Most fitness gurus recommend including both isolation and compound movements in your workout routine to get the best of both worlds. Isolation exercises like the classic bicep curl zone in on one specific muscle or muscle group and one joint. A compound exercise targets multiple joints and muscle groups at the same time, so they’re pretty efficient and can really help you feel like you got a good workout in. There are benefits to including both in your routine, and recently, fitness buffs have been raving about plyometric compound training. Let’s explore the benefits.
What is plyometric training?
Plyometric exercises like box jumps involve a fast and powerful stretching and shortening of your muscles and tendons. These moves can help you enhance your agility, speed, and explosive power. During the eccentric phase, your muscles and tendons become stretched. Your body taps into stored elastic energy in your muscles and tendons that acts like a spring to help you power through these moves.
During the concentric phase, your tendons and muscles rapidly contract to release this stored energy and produce that explosive force you need to complete the plyometric movement.
Plyometric exercises
Examples of plyometric exercises include:
- Box jumps
- Squat jumps
- Sprint jumps
- Medicine ball throws
- Skipping rope
- Clap push-ups
- Burpees
- Side jumps
These exercises incorporate bounding, hopping, jumping, and other explosive movements.
What is plyometric compound training?
Plyometric compound training is making waves in the fitness world, and it’s the potent combo of explosive, plyometric movements with classic compound exercises that engage multiple muscle groups and joints. A jumping lunge is a good example that combines a standard lunge and an explosive jump, where you switch your legs mid-air before landing back in a stable lunge position. A box jump is another example.
What are the benefits of plyometric compound training?
Compound moves are an efficient way to work out and hit multiple muscle groups in one go. If you’re doing plyometric compound movements like jumping lunges, you’re also refining your lower body power, stability, agility, speed, jumping ability, muscle coordination, and more. In a study of 45 healthy adults published in the journal Healthcare, researchers wanted to investigate the effects of plyometric compound exercises and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on balance and body function.
They concluded that plyometric compound exercises, along with tDCS, improved exercise performance, balance, and body functions. The individuals who performed plyometric compound exercises for 30 minutes twice a week along with tDCS showed significant improvement in static balance, dynamic balance, power, and agility. The study authors also concluded that plyometric training, along with tDCS, is more effective than just plyometric exercise alone.
