Plyometric and Hill Sprint Session for Hiking Group's 2nd Last Session!

ANZAC day was Hiking Group’s second last session, after almost 4mths of training! They have been doing weights, stairs, hills, and endurance sessions every week until this point, and it was time to test the equipment!

Plyometric sessions are essentially jumping and landing lessons. The impact absorbed by the muscles, bones, and joints can be up to 11 x your body weight, so landing correctly is essential. The beauty of it is, once you learn how to do it, you can practise it with lesser-impact exercise (like walking), and improve your efficiency at that exercise. It was for this reason we performed this session, in much the same manner as I would have structured it for an athlete.

We started with a 1km warm up to the park. This particular park has some large stone blocks, ranging from 10cm high to 50cm high.

Exercise 1) 3 x 10 jumps down: practising landing with soft noise, on the forefoot, and bend knees. Have as much rest as you need between sets.

Absorbing the impact with their large muscles, by landing on their forefoot and bending their knees

Landing practise. These guys are awesome 🙂

Exercise 2) 3 x 10 each leg – hop up and back continuously.

Hopping, Barbara and Jade dressed matching today!

Exercise 3) 2 x 20 each side. Bouncing step up – bouncing from the calf on the lower leg.

Barbara doing the bouncing step up.

Exercise 4) 3 x 10 Jumping up. Landing like a mouse, and doing double jumps if you’re fit, strong, and coordinated enough to do it perfectly.

In action!

Learning how to jump. These guys progressed from jumping on the flat, to a 20cm step, to a double 45cm step in one session!

Exercise 5) 20min Hill Sprints (walking). We did as many laps as we could in 20min, powering up as fast as we could, then taking our time on the way down.