Love Your Legs
Training your legs is vitally important. The first thing to go as you get older is your legs. They're your foundation for movement.
This is why I always get my clients to do some plyometrics, even if it's just light stuff. Plyometrics are jumping, bounding, or skipping exercises. Besides keeping your legs fit and quick, they build wind like crazy.
There are endless ways to perform plyometrics. They're only limited by your imagination. One of my favorites is what I call, Lateral Hops. They're pretty basic and easy, and zap your energy quick. Which is good.
All you need is something to jump over. Depending on you current fitness level and ability this could be just a line on the floor, or something as high as a bench or chair. I usually use a boxing heavy bag laying on the ground.
Stand to one side so your feet are parallel to the object, with your feet together hop sideways over it. As soon as the balls of your feet touch the ground on the other side, hop back the way you came. And keep going. You don't want your feet to touch the ground for more than a fraction of a second. You should get 2-3 hops a second when you're good.
If you can do this for 1 minute straight, that's a good start.
I usually train intervals with this. Which means 20 seconds on, then a 20 second jog in place, then 20 seconds on etc....And I keep going like this for about 10-15 rounds. Sometimes I'll do 30 seconds. Or sometimes I'll just do it for as long as I possibly can. Then recover until I can breath and talk normally, then do it again.
There are several ways to attack this exercise depending on what you want to get out of it. And that's just one plyometric exercise. Like I said before, there are countless ways to perform them.
Don't think plyos are just for the legs. You can adapt them for every part of your body. But for now start training your legs and lungs with them and you'll soon see how you can train other body parts as well.
Build a powerful foundation for your body. Give some plyometrics a shot.
Train smart,
RL
This is why I always get my clients to do some plyometrics, even if it's just light stuff. Plyometrics are jumping, bounding, or skipping exercises. Besides keeping your legs fit and quick, they build wind like crazy.
There are endless ways to perform plyometrics. They're only limited by your imagination. One of my favorites is what I call, Lateral Hops. They're pretty basic and easy, and zap your energy quick. Which is good.
All you need is something to jump over. Depending on you current fitness level and ability this could be just a line on the floor, or something as high as a bench or chair. I usually use a boxing heavy bag laying on the ground.
Stand to one side so your feet are parallel to the object, with your feet together hop sideways over it. As soon as the balls of your feet touch the ground on the other side, hop back the way you came. And keep going. You don't want your feet to touch the ground for more than a fraction of a second. You should get 2-3 hops a second when you're good.
If you can do this for 1 minute straight, that's a good start.
I usually train intervals with this. Which means 20 seconds on, then a 20 second jog in place, then 20 seconds on etc....And I keep going like this for about 10-15 rounds. Sometimes I'll do 30 seconds. Or sometimes I'll just do it for as long as I possibly can. Then recover until I can breath and talk normally, then do it again.
There are several ways to attack this exercise depending on what you want to get out of it. And that's just one plyometric exercise. Like I said before, there are countless ways to perform them.
Don't think plyos are just for the legs. You can adapt them for every part of your body. But for now start training your legs and lungs with them and you'll soon see how you can train other body parts as well.
Build a powerful foundation for your body. Give some plyometrics a shot.
Train smart,
RL
posted by Ryan at 7:53 AM
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