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PLYOMETRIC BOX JUMPING
Plyometric Box Jumping bridges the gap between weight room training and on the field competition. It trains the body to explode with force, speed and power!
By Dr. Greg Shepard
Published: Winter 2000
The BFS Plyometric Program should be done two times per week during the off-season. A third workout could be done on an individual basis. During the season, plyometric workouts are done as time is available between games and practice. Our complete BFS Plyometric Program consists of three different phases.
First is the warm-up phase, with beginning and advanced drills. Two beginning drills include the BFS Dot Drill and a Jump Rope routine. Advanced drills involve bounding exercises. The second phase is a north-south Plyometric Box Jumping routine. Most of the emphasis is learning to jump forward and to jump for height. The third phase is an east-west (side-to-side) Plyometric Box Jumping routine. Plyometric exercises were developed for Track and Field with north-south drills. However, most other sports also require side-to-side skills like football, lacrosse, soccer, basketball, volleyball, tennis, wrestling, baseball and softball. Therefore, a solid plyometric program should have drills that go both north-south and east-west.
BFS is excited to announce the availability of a brand new Plyometric Box Jumping Video. This has to be one of our finest videos. First, every drill is impeccably demonstrated by P.J. Brown, son of Jim Brown, one of our BFS Clinicians. P.J. is presently a true-freshman pole vaulter at the University of Arkansas. Every drill of all three phases is shown in detail. The east-west drills are the creation of Coach Brown. You will really love them. I also believe that any college or high school athlete will be dazzled by P.J's. remarkable ability. P.J. is only about 5-8 and 145 pounds, so any high school athlete should be totally inspired. The video was filmed during a presentation at the annual Clinic of Champions in Reno last spring. When P.J. did his one-legged jumps over a 32-inch box, every coach gasped with amazement.
Another unique and exciting feature of our new Plyometric Box Jumping video is that a group of totally inexperienced athletes were taken through the north-south Plyometric Box Jumping drills. Some of these athletes were 8th graders, consisting of a full gamut of athletic ability. I only had about 30 minutes to work with these kids with all these coaches watching. It would be similar to the first day of class or practice. I had never seen these athletes before. Most of them could not do drill #1 correctly without some major corrections. Most of them looked quite awkward even doing a vertical jump. Like most kids in the nation, they had never been taught how to jump. I guarantee you that every kid at any school will be able to identify with every kid on this video.
So. What happened? After just 30 minutes every one of these kids looked pretty doggone good. Their arms were in sync and coordinated. Get the video and fast forward to the end where these 8th grade boys and girls are doing their final drills. Many of your kids will say, "Coach, I won't be able to do what they are doing." They will think that those kids had been practicing for months to look that good. The coaches who witnessed this transformation in such a short period of time got tremendously excited. Why? Because they could picture their kids making the same type of transformation. Get this video! It will take your program to a higher level. If it doesn't, you always have our unconditional BFS money-back guarantee.
The photos in this article were taken directly from the new video. They are of P.J. exclusively and only show the north-south BFS Box Jumping routine. There are five drills in the basic routine. The first drill is called The Step Off & Land drill as shown in Photos #1 & 2. Notice the arm movement and head position. The second is The Step Off, Land & Jump Straight Up drill. This drill is the same as Photos #1 & 2, with the addition of Photo #3. You explode upward as fast and as quickly as possible. Anything more than a millisecond on the floor is too long.
Photos #4, 5 & 6 illustrate the Jump To Box drill. Step off, land and jump as in the second drill. But this time, instead of jumping straight up, you jump on top of the next box. Then repeat. Your set-up should include from three to five 20-inch Plyo Boxes. Each time, you would step off, land and jump to the next box.
The fourth drill is called Rapid Fire. Photos #4,5 & 6 depict this as well. The difference being that you do not stop at each box. You jump continuously and rapidly from one box to the next: floor, box, floor, box, floor, box, then land and jump straight up as high as you can. As you jump, bring your knees up as high as possible to your chest as shown in Photos #7, 8 & 9. You should go through this series three times.
If an athlete cannot bring his knees easily to his/her chest, they are finished with this segment of Box Jumping. Those that can, go to The Rapid Fire To Big Box drill. To do this, bring in the 32-inch box. Go through the Rapid Fire sequence and at the end, jump up on top of the big box as in Photo #10. From this point, if your ability permits, you can keep increasing the height of the box. Photo #11 shows the addition of our booster box which can take it up to a 40-inch height. Photo #12 shows P.J. making this height.
Even taller boxes can be used as in Photo #13. The next photo (#14) is of P.J. again. He can easily jump to a 50-inch height. Photos #15, 16 and 17 show P.J. jumping over the 32-inch box with one leg. Obviously, this is extremely advanced and is not something even a gifted athlete should try right away.
We believe all athletes, regardless of athletic ability, should do our Box Jumping routine. We even show you how to spot, not only for safety, but for a unique way to help all athletes be successful. Jeff Scurran, one of our BFS Clinicians, coached literally thousands of athletes through the years at Sabino High School in Tucson. On the video, Coach Scurran shows this unique spotting technique and says, “I never had an athlete who stuck with our program not be able to jump to the 32-inch box. This includes every lineman and every athlete involved in girls’ sports.” Get this video. The benefits will be enormous.
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