What’s everyone’s favorite plyometric exercise for basketball players?
Hi Matt. Great question! There are many, many great plyometric exercises for basketball players. Two very effective ones are the box jump and the box drop-landing exercises. The box jump exercise entails having your athlete start from the ground, facing a plyometric box (always start with your lowest box so that you allow the athlete to properly progress and to develop proper form). By producing ground forces, the athlete then jumps up onto the box — landing with good triple-flexion (hips, knees and ankles), and on both feet at the same time. This is a good exercise for developing ground force production.
The drop-landing exercise can be viewed as the opposite of the box jump exercise. With this exercise the athlete starts by standing on top of the box. She then steps off the box, landing on both feet at the same time and into triple-flexion. Again, start low and progress to higher boxes as the athlete becomes more proficient. This exercise teaches proper landing technique and is a great one for helping to reduce the risk of injury (particularly knee injuries) as the athlete develops her ability to properly reduce ground forces from landing.
I hope these help and please feel free to contact me if I can help further.
First you have to understand the purpose of a plyometric exercises and what is to be gain from this kind of training. While these may be good training exercises they are not true plyometric training. The goal of plyometric training is to get the athlete to reduce contact time with the ground. The idea is the force of each movement(with the help of gravity) increases the force of the next movement as well as reduce the contact time with the ground. Once contact time increases the exercise must stop. Exsample if jumping three 24 inch hurdles the athlete’s ground time increases after 2 hurdles, either jump only 2 hurdles or reduce high to 21 inches. I believe you start simple and work up. I think the best is skipping it a great starting point and yet can be a challenge for even professional athletes.
According to NSCA Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, plyometric training exercise refers to “activities that enable a muscle to reach maximal force in the shortest possible time.” “A practical definition of plyometric exercise is a quick, powerful movement using a prestretch, or countermovement, that involves the stretch-shortening cycle. That sounds like jumping to me. Quick powerful movements–gastrocnemius and quadriceps while they are eccentrically contracting contain stored elastic energy and is release during the vertical component of my favorite plyometric exercise for basketball.
Afterall, the vertical jump is at the heart of basketball.