Develop joint mobility
In order to increase your strength and “mobility” at the same time…which is crucial when you first begin you should use YOUR entire range of motion (ROM) of the major joints, especially the knees, ankles, and hips. Now when I mentioned “your” ROM I mean don’t try and force something that isn’t there just yet or get excited when you can bounce out of the bottom of your squat. We want control, strength, and then mobility.
Develop ligament and tendon strength
By progressively loading the ligaments they become more accustomed and able to deal with dynamic movements, plyometrics, and maximal strength training. Tendons with greater strength have more capacity to store elastic energy which is crucial for any type of plyometric/ballistic movement.
Develop Trunk / Pillar strength
Your arms and legs are only as strong as your trunk. These muscles are highly active during jumping, landing, sprints, and plyometric exercises. Building your trunk or your pillar muscles will enable you to perform better. It’s why we do Deadbugs, side-planks, sprints in the Performance program so often.
Develop your stabilisers
What is a stabiliser? Your trunk acts as one when you throw a ball, rowing or on the ski, your shoulder acts as one when you do bicep curls or during a bench press. For this reason, you don’t want to overload one movement or one ROM whilst overlooking how much stress is being put on the stabilising muscles. Think fatigued Burpees into push-ups or overhead work while fatigued…once you are strong enough you will lessen the chance of injury but you also need to use a weight that supports your body…not injuries it.
Train movements
This means, train to move your body, what we are looking at here is making sure we hit multi-joint movements more so than too many isolation exercises. So movements like the Squat, Deadlift, Bench Press, Strict Press, Push Press, Jumps, Sprints, and throws.
Focus on what is necessary, not what is new
Lots of new gimmicks often invade this space, remember what your goal is and what works. Improve your strength, speed, and power.
Program strength for the long term
The idea is not to think short term but what will enhance and plan for the long term, what is going to give you the most so as to see your full potential. Things like moving away from high loads as soon as possible or complex exercises/movements that have not yet been mastered. Be smart.
