Tag Archive for: Reactive Strength

December 2019 in review: reactive strength

This year we’ve produced 12 great monthly themes. To close out the year our final theme in December was reactive strength. Earlier in the year we looked at a similar topic: plyometrics. In December we wanted to take a broader look at the concept of reactive strength. Plyometrics is one way to train reactive strength, but not the only way. And we also wanted to dig deeper into what exactly it is, rather than just talking about exercises. The end result was 3 new podcasts and 4 new articles on the topic from 7 contributors. Read more

More thoughts on reactive strength

We’ve been focusing on reactive strength this month. To close out the topic I wanted to share a few thoughts that have been floating around in my mind in discussions with many coaches about the topic. Read more

HMMR Podcast Episode 213: Year-end mailbag

We like to start the year with a clean inbox, so we dig through the last listener questions of the year on this week’s episode and add in a few rants as well. We cover a variety of topics such as reactive strength, medicine ball exercise progressions, anti-rotation training, eccentric training, aquabags, the 1×20 method, learning from failure and more. Read more

GAINcast Episode 177: Training tendons (with Keith Baar)

Tendons and other connective tissue are often thought of as non-trainable, but more and more research is showing that they are more responsive to load than we thought. Professor Keith Baar is a leading researcher on the topic and joins this week’s GAINcast to talk about how connective tissue works together with muscles and bones to produce movement. We also dive into how connective tissue can be trained, as well as several other topics he has been researching. Read more

Making your throws training more reactive

We talked with German national coach René Sack about reactive training earlier this month on the HMMR podcast. Throwing far involves strength, but it also involves the stretch-shortening cycle. Therefore it is important that training also takes this into consideration. Our chat got me thinking about the topic and below are a few more ideas of how you can start integrating reactive throwing elements into training. Read more

Mitigating risk in reactive strength training

Reactive strength training places quite a specific tissue load on the body. The rapid stretch-shortening effect of the acting chain of muscles, tendons and connective tissues is seen by more conservative physiotherapists as risky and they think it should be avoided for the most part. This presents a disconnect between how a sport is performance and how injured athletes begin to their return to play preparations. Read more

The complete guide to the Reactive Strength Index

In my earlier posts, I have discussed reactive strength (RS) and the use of plyometric training for developing speed and jumping performance. The purpose of this article is to discuss the application of a test of reactive strength using the drop jump exercise. Read more

HMMR Podcast Episode 211: Reactive throws (with René Sack)

It is easy to think about the throwing events as strength events. But in the end, the implement is often not that heavy. The bigger challenge is coordinating the whole body to add speed to the element through elasticity, as well as strength. German national discus coach René Sack joins this week’s podcast to discuss how he thinks about this element of the throw and exchange ideas about how to address it in training. Read more

Adding variation to plyometric training

If you see how plyometric training is put into practice, you often see a small group of exercises being used over and over in the same manner. Hurdle jumps, countermovement jumps, and drop jumps are all staples of plyometric training. They all train similar properties, in similar ways, using the same plane of movement. Read more

GAINcast Episode 155: Jump around

Somewhere in the past few decades jumping and hopping became complicated. Simple movements were renamed as plyometrics and hidden behind a veil of science. The effect has been that many coaches are scared away from plyometric training and are losing out on one of the most basic forms of human movement in training. On this episode of the GAINcast, we share our approach to plyometric training and best practices and exercises coaches can implement. Read more