For the majority of athletes, plyometric exercises are the missing link between the strength work they do in the gym and the technical/tactical work they do on the pitch. What good is having a high relative strength, if it's not transferable to performances in your chosen sport? Being able to get from A to B faster than your opposition, jumping higher than your opposition, changing direction faster than the opposition and being athletically superior in every department than your opposition puts you well on your way to being successful.

Disclaimer, as a coach I know how much of an influence luck, technical skill and all those other things have on sporting success. Having a physical advantage does not guarantee you success in any sport.

Due to their influence on the brain and motor control, plyometric exercises are great for general gym goers to! It's not just athletes that can benefit from them.

The goal of this article, is to shed some light on the theory behind them, what they are, what they can do for you and why. I'll also try and produce some practical and actionable insights for you to integrate into your own training to get that edge.

It's fitting that I should start talking about these now given our current situation. It's not some new phenomenon like you might think, it's just rarely spoken about because it's poorly understood. Some of my own clients would have experienced using some form of isometrics but more so from a 'potentiation' perspective and getting them ready for higher velocity work. However, they are ever so convenient for most of us who no longer have access to heavier weights and are keen to maintain, or even build strength without setting foot in the gym again.

Disclaimer: Without certain pieces of equipment we will never be able to optimise these, but with a little imagination we can get pretty close.

If there's a silver lining to be found in anything, I'll find it. Having the extra bit of time during lockdown has been a god send for me (and you). Extra time to absolutely nerd out on reading research papers and brush up on some of the stuff that I haven't particularly looked at in quite a while. Recently I've been looking into isometric muscle contractions and their role in maintaining/developing strength and including them in a programme with plyometrics and speed work. No matter how far I go down the rabbit hole , it all ends up back in one place, The Brain & The Nervous System. In  reality, when we talk about sports performance from a physical and a technical/tactical perspective we can't get away from the fact that The Brain rules everything. This article should help shed some light on that!