During The Golf Channel's coverage of a PGA tournament from the Doral Country Club (Miami, Florida/March 13, 2009), announcer Nick Faldo mentioned he saw Phil Mickelson in the gym that morning doing "all sorts of bunny hops." What Faldo undoubtedly referred to is the trend among athletes in "explosive" sports (those that involve power production) to use "plyometrics." Poor Phil.
Plyometrics involves jumping - sideways, forwards, backwards, horizontally and vertically - up and down. And it involves forces, high forces. Twenty-five years ago I watched Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones demonstrate the forces involved in running and jumping activities. During a four-inch vertical leap, a 200-pound man registered, upon landing, a cool 1,000 pounds - five times his body weight. And the effort was passive - with both legs. Running activities expose each leg, hip, low back and system to 3-5 times the participant's body weight - at every step. Multiply that by millions of steps and you'll soon realize the cost of liftoff - what goes up must come down, and the landing is never pretty. Add the practice of leaping from one level to another, as in plyometrics and . . . you get the idea. Pretty dumb.
That's the "good" news.
The "bad" news: You don't need to jump to create high forces. They can be realized by performing "explosive" movements against resistance. A fast speed of movement alone does not create injury; but a sudden change of speed does - and that includes a rapid acceleration or deceleration. Sudden movement versus a stationary object (such as a weight stack) can produce forces 2-5 times that of the weight of the object. Not smart when you don't know the breaking strength of the joint or muscle system. The result, and only result of explosive activity in an exercise program was summed up by Jones decades ago. "Anybody dumb enough to do plyometrics will get exactly what they deserve - hurt."
High forces produce injury, plain and simple. If the forces during running are 3-5 times one's body weight, they may be 50 times that during jump squats. Trendy but dumb. And who's at the forefront of the outrage. Experts. Trainers. The dumb leading the blind.
Forty years ago I entertained the thought of playing on the PGA Tour. If I wait long enough for the young guns to injure themselves because of the stupidity of trendy trainers, I'll join Mark Calcaveccia, Tim Herron, John Daly and others who had the common sense to lay low, to not participate in the fitness craze.
I'm neither dumb nor blind, and I'll do nothing, thanks, if doing something involves plyometrics.
Plyometrics involves jumping - sideways, forwards, backwards, horizontally and vertically - up and down. And it involves forces, high forces. Twenty-five years ago I watched Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones demonstrate the forces involved in running and jumping activities. During a four-inch vertical leap, a 200-pound man registered, upon landing, a cool 1,000 pounds - five times his body weight. And the effort was passive - with both legs. Running activities expose each leg, hip, low back and system to 3-5 times the participant's body weight - at every step. Multiply that by millions of steps and you'll soon realize the cost of liftoff - what goes up must come down, and the landing is never pretty. Add the practice of leaping from one level to another, as in plyometrics and . . . you get the idea. Pretty dumb.
That's the "good" news.
The "bad" news: You don't need to jump to create high forces. They can be realized by performing "explosive" movements against resistance. A fast speed of movement alone does not create injury; but a sudden change of speed does - and that includes a rapid acceleration or deceleration. Sudden movement versus a stationary object (such as a weight stack) can produce forces 2-5 times that of the weight of the object. Not smart when you don't know the breaking strength of the joint or muscle system. The result, and only result of explosive activity in an exercise program was summed up by Jones decades ago. "Anybody dumb enough to do plyometrics will get exactly what they deserve - hurt."
High forces produce injury, plain and simple. If the forces during running are 3-5 times one's body weight, they may be 50 times that during jump squats. Trendy but dumb. And who's at the forefront of the outrage. Experts. Trainers. The dumb leading the blind.
Forty years ago I entertained the thought of playing on the PGA Tour. If I wait long enough for the young guns to injure themselves because of the stupidity of trendy trainers, I'll join Mark Calcaveccia, Tim Herron, John Daly and others who had the common sense to lay low, to not participate in the fitness craze.
I'm neither dumb nor blind, and I'll do nothing, thanks, if doing something involves plyometrics.
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