In my latest YouTube video I show you a multi muscular movement workout which is easy to do. It incorporates eccentric, concentric and isometric exercises. These develop greater power and also resilience - so they are great at combatting injury.
You’ll see box to box jumps, drop and block jumps with added weight, and isometric squats and hamstring bridges, for example.
We will often do this workout in season as it does not have a too draining effect on muscles or mind.
It’ll often be a part of our Saturday workout when there are no comps. 
In terms of reps and sets we’re looking at 3-4 x 6 reps of the jump exercises and 3-4 sets of the eccentric ones with some variation (where relevant) with the angles or limbs positions held. Holds are around 10sec.
If you’ve any specific questions then let me know.
Jargon buster:
Eccentric - muscular lengthening
Concentric - muscular shortening
​Isometric - no muscular action 

From time to time we won't be able to get to the track or gym to train or we may be in a hotel room perhaps a few days from a competition or on a work trip, but we want to or need to get in a workout.
During lock-down I produced a number of "Workout at Home & Stay-safe" video workouts. It's been interesting to see from the video stats on my YouTube channel that people are still doing them. Indeed one of the jumpers I coach remotely is doing some of the workouts as a part of her current conditioning. Bora is based in Hungary and is - at the time of writing - 15, she has a very good for her age best of 5.88m. Her specific fitness has definitely improved in consequence of doing these workouts as a part of her training.
The workouts as befitted the Covid period use little training kit - for example, STRETCH BANDS. Indeed for some I improvised weights by filling plastic bottles with water.
Note: 1 litre of water weights about 1kg.
I included many specific jumps and sprint exercises into these workouts. There were, for example, numerous sprint drills. done in-place There were also many exercises designed to also specifically strengthen the muscles, tendons and ligaments involved in sprinting and jumping.
Most of the workouts are follow-along ones. This means that you can start the video and be guided by me through the exercises and the time on and off periods. So, all you need to do is do the exercises, which I will have showcased and explained how to do at the beginning of the video.
The videos can be seen HERE.

HITCH-KICK KEY POSITIONS
1: Hold knee drive from board
2: Extend foreleg away from knee
3: Pull free leg down straight and fast below and behind hips. Same side arm and leg should be in alignment
4: Move into landing position (legs should rotate quickly in advance of the hips)

WHY NOT CONSIDER BECOMING A MEMBER ON MY YOUBE CHANNEL AND GAINING ACCESS TO EXCLUSIVE VIDEOS SUCH AS HOW TO COACH THE HITCH-KICK?
At the time of writing this is the latest video of 33 Members' only videos. This one takes you through a hitch-kick learning training session I did with one of my visiting athletes. You'll see the steps which I went through with the athlete and the drills we used to get him learning the hitch (from a poorly executed hang). You'll also hear him in real time listening and responding to my feedback. The aim is that this will aid you in learning how to really practically teach the hitch-kick.

IN THIS VIDEO ON MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL I TAKE A LOOK AT:
How to improve vertical long jump take-off velocity i.e. get more height
This is a follow up video from the previous one on long jump horizontal velocity
(LONG JUMP ESSENTIALS #1 TAKE-OFF SPEED. HORIZONTAL VELOCITY & WHY YOU ALWAYS SLOW DOWN
https://youtu.be/hQVJtv8r6Aw
VIDEO TIMELINE
0.36sec Statistics are presented from World Athletics and in particular the 2017 World outdoor champs LJ final won by Luvo Manyonga with Jarrion Lawson in second (8.48m/8.44m).
I go through the jumpers' vertical and horizontal take-off velocities.
Manyonga achieves greater vertical velocity and this could be the reason for his winning leap. Lawson is faster horizontally - again see horizontal velocity video.
1.42min: Jump distance is a product of horizontal and vertical take-off velocity
1.57min: Other factors which influence vertical velocity from a biomechanics point of view
The degree and speed of knee flexion at take-off
Take-off angle is another factor (more in another video to come)
3.00min: What can you do to improve your take-off hight?
Eccentric overload drills
Mat placed on penultimate step will overload the take-off and the forces which need to be braked and returned. This is known as the “coupling” time between the eccentric and the concentric phases.
Plyo eccentric emphasis jump drills
3.30min Eccentric overload drill
I include this drill across the whole of the training year
3.59min: Eccentric emphasis plyos - for example, drop and block jumps (with or without added weight) and downhill step jumps.
I provide an example of research which shows how downhill step jumps can improve vertical jumping ability and the torque in the knee extensors
4.32min More on drop and block jumps
Note the eccentric take-off work is much more specific
5.10min Summing up
5.54min Consider becoming a channel member
6.13min Freelpap system

