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Jumping Into Plyometrics - Donald A. Chu
Jumping Into Plyometrics
by Donald A. Chu
NEW, 184 pages
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About Jumping Into Plyometrics
First practiced by the dominant Eastern Bloc athletes of the 1970s, today plyometrics has become a mainstream form of training used by serious athletes around the world. The reason is that plyometrics offers athletes at all levels a proven, straightforward way to enhance their athletic abilities and to get an edge on the competition.
This second edition of Jumping Into Plyometrics presents 100 illustrated plyometric exercises in seven categories:
• Jumps-in-place
• Standing jumps
• Multiple jumps
• Box drills
• Depth jumps
• Bounding
• Medicine ball exercises
Excellent for both recreational and elite athletes, the exercises can be used to improve quickness, speed, and jumping ability while also helping to develop better coordination, body control, and balance.
This edition includes the latest research on plyometric training, a new layout with a much-improved format for drills, and sidebars on star athletes who have benefited from plyometrics. Plus, author Donald Chu--who has worked as a consultant for the United States Tennis Association and for teams in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the National Basketball Association--gives you instructions and examples of how to choose from the wide selection of exercises to build the ideal plyometric training program for your chosen sport.
Jumping Into Plyometrics is the most complete book ever written on this form of explosive power training.
About Donald Chu
Dr. Donald Chu is a leading authority on power training and conditioning. He has been a conditioning consultant for the Chicago Bulls, Golden State Warriors, Milwaukee Bucks, Detroit Lions, and Chicago White Sox as well as for the United States Tennis Association and the 1996 U.S. Olympic synchronized swimming team, which took home the gold medal. He is the owner and director of NovaCare Clinic in Castro Valley, California, where he acts as a consultant to individual athletes.
Dr. Chu is president of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). He is a licensed physical therapist, a certified athletic trainer through the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA), and a certified strength and conditioning specialist through the NSCA. He has received many honors, including the 1998 Dr. Ernst Jokl Sports Medicine Award, presented by the board of trustees of the United States Sports Academy; the 1995 NATA Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award; and the 1993 NSCA President's Award for Service. In 1978, his only year as a head coach, Dr. Chu was named the Far Western Conference Track and Field Coach of the Year.
Dr. Chu, who earned a PhD in physical therapy and kinesiology from Stanford University, is the program director for the physical therapist assistant program at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. He is also a professor emeritus of kinesiology and physical education at California State University, Hayward. He lives in Alameda, California.
Reviews of this Book
"Dr. Chu has put together all the information on plyometrics necessary to benefit any athlete. He has successfully provided a way for athletes to come closer to reaching their potential."
Todd Martin
Professional Tennis Player
"Don Chu is the number one authority on the training methods for plyometric exercise. Jumping Into Plyometrics is an excellent book for coaches, athletes, and students who want to increase their knowledge of how to safely and effectively become faster and more explosive. There is not a book on the market that is more comprehensive or up-to-date with the current research than Jumping Into Plyometrics. I highly recommend it!"
Steve Millard
Strength and Conditioning Specialist
San Jose Sharks
"If coaches want to learn to utilize plyometric training properly, then there's no one better to learn from than Don Chu. This book is a must for your library."
Al Vermeil
Strength and Conditioning Coach
Chicago Bulls
"Don Chu has put together another outstanding book on plyometrics. Whether you are a new coach or a 30-year veteran, this book will help athletes at any level to become better. It provides outstanding illustrations and explanation of activities. I used his methods before and will continue to do so."
Darryl Rogers
Athletic Director, Southern Connecticut State University
Former Football Coach, Fresno State, San Jose State, Michigan State, and Arizona State
About Strength Training
Strength training is the use of resistance to muscular contraction to build the strength, anaerobic endurance, and size of skeletal muscles. There are many different methods of strength training, the most common being the use of gravity or elastic/hydraulic forces to oppose muscle contraction. See the resistance training article for information about elastic/hydraulic training, but note that the terms "strength training" and "resistance training" are often used interchangeably.
When properly performed, strength training can provide significant functional benefits and improvement in overall health and well-being, including increased bone, muscle, tendon and ligament strength and toughness, improved joint function, reduced potential for injury, increased bone density, a temporary increase in metabolism, improved cardiac function, and elevated HDL (good) cholesterol. Training commonly uses the technique of progressively increasing the force output of the muscle through incremental increases of weight, elastic tension or other resistance, and uses a variety of exercises and types of equipment to target specific muscle groups. Strength training is primarily an anaerobic activity, although some proponents have adapted it to provide the benefits of aerobic exercise through circuit training.
Strength training differs from bodybuilding, weightlifting, powerlifting, and strongman, which are sports rather than forms of exercise, although training for them is inherently interconnected with strength training, as it is for shotput, discus, and Highland games. Many other sports use strength training as part of their training regimen, notably football, rugby, lacrosse, basketball, hockey, and track and field
The basic principles of strength training involve a manipulation of the number of repetitions (reps), sets, tempo, exercises and force to cause desired changes in strength, endurance, size or shape by overloading of a group of muscles. The specific combinations of reps, sets, exercises, resistance and force depend on the purpose of the individual performing the exercise: sets with fewer reps can be performed using more force, but have a reduced impact on endurance.
Strength training also requires the use of 'good form', performing the movements with the appropriate muscle group(s), and not transferring the weight to different body parts in order to move greater weight/resistance (called 'cheating'). Typically failure to use good form during a training set can result in injury or an inability to meet training goals - since the desired muscle group is not challenged sufficiently, the threshold of overload is never reached and the muscle does not gain in strength. There are cases when cheating is beneficial, as is the case where weaker groups become the weak link in the chain and the target muscles are never fully exercised as a result.
The benefits of strength training include increased muscle, tendon and ligament strength, bone density, flexibility, tone, metabolic rate and postural support.
Jumping Into Plyometrics
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