t aggravate an old injury. The first level of the course involves jumping up stairs instead of running. From there, clients can take two or three stairs at a time and then progress to single-leg jumps.

      Depending on the person’s agility, they might be asked to jump over higher objects or objects separated by greater distances.

      Some clients graduate to mixing twists or turns with combinations of two or three jumps. “I can combine a vertical jump with a distance jump, and then a lateral jump, all in the same drill,” Bozek said. “It takes a fair amount of coordination to do that, and a little bit of skill.”

      The sports fitness advisor website, which highlights research-based approaches to exercise, notes that a “wide variety of studies shows that plyometrics can improve performance in vertical jumping, long jumping, sprinting and sprint cycling”. Moreover, only a certain number of exercises—such as two to four sets of 10 repetitions per session—can yield positive results.

      “It’s working all your major muscle groups in a sequence that you would use them on the field,” Bozek said.

      Fitness guru Ron Zalko likes using the term “muscle confusion” to describe plyometrics workouts offered at his gym. This involves doing several different exercises in rapid succession. “Your body reaches a plateau sometimes,” Zalko told the Straight by phone. “You need to confuse your muscles to work them out in a more effective way. You use the upper body, and suddenly you go to the lower body. Or your core. And then into jumping jacks.”

      He noted that this type of workout helps prevent people from getting bored by the same routine year after year. But he added that it’s important to have a trainer for the first two or three sessions. Anyone interested in learning more is welcome to visit Ron Zalko Total Body Fitness & Yoga at 6 p.m. on any Friday for a free orientation.

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