In this week’s Friday video on my YouTube channel (Fri 1 2022) we take a look at what is known as potentiation. Potentiation involves the specific combination of drills, activities and conditioning methods in a way which is deigned to boost the power output of muscles.
Put simply the combination of dynamic activities is seen to increase neural excitement and enable the body to recruit more amounts of fast twitch muscle fibre and the motor units which recruit them.
Fast twitch fibre is “difficult” to fully recruit under “normal” circumstances, it needs large amounts of neural energy to provide the stimulation.
Potentiating training is seen as a way to provide this stimulation.
There are various protocols and ideas as to how to potentiate training. You can combine related weights exercises with related plyometric/jump exercises - for example, heavy load jump squats and drop jumps. Another option could be weighted sled pulls and/or lighter sled and unresisted runs.
It’s also possible to potentiate competitive and technical jump training. You could, for example, include rebound jumps or jump squats between jumps and there is research on this.
There is a considerable amount of research that indicates that potentiating training works and works well at that.
There are, however, some caveats - for example, some research indicates that those jumpers and sprinters with a higher level of strength will respond more to potentiation.

In the video I focus on potentiating sprinting and jumping directly.
The jump enhancing research I eluded to above - which involved national level decathletes - showed that when long jumping vertical velocity was improved after plyometric activity. Improvements of over 20cm were attributed to the potentiating activity.
The research included a control group who jumped without performing the potentiating plyometrics and they did not improve their vertical take-off velocity and resultant distance in the same way.

THIS GOT ME THINKING “I’LL DO MY OWN EXPERIMENTING”
I decided to start my own research. I want to see how I can potentiate jump training. This would obviously seem to be the most important potentiating transference for me as a jumps coach and I’d assume for many of you reading this. (Note: I do include lots of other potentiating activity in my day to day training - more on this in another post/video). However, I have never - until this point - actually directly tried to potentiate actual jumping.
So, we started with u20 Ruby (best of 6.09m).
I decided to start with Ruby as despite her 6m jump she’s not able to generate as much vertical velocity as I might have thought she could. I have identified this from eccentric overload take-off work in the past. We have been working on developing this quality over the last training phase.

Protocol: Loaded jump squats (concentric emphasis) 3x3 @ 16kg circa 20% of her bodyweight
Eccentric emphasis take-offs from 10 steps with a 3cm mat placed on the pen step (You’ll have probably seen these take-off developing jumps in my videos - I am a very firm believe in them),

Rationale: I wanted to see whether the jump squats would lead to the potentiation of the eccentric long jump take-offs and specifically an increase in height from the take-off
I chose concentric jump squats as a large amount of neural energy is needed to lift up from the weight and due to the jumps being paused between each rep, the landing has an eccentric (blocking) emphasis.

Session protocol:
Ruby did one jump before implementing the potentially potentiating jump squats. She then did a take-off (mat on penultimate step. 10 step approach as noted) 90sec later.
There was slightly more vertical lift at take-off compared to the first jump (this could of course have been a response to the first jump … it’s always going to take some time to get into a session).
Then 90sec later 3 more jump squats were taken and then 90sec later a further jump (take-off) was made. This time I could see more power on the run-up and also at take-off via more height. Obviously I’m going on my coach’s eye here and no high-tech kit was used. However, Ruby corroborated what I saw with how she “felt” when jumping.
Ruby then did a further jump without the jump squats and this one was not do good - note there are so many reasons why a jump may not be as good as the previous or subsequent one … less proficient take-off, less proficient approach and so on.
We did a further 3 jumps squats and another couple of jumps - keeping so similar rest intervals. Interestingly Ruby’s performance of the jump squats was better (consider that potentiation works in both directions) and that on one of the jumps the take-off was really good.

Conclusions
It would seem that the potentiating loaded jump squats may have assisted with gaining height and therefore increased vertical velocity at take-off. This was evident on 2-3 take-offs from the 6 in particular.
I will continue to experiment with Ruby and some of the senior jumpers. I will stick with loaded jump squats initially but in time may also try rebound/drop jumps. It’ll be interesting to see what happens and whether certain jumpers respond more than others.
Potentiation should occur and even if it didn’t the training design will specifically help with developing jump power. With my knowledge of jump training and potentiation it would appear very unlikely that no potentiating benefits would not occur.

Look our for more updates and finding and head over to the YouTube channel for more too.