This is one of my favorite recent publications. In March’s issue of JSCR, a study was published examining the unique benefits provided by vertically oriented plyometric exercises and directly compared them to horizontally oriented plyometrics in elite handball players. Here is the low down on the study [1].
Study: 18 elite level handball players were randomly split into 2 groups: vertical plyometrics (n=9) and horizontal plyometrics (n=9). The study was 12 weeks long and consisted of two weeks of testing (pre/post) and 10 weeks of training. Tested was the countermovement jump (vertical jump) and the 25m shuttle, which included all sorts of cool kinetic and kinematic variables. The subjects averaged approximately 23 years of age and were considered elite level handball players and were pretty well trained (6 years of sprint/jump training).
Training: Training took place in a periodized fashion with the sets and number of jumps less in week 1 and more in week 10. The subjects essentially went from 5 sets of 6-10 jumps to 8 sets of 6-10 jumps. They used 10 seconds of intra-rep rest (clustered: see my cluster set article: Cluster) and 2 minutes between sets. Single leg drop jumps were the plyometric of choice with the vertical group aiming to jump as high as possible and the horizontal group aiming to jump as far as possible.
Results: Unsurprisingly, the vertical oriented group performed better on countermovement jumping. The horizontal group performed better in sprinting. This follows the rules of specificity, the more similar the training to the sport movement the more the carryover. An interesting thing to note, the sprinting improvement was due to increased stride length, with stride frequency and ground contact time remaining the same. Improved sprinting has to come from either an increase in how fast you move your legs or how far you step, or a combination thereof.
My thoughts: This study essentially confirms what coaches have been thinking for years. If you are participating in sports such as track, more of your training should emphasize horizontal plyometrics with a lesser portion of vertically oriented plyometrics. If you are playing volleyball or basketball, you’d be better off spending a greater portion of time utilizing vertically oriented plyometrics and less horizontal work.
- Dello Iacono, A., Martone, D., Milic, M., & Padulo, J. (2017). Vertical- vs. Horizontal-Oriented Drop Jump Training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 31(4), 921-931. doi:10.1519/jsc.0000000000001555
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