Strength-Power Potentiating Complexes

A small town gym that has two guys that can jump 40in. verticals is pretty incredible, but how about a gym that increased all there clients vert’s by at least 2in. in a time span of four months is just crazy. I have found a great way to increase your athletes vert and explosive power through Strength-Power Potentiating Complexes. These complexes were involved in the begging of our off season plan when we were focusing on strength and explosive power. We lifted four times a week with two upper body days and two lower body days. On our max effort lower body days we would work up to a heavy one or three reps in 90% of the athlete’s one rep max for that particular exercise. All the guys that were on this protocol were experienced lifters who could squat 2x or more their own bodyweight. This is a must, if your athlete can not perform this feat then have them focus on increasing that and do there plyometric training on another day.

The protocol that we used worked in three week waves were we focused on our main lift and after completing the 1-3 rep lifts the athlete’s waited 2-5 minutes before going into the plyometric protocol. This will vary with every athlete do to there strength level and how fast they recover from the lift. Each athlete would then perform 5-10 sets of 1-3 reps of plyometrics. We would do a vertical jump the first week, a horizontal jump the second week and then back to a vertical jump on the third week. On the fourth week we deload and focused on deceleration drills off a 12in. box. The next three week cycle we added more volume to their plyometrics, remember to monitor your athletes CNS and recovery because not all athletes are created equal. The first week of this cycle we added in a depth jump into a vertical jump. We did this because the depth jumps are more taxing on the CNS then any other jump so we wanted to do this in the first following a deload. On the second week of the program we went back to a horizontal plyometric and on the third week we incorporated a vertical jump. We then deloaded the same way as discussed earlier.

After this 8 week protocol we moved our athletes to a three day a week training split to accommodate for the extra running we were starting to incorporate. We lifted three days a week doing two upper and one lower body days and began a running phase where we were out running three days a week. On our lower body days we took out our plyometrics and added them into our running days. We would do a dynamic warm up and then start off with weighted acceleration drills and after 5 sets of ten yard sprints we went into our plyometric protocol of Vertical Plyometrics on one day and horizontal on another. The third running day was sport specific so we did not incorporate plyometrics. We did this for three weeks and deloaded on the fourth. After this 12 week cycle of intensive plyometrics we tested our player’s verticals. We had two guys jump 40 in. and five other guys increase their verticals by at least 2 in. some even increased 4 in. Try this protocol out with your athlete’s and see how the explosive power and speed increase. Here is the link of the two 40 in. verticals, remember these are just high school kids.