Plyometics

To accent our on-the-water workouts we have been doing plyometric circuits to work on muscle fibers not used as much on the water. Plyometrics is defined as "a form of exercise that involves rapid and repeated stretching and contracting of the muscles, designed to increase strength." Every other day or so, between morning practice and lunch we complete the six exercises two or three times through. These exercises include high jumps, skips, frog jumps, rope jumps, box jumps, and hill hops. It comes out to about 20 minutes straight of jumping. At first if was a shock to the muscles. Each time we've done it the circuit has become more manageable as our muscles have developed to execute these quick movements. At the very least, it's has been a quick way to jack up our heart rates.

As with any drylands workout, we hope to translate our work with plyometrics to the water. An interesting observation we made was that when you try to do hill hops (feet together jumping up a hill) most of the work feels as if it is done in the hips more so in the legs. Initiating the drive from the hips, lower back, and thighs has been a focus of our rowing in the past week. It was interesting feeling this while doing the plyometrics